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)

500 Apollon and Artemis

It is noticeable that a town in Thrace1 and no fewer than four
towns in Makedonia bore the same name2, including the settlement
on Mount Athos whose inhabitants were called Macrobii*—a title
suggestive of Hyperborean longevity4. With regard to Apollon's
original character we are still lamentably ignorant. That he was
from the first a sun-god is neither proved, nor probable5. Apollon
appears to be merely a cult-epithet, 'he of the Black-Poplars6.'
The full name of the god is possibly preserved in the Homeric
designation Phoibos Apollon7. If so, the name means 'the Clear
One,' ' the Pure One8,' and would be applicable to any deity of the
bright, shining sky. Not improbably Phoibos and Phoibe were sky-
god and earth-goddess respectively. On reaching Delphoi, Phoibe
as a chthonian power succeeded to Gaia and Themis11, while Phoibos,
finding another sky-god already in possession, became affiliated to
Zeus and acted as his interpreter to men1". For the rest, Phoibos
Apollon, god of the clear, pure sky, underwent both physical and
ethical development: on the one hand, his clarity, specialised into
that of the sun11, enabled him to rival and in part displace the
ancient Helios; on the other hand, his essential purity1'- made him a
god of light and leading to the whole civilised world.

We have, so far as 1 can see, no right to assume that Artemis
entered Greece along with Apollon or came from the same northern
home. Herodotos indeed adduces as a parallel to the Hyperborean
usage the fact that Thracian and Paeonian women, when they
sacrifice to Artemis Basz'lela, hold their offerings 'not without wheaten

I G. Hirschfeld loc. cit. ii. 113 f. 2 Id. lb. ii. 1 14. 3 Plin. nat. hist. 4. 37.

4 Schol. Dionys. per. 560 MaKpofiluv airoiKoi yap elaiv ovtol tlov eipuv Aididiruv fj
tCov 'Tirep(3opeiioi>. Orph. Arg. 1106 ft. makes the Argonauts, after reaching the land of
the 'Twepjiopeoi (1077, 1082), arrive at the wealthy folk of the Ma/c/)6/3iot, whose span of
12000 months each as long as 100 years (1108) recalls Pindar's description of the Hyper-
boreans as xtXterilij/ [supra p. 465 n. 1). See further Uaebritz in Pauly—Wissowa Real-
Enc. ix. 261 f., 274 f.

5 Supra i. 258 n. 4. c Supra p. 484 ft.

7 H. Ebeling Lexicon Homcricum Lipsiae 1885 i. 154, ii. 439 f., L. Meyer Haiidb.
d. gr. Etym. iii. 371. The Homeric poems, if drafted in northern Greece, would be
likely to preserve the original name of the god.

8 Prellwitz Etym. Wprterb. d. Gr. Spr.- p. 493, Boisacq Diet. etym. de la Langue Gr.
p. 1032. Prof. H. M. Chadwick suggests to me (June 30, 1921) that a north-Greek form
of the same stem may be seen in Boi'^t?, 7? Boifirjis XtpLvrj, etc.: cp. W. Pape—G. E. Ben-
seler Wbrterbnch der griechischen Eigennamen* Braunschweig 1875 i. 216.

9 Aisch. Eum. 1 ft. See also Turk in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 2395 ft.

10 Aisch. Eum. 7 ft. Supra pp. 204 n. 1, 265 f.

II Cp. Aisch. P. v. 22 f. aradevrbs d' TjXiov (poifSr] <p\oyi j k.t.X. One of the Heliades
was named <&oi(i-q (Turk in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 2397).

12 Plout. de E apud Delplws 20 <poi(3ov 8e drjirou to Ka.da.pbv Kai ayvbv oi waXaioi irav
ihvdfxa^ov, ws in OeaaaXol tovs iepeai ev rals airo<ppaaLv rjfiepaLS avrovs i(p' eavrQiv ££a>
biaTpifiovTas, olfxai, rpoifiovojieio~da,i \eyovai.