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)

Apollon and Artemis 467

Iphitos, make not the fruit of an apple the prize of thy contest;
But on the victor's head set a fruitful wreath of wild olive,
Even the tree now girt with the fine-spun webs of a spider.

The king, on returning to Olympia, found that one among the
many wild-olives in the precinct was wrapped in spiders' webs.
So he walled it round and wreathed the victors from its branches.
The first to gain the wreath was Dai'kles the Messenian, who won
the foot-race in the seventh Olympiad (752 B.C.)1. The spiders'
webs, since they portended rain2, marked out one tree as specially
fertile. But the point to notice is that in this old priestly narrative
there were many wild-olives growing in the precinct. The tree was
an indigenous product, no importation from a foreign land, least of
all from the far north.

Nevertheless the belief that Herakles had introduced a tree from
the north to Olympia is supported by both ritual and myth. Only,
the tree in question was not the wild-olive but the white-poplar.
Pausanias3 says:

' The Eleans are wont to use logs of white-poplar, and of no other tree, for
their sacrifices to Zeus. They honour the white-poplar thus, I imagine, simply
because Herakles brought it to Hellas from the Thesprotian land. It struck me,
too, that Herakles himself, when he offered sacrifice to Zeus at Olympia, burnt
the thigh-pieces of the victims on logs of white-poplar. Herakles found the
white-poplar growing beside the Acheron, the river in Thesprotia ; and on this
account—they say—the tree is called by Homer achero'ts1'. It would seem, then,
that of old, as at the present day, different rivers suited different plants and
trees. Thus tamarisks are most numerous and flourishing on the banks of the

1 Cp. Dion. Hal. ant. Rom. i. 71 Adi/cX^s Mecnjptos, Euseb. chron. 1 (i. 195, 4 and
196, 4 Schoene) vii. Darkles Mesenius, in stadio : ['EJ/356/x??. A(o/cX?)s MecrT^ios, araSiov.

- Plin. nat. hist. 11. 84 iidem sereno non texunt, nubilo texunt, ideoque multa aranea
imbrium signa sunt. Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 1216 n. 1 cp. Paus. 2. 25. 10 &rn 5i opos
vw£p rrji Arj<Tar]s to ' Apaxvalov,.. ./Sw/xoi Si eiaiv ev avru. Ai6s re Kai "Hpas- derjaav 6p./3pov
acpiaiv evravOa dvovai.

3 Paus. 5. 14. 2 f.

4 //. 13. 389=16. 482 with schol. A.B. D. //. 13. 389 dxepw'V V \euK7], irapa to ix
rod 'AxepofTos Trorap.ou twv Karax8ovLOjf Kop.i<jQr\vat. avTr\v virb 'Hpa/c\eous, <TTe\pap.evov
avT7]f eirl ry Kepfiepov viicy, schol. T. //. 13. 389 77 XevKr/' ravr-qv yap dv-qya-ytv 'Hpa/cX^s
O; 'AxepoPTOs • oi 5e tt)v aiyeipov, Kai "dxe\u>is" ypatpovaiv, iirei <p7)<riv " alyeipuv udaro-
rpe<peLCv" (Od. 17. 208). otl 5e p.eyas r^v, aWaxov <p7]cri " ixipvov eirepxbp.evov fxiyav " Aaiov
ovde (pefiovTo" (//. 12. 136), schol. A.D. //. 16. 482 d^epa/is' Slvhpov d /caXeirat XevKr/.
'ivLOL 5e (prjyov eldos elirov avTTjv (see Folk-Lore 1904 xv. 297), schol. L. //. 16. 482 d7ro
rod 'AxepovTos yap avrpxQy] Trapa rod 'Hpa>cXeous. cud tovto Kai aKapiros Kai tois veKpois
d<pw<aiufj,ivri r/v>. See further Harpokr. s.v. Xetk^^Souid. s.v. XevKTj, ct. mag. p. 180,
49 fx., Eustath. in II. p. 938, 6i ff.

The ancient derivation is rejected by modern philologists (L. Meyer Handb. d. gr.
Etym. i. 147 f., Schrader Reallex. p. 205, Prellwitz Etym. Wdrterb. d. Gr. Sfir.'2 p. 69,
Boisacq Diet. etym. de la Langne Gr. p. 107, H. Plirt Die Indogermanen Strassburg
1907 ii. 622, S. Feist Kultur Ansbreitung und Herkunft der Indogermanen Berlin 1913
p. 194).

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