Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 2,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (thunder and lightning): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1925)

Dios and Dfos Nysos

291

hand with the thumb and two fingers extended in the attitude
peculiar to the Phrygian Zeus1—an attitude known to later ages as
the benedictio Latino.'1.

dea \ ' OirXoa jj.Lq, to Hera Aa.Kt.via. Hera ' OirXoa fxia was worshipped in Elis and Triphylia
(Tzetz. in Lyk. A I. 858, cp. Zonar. lex. s.v. 'OrrXocrfxeva- ^"Hpa, where J. A. H.Tittmann
corr. 'OwXoafjiia) ; and there is said to have been a t6ix(3os ( = poj/j.6s) of Athena OirXoafxia
in Elis (Tzetz. in Lyk. Al. 614). As to the origin of the appellative,'OirXoafAios < 'OwXo-
5/juos < *'OirXodautos (P. Kretschmer Die Griechischen Vaseninschriften Gittersloh 1894
p. 149 'also ein Compositum von bwXov und der reducirten Form von da/x- in da/j.vTjpLi''),
cp. 'OirXdSa/j-os (P. Foucart cj. 'OwXodanos), the giant of Methydrion who, when Rhea was
pregnant with Zeus, was prepared to defend her against Kronos (Paus. 8. 32. 5, 8. 36. 2).
See further Immerwahr Kult. Myth. Arkad. p. 26 f., O. Jessen in Pauly — Wissowa Real-
Enc. viii. 2299). Possibly the same belief in the sanctity of the decorporated head
accounts for the Chiesa delle Anime de' Corpi Decollati at Palermo (see E. S. Hartland in
Folk-Lore ioioxxi. 168 ff. pis. 8—10).

1 Supra i. 391 n. 3.

2 On the benedictio Graeca and the benedictio Latina see R. Sinker in Smith—Cheetham
Diet. Chr. Ant. i. 199 figs, and E. Fehrenbach in the Dictionnaire <FArchie-logic Chre"-
tienne et de Liturgie publ. par Le R. P. dom F. Cabrol Paris 1910 ii. 749 ff. figs. 1489—
1492. Various attempts have been made to read a symbolic meaning into these gestures, as
may be seen in the articles here cited. A new, but not very probable, notion was started at
Oxford in 1908 by my friend Dr |. Rendel Harris, who concluded an important address on
' Some points in the Cult of the Heavenly Twins' by suggesting—to the manifest alarm
of a French ecclesiastic in the front row—' that the episcopal benediction with two fingers
was originally a prayer that those blessed might have twin children' {Transactions of the
Third International Congress for the History of Religions Oxford 1908 ii. 176). Possibly
both the Greek and the Latin forms of benediction may prove to have been but variants of
the prophylactic gesture known all round the northern shores of the Mediterranean as 'the
fig ': if so, it was once sexual in character, the thumb perhaps representing the phallos and
the fingers the kteis {vide my paper on ' CYK04>ANTHC ' in the Class. Rev. 1907 xxi.
133—136. The view there taken had been in part at least anticipated by C. Sittl Die
Gebdrden der Griechen und Homer Leipzig 1890 p. 103 n. 1 (S. Reinach in the Rev. Et.
Gr. 1906 xix. 342 n. 2 (id. Culles, Mythes et Religions Paris 1908 iii. 98 n. 4) objects :
' Je ne crois pas qu'un Grec eut employe (paiveiv dans le sens d' "exhiber" une partie du
corps.' But cp. the words (paivopirjpis and wapatpabecf, vwocpaiveLv as used in the passages
collected supra p. 223 n. 6). Similar conclusions were reached independently by V. Riffer
' 1,vKo<pavT7)s' in the Indogermanische Forschungen 1912 xxx. 388—390: ' L)iese Gebarde
stellt bekanntlich die weibliche Scham dar, und soli urspriinglich in den Damonen das sie
abschreckende Geftihl des Abscheus hervorrufen, 11m sie auf diese Weise von den Menschen
abzuwehren.' Cp. also S. Seligmann Der b'dse Blick und Verzuandtes Berlin 1910 ii. 184 ff.,
Boisacq Diet. I'tym. de la Langue Gr. p. 924. For rival hypotheses see M. Breal in the
Comptes rendus de I'Acad, des inscr. et belles-lettres 1906 p. 740 (avKocpavT-qs is a mere
insult = the iepo(pavT7)s of nothing at all), S. Reinach ' Sycophantes' in the Rev. Et. Gr.
1906 xix. 335—358 (id. Cultes, Mythes et Religions Paris 1908 iii. 93—118) (just as the
Upocp&vT-qs exhibited an ear of corn to the initiates of Eleusis, so we may assume that an
official called the (rvKCHpavrris exhibited a fig in the mysteries of the Phytalidai at 'lepa 2u/c?},
where Demeter had once revealed ((<pr)vev) the fig to Phytalos : such an official would
doubtless have the right to exclude undesirables from his audience—hence the transition to
avKocpavTeLv in its usual meaning : close at hand was the ancient altar of Zeus MeiAfx'os,
'god of the Fig' (/j.eLXLxov), at which Theseus had been purified, perhaps with fig-juice, by
the Phytalidai—-an attractive combination, which however L. R. Farnell in 1'hc Year's
Work in Class. Stud, igoj p. 62 f. is too cautious to accept. I have discussed it further
infra Append. M), W. R. Paton ' The Pharmakoi and the Story of the Fall ' in the Rev.

I 9-2