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

722

Talos in Sardinia

Demon the antiquarian c. 300 B.C. stated in a work On Proverbs
that the Sardinians, being settlers from Carthage, on certain days
sacrificed to Kronos not only the handsomest of their captives
but also such of their own elders as were above seventy years
of age, and that the victims were expected to welcome their fate
and even to laugh, tears being regarded as base and cowardly1.
Timaios the Sicilian historian, a contemporary of Demon, informs
us that the Sardinians, when their parents grow old, bring them
to the burial-ground, seat them on the edge of pits dug for the
purpose, and push them oyer, every man beating his own father
with a stick of cleft wood ; further, that the old folk went to
their death with cheerfulness and laughter—a fact which occa-
sioned the Greek dictum'1. Lastly, Kleitarchos, who is probably
to be identified with Kleitarchos of Aigina, author of a famous
geographical Lexicon (first century A.D. or earlier)3, has yet
another explanation of the proverb to offer. He states that
the Phoenicians in general and the Carthaginians in particular
worshipped Kronos. If they desired to obtain of him some great
favour, they vowed to present him with one of their children.
A bronze statue of the god stood with its hands held out over a
bronze furnace. In the embrace of this statue the child perished
miserably. The flame licked its body, shrivelled its limbs, and
distorted its mouth into a ghastly semblance of a smile4.

The foregoing accounts show that the Cretan sun-god Talos
was by some authorities at least identified with the Phoenician
Kronos5, a form of the Semitic deity El6. The identification
was perhaps facilitated by another point of resemblance. Talos
was sometimes regarded as a bull7; and his likeness to the
Minotaur8 suggests that in process of time he had become bull-
headed, a god half theriomorphic, half anthropomorphic. But the

1 Demon frag. 11 {Frag, hist. Gr. i. 380 Midler) ap. schol. Od. 20. 302 and ap.
Zenob. 5. 85 (see O. Crusius Anal, critic, ad paroemiogr. Gr. p. 148, Trag. Gr. frag.
p. 125 f. Nauck2), Souid. s.v. 'Zapddvlos yeXws, Phot. lex. s.v. ~2ap56vios yeXws.

2 Timaios frag. 28 {Frag. hist. Gr. i. 199 Miiller) ap. Tzetz. ad Lyk. Al. 796 and
schol. Loukian. asin. 24. Also Timaios frag. 29 {Frag. hist. Gr. i. 199 Miiller) ap.
Souid. s.v. Xapd&vLos yeXcos, Phot. lex. s.v. ~2apd6i>Los yeXus, schol. Od. 20. 302, Eustath.
in Od. p. 1893, 15 ff., Zenob. 5. 85, schol. Plat. rep. 337 A, cp. Tzetz. ad Hes. o.d. 59
(Io. Tzetzes here states that the parents were killed with clubs and stones, and then flung
from a rocky height).

3 W. Christ Geschichte dergriechischen Litteratur'i Miinchen 1898 p. 801.

4 Kleitarchos ap. schol. Plat. rep. 337 A, Souid. s.v. Hapdavios yeXws, Phot. lex. s.v.
~2ap86j>ios yeXios. Cp. Plat. Minos 315 B—c, Diod. 13. 86, 20. 14, Plout. de snperstit.
13, lust. 18. 6. 11 f. Diod. 20. 14 says that the hands of the bronze statue sloped
downwards so that the child placed upon them rolled off into a chasm full of fire.

5 M. Mayer in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 1504^

6 E. Meyer ib. i. 1228. 7 Stpra p. 719. 8 Supra p. 720.