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

728 Talos identified with Zeus

account for its association with Talos, who, as being the Sun1,
was essentially a fertilising power.

A remarkable variant of the Perdix story is preserved by the
Latin mvthographers-. Perdix, the inventor of the saw, fell in
love with his own mother Polykaste and pined away because of
her. Fenestella, who wrote his Annals in the reign of Tiberius,
commented on this myth3. According to him, Perdix was a
hunter, who tired of the chase, especially as he observed that
his young comrades Aktaion, Adonis, and Hippolytos all came
to a bad end. He therefore abandoned his life as a hunter and
devoted himself to agriculture. Hence he was said to have loved
his mother, i.e. Mother Earth, and to have pined away, i.e. to
have worn himself thin over her. Her name Polykaste might be
spelled Polykarpe and rendered the ' Very Fruitful One.' As for
the saw, that denoted the harsh tongue with which he abused
his former occupation. Fenestella's rationalism is of course
absurd. Nevertheless his account appears to contain elements
that are far older than the rise of rationalism. Perdix, who
loved Polykaste, variously identified with Mother Earth4 or the
Mother of the gods5 or Diana(i—Perdix, who is expressly com-
pared with Aktaion, Adonis, and Hippolytos, an ill-fated trio—
Perdix, who dreaded the dangers of a woodland life, is a figure
ominously like the human favourite or partner of more than
one ancient goddess. His love for Polykaste was, as Claudian
says, inspired by herself7. And there is perhaps a special sig-
nificance in the fact that her lover bore the name of a bird,
of that bird which was ' the plaything of the daughter of Zeus
and Leto8.'

v. Talos identified with Zeus.

Talos the 'Sun'!) was in Crete identified with Zeus. A
Hesychian gloss explains the epithet" Talaids to mean ' Zeus

1 Supra p. 719.

2 Fulgent, myth. 3. 2, Myth. Vat. r. 232, 2. 130, 3. 7. 3.

3 Fulgent, myth. 3. 2 Fenestella in Archaicis and Myth. Vat. 2. 130 Fenestella
Martialis should, I think, be corrected into Fenestella in Annalibus. On Fenestella
see M. Schanz Geschichte der romischen Litteratur'2 Miinchen 1901 ii. 2. 201 ff. and
G. Wissowa in Pauly—Wissowa Keal-Enc. vi. 2177 ff.

4 Fulgent, myth. 3. 2, Myth. Vat. 1. 232, 2. 130, 3. 7. 3. Cp. the joint-cult of the
earth-mother and Talos (?) in Sardinia {supra p. 723).

3 Myth. Vat. 2. 130.

6 Myth. Vat. 3. 7. 3 Perdicem quoque primo Dianae, deinde incesto matris suae
amore dicunt intabuisse.

7 Claud, epigr, 19 de Polycaste et Perdue 3 f. pectore dum niveo puerum tenet anxia
nutrix, | illicitos ignes iam fovet ipsa parens.

8 Supra p. 727 n. 6. Supra p. 719.