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

7°4

Goat instead of Bull

that, according to Hesychios1, the Bacchants wore goat-skins, and
I suggested that the ritual thus found in the cult of Dionysos
was very possibly a relic of a more wide-spread practice. Today
I can add another (fig. 514)2 to the series of seal-stones por-
traying human goats and venture on a closer determination of
their meaning. I suppose them to show ' Minoan' dances, the
object of which was to promote fertility—originally the fertility
of the local fauna—by means of imitative magic and so to safe-
guard the food-supply of the population.

Fig. 513. Fig. 5 [4. Fig. 515. Fig. 516.

Given the existence of such old-world dances within the Greek
area, it is reasonable to surmise that they might attach themselves
to the cult of any fertility-power—Hermes, Demeter, Dionysos,
or the like3. Further, if in a certain district the said power was

Gemmen i pi. 2, 40, ii. i2f.) = a man wearing the protome' of a wild goat with three pellets
in the field, one of which is rayed like a star.

Fig- 515 is a lenticular seal of cornelian, found at Athens in 1884 and now in the
collection of Sir Arthur Evans (Journ. Hell. Sttid. 1894 xiv. 116 fig. n) = two human
figures, one wearing the forepart of a goat, the other that of a lion.

Fig. 516 is a lenticular seal of green porphyry from Crete now in the British Museum
{Brit. Mtis. Cat. Gems p. 44 no. 76 pi. A, A. Milchhofer Die Anfdnge der Kunst
Leipzig 1883 p. 78 fig. 50, Collignon Hist, de la Sculpt, gr. i. 57 fig. 36, Perrot—Chipiez
Hist, de VArt vi. 850, 859 fig. 432, 15, Imhoof-Blumer and O. Keller Tier- und Pflanzen-
bilder auf Miinzen und Gemmen Leipzig 1889 p. 161 pi. 26, 57, Journ. Hell. Stud.
1894 xiv. i2of. fig. 15, Furtwangler Ant. Gemmen i pi. 2, 41, ii. i3) = the legs of a man
combined with the forepart of a goat and the forepart of a bull; two pellets in the field.

1 Hesych. s.v. Tpayr](p6poL • at Kopai Aiopixrci) opyiafovacu Tpayrjv TrepirjirTOVTO.

2 Fig. 514 is a lenticular seal of green porphyry in the Story Maskelyne collection
(Furtwangler Ant. Gemmen i pi. 6, 6, ii. 26, Milani Stud, e mat. di arch, e num. 1902
ii. 69 fig. 193) = a human goat with a hound running beside him and three linear signs in
the field, viz. y on the left, X on the right, and A beneath.

8 Winter Ant. Terrakotten iii. 1. 220 figs. 1 ( = my fig. 517), 2, 3, 4, 7 (=my fig. 519),
9 ( = my fig. 518) has classified under six types a number of archaic terra-cotta statuettes,
mostly found in central Greece (the Theban Kabeirion, Tanagra, Ilalai, etc.), which
represent an ithyphallic goat-man with hircine or human legs and a cornu copiae in his
hand. P. Baur, who in the Am. Journ. Arch. 1905 ix. 157—165 pi. 5 ( = my fig. 520)
adds yet another type to the series, proposes the name of Tityros for them all. But
O. Kern in Hermes 1913 xlviii. 318 f. distinguishes TirvpoL as ' Schafbocksdamonen' from
^drvpoL as ' Ziegenbocksdamonen,' citing Serv. in Verg. eel. 1 prooem. [supra p. 401 n. 7),
schol. Bernens. eel. 1. 1 p. 749 Hagen tityrus lingua Laconica villosus aries appellatur, Prob.
in Verg. eel. p. 349 Lion hircus Libyca (leg. Laconica) lingua tityrus appellatui, and a
small bronze group of ram-headed male dancers from Methydrion now in the National