Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

The Origin of Tragedy

were so many Titans1 smeared with gypsum, and finally that the
titles of the plays rightly or wrongly ascribed to him by Souidas
are the Prizes of Pelias or the Phorbas, the Priests, the Young
Men, and the Pentheus'2. The last-named tragedy certainly had
reference to the rending of Dionysos ; for Pentheus, a Theban
embodiment of the god3, was torn asunder, if not also devoured4,
by the lenai themselves. Aischylos too wrote a Pentheus* and
dealt with the same theme in his Xantriai*, as did Euripides in his
Bakchai, Iophon in his Bakchai or Pentheus\ Chairemon in his
Dionysos*, Lykophron in his Pentheus*. The extant Euripidean
play was neither the first nor the last dramatic presentation of the
subject. Further, we can well understand how the incidents of the
passion would be told of others beside Pentheus, who in this or
that part of Greece had died the Dionysiac death. Pelias was cut
to pieces by his daughters and boiled in a caldron in order that
he might recover his youth10. Apart from the play attributed to
Thespis, Sophokles composed a Pelias11 and Euripides a Peliades^.
The myth of Pelias and that of Pelops13 have been shrewdly and,
I believe, rightly interpreted by Mr F. M. Cornford as presupposing
a ritual of regeneration or new birth14. It is therefore noteworthy
that the boiling and eating of Pelops were for centuries regarded
as among the most popular of all tragic themes15. Moreover,
Palaimon, once boiled in a caldron by Leukothea and later
worshipped as a god16, was a stock character in the dramatic rites
of the Iobakchoi17. From such personages the transition would be

1 On Titan-dances see Loukian. de salt. 79 rj jxev ye Ba/cxt/cr? opxv&'-s *v 'lama /xaXLcrra
Kai ev TLouTip airovda^opLevr), Kairoi HarvpLKri odaa, ovtcj /cexetporrat tovs avdpihirovs roiis
e/cet ware Kara tov Terayp\evov e/cacrrot Kaipbv airavTUv iirCKadbp.evoL tlov aWiov KadrjvraL
5t' r]^pas TltcLvcis (Sommerbrodt cj. llamas) /cat Koptiftavras Kai ^arvpovs /cat Hovko\ovs
bpQvres. /cat dpxovvraL ye ravra oi evyevecrraroi /cat Trpwredovres iv eKdarr) tQu irokewv
oi>x owws aiHiovfJievot,, dXXd /cat pbeya (ppovovvres ewi rtp irpdyp.aTL (xdWov ijirep en evyeveiais
/cat \eLTOvpyiais Kai d^tafytacrt -rrpoyovLKois.

2 Souid. s.v. Q^airis'...p-vrjfioveveTaL 8e t&v dpa^drwu avrov *A6\a Ue\Lov rj ^>6pj3as,
'Iepets, 'Ht#eot, Ilevdevs (cp. Poll. 7. 45)=Eudok. viol. 471.

3 A. G. Bather 'The Problem of the Bacchae' in the Jotirn. Hell. Stud. 1894 xiv.
244 ff., Farnell Cults of Gk. States v. 167 f.

4 Oppian. cyneg. 4. 304 ff. 5 Trag. Gr. frag. p. 60 f. Nauck2.
6 lb. p. 55 f. 7 72. p. 76r>

8 lb. p. 783 f. 9 Souid. s.v. AvKotfipwv.

10 Supra p. 244 f. 11 Trag. Gr. frag. p. 238 Nauck2. 12 lb. p. 550 ff.

13 Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 145 regards IleAtas as merely a hypocoristic form of

14 F. M. Cornford in J. E. Harrison Themis Cambridge 1912 p. 243 ff.

15 Loukian. de salt. 54. 16 Supra p. 675.

17 S. Wide in the Ath. Mitth. 1894 xix. 148, 254 f. =260 (line 120 ff. ixepwv 8e yeLvop.e-\
vwv aiperoj iepevs, dpdtepevs, \ dpxlfiaKXos, Tafias, (3ovko\ik6s, \ Aibwaos, Kopt], Ha\ai/j.wv,
'A0poj5etr?7, HpioTetipudpios—rd de 6vb\fxaTa avrQv avvKXrjpovadw | iracn), 276^