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

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14695#0817

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Talos at Athens 727

During the erection of the Propylaia on the Akropolis the best
of the workmen missed his footing and fell. When Perikles was
discouraged by this accident, Athena appeared to him in a dream
and prescribed a remedy, by means of which Perikles speedily
cured the man. He commemorated the event by erecting on
the Akropolis a bronze statue of Hygieia Athena, or ' Health'
Athena, by the side of an already existing altar. So much we
learn from Plutarch1. Pliny completes the story, though with
material differences throughout. A favourite slave of Perikles—
he says—was building a temple on the Akropolis, when he fell
from the top of the pediment. Athena showed herself to Perikles
in a dream and prescribed the herb perdicium, the ' partridge-
plant,' which in honour of herself was thenceforward known as
parthenium, the ' Virgin's-plant.' Pliny adds that the portrait of
this same slave was cast in bronze and served for the famous
statue of the splanchnoptes or 6 entrail-roaster2.' Whatever the
details of the occurrence may have been, it seems clear that the
prescription of the ' partridge-plant' was due to a reminiscence
of Talos' transformation into a partridge3.

But why this connection between Talos and a partridge ? On
bird-metamorphoses in general I have elsewhere said my say4.
Here it must suffice to observe that the partridge in particular
was notorious for its generative propensities5. Hence it was
regarded as sacred to Aphrodite6. And the same reason will

1 Flout, v. Per. 13. This statue can hardly be identified with that by the Athenian
sculptor Pyrrhos, the base of which with its inscription {Corp. inscr. Att. i no. 335
= Dittenberger Syll. inscr. GrP- no. 585) is still to be seen on the Akropolis immediately
adjoining the S.E. angle-column of the Propylaia : see Frazer Pausanias ii. 277 ff.,
W. Judeich op. cit. p. 220 ff.

2 Flin. nat. hist. 22. 43 f. The statue of the splanchnoptes was by Styppax of Kypros
(Plin. nat. hist. 34. 81) : on existing copies see M. Mayer in the Jahrb. d. kais. deutsch.
arch. Inst, t893 viii. 21.8 ff. figs. 1—3 and pi. 4, and A. von Salis in the Ath. Mitth.
1906 xxxi. 352 ff. pi. 22.

:J Ov. met. 8. 236 ff. states that as a partridge he watched from a branching oak-tree
Daidalos burying his son Ikaros. In 237 garrula ramosa prospexit ab ilice perdix (so the
mss.) editors have taken offence at the notion of a partridge up a tree. An anonymous
grammarian of the seventh century a.d. or later quotes the line thus : garrula limoso
prospicit elice perdix (H. Keil Gramniatici Latini Lipsiae 1868 v. 587). Hence R. Merkel
prints limoso...elice, A. E. Housman cj. lamoso...elice. But see P. Burmann ad loc.

4 Folk-Lore 1904 xv. 385 ff.

5 Aristot. in the passages cited by H. Bonitz Index Arislotelicus Berolini 1870
p. 578 a, b s.v. irepdii;, Ail. de nat. an. 3. 5, 3. 16, 4. 1, 7. 19, 17. 15, Antigon. hist. mir.
81, Athen. 389 a ff., Plin. nat. hist. 10. 101.

6 Lyd. de mens. 4. 64 p. 117, 20 ff. Wiinsch. Ail. de nat. an. 10. 35 ddvpfxa 5e 6
irepdL^ rfjs Aids /ecu Atjtous ws eariv aAXoi Xtyovacv would make it sacred to Artemis (or
Selene : see W. H. Roscher Uber Selene und Vertvandtes Leipzig 1890 p. 97 ff. and in
his Lex. Myth. ii. 3171).
 
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