DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14696#0700
The axe carried by priests and priestesses 625
large-sized females are regarded by Sir A. J. Evans1 and by G. Karo2
as goddesses. We should then assume—an easy assumption—that
the earth-goddess had borrowed the sky-god's axe3. But the same
figures are described by R. C. Bosanquet4 as women ; and there is,
after all, nothing to prevent us from supposing that they are a pair
of priestesses displaying the emblems of the goddess and the god.
Athena, who in various ways recalls the great mother-goddess
of Crete, is on occasion equipped with the double axe. Simias of
Rhodes in his picture-poem the" Double Axe makes Epeios the
Phocian dedicate to Athena as an acceptable gift the axe with
which he had made the wooden horse and thereby captured Troy5.
The fateful tool was to be seen in her temple at Eilenia in the
district of Lagaria near Metapontum6. Again, bronze coins of the
Oxyrhynchite nome, struck by Domitian, Trajan (fig. 529), Hadrian
(fig. 530), and Antoninus Pius, have for reverse type Athena bearing
Nike in one hand and a double axe with straight or rounded edges in
the other, while small pieces issued by Hadrian (fig. 531) show the
double axe without the goddess7. Lastly, a ' Gnostic ' amulet in the
1 Sir A. J. Evans in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1902—1903 ix. 92 f.
2 G. Karo in the Archiv f. Bel. 1904 vii. 147.
3 So H. Prinz in the Ath. Mitth. 1910 xxxv. 163 with 174. Cp. supra p. 564 f. figs.
4 R. C. Bosanquet in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1901—1902 viii. 300.
5 Anth. Pal. 15. 22 (Simias) = C. Haeberlin Carmina Figurata Graeca Hannoverae
1887 p. 70 with schol. Pal. ib. p. 84. See further W. Christ Geschichie der griechischen
Litteratur5 Mtinchen 1911 ii. 1. 92 n. 4. Illustrations are collected by Overbeck Gall,
her. Bildw. i. 607 ff. Atlas pi. 25, 3 f., A. Michaelis in the Ann. d. Inst. 1880 lii. 56 ff.
pi. K, P. Weizsacker in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 1279 f.
6 Aristot. mir. ausc. 108, Lyk. Al. 948 ff., lust. 20. 2. 1.
7 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Alexandria etc. p. 360 f. nos. 86—91, Hunter Cat. Coins iii.
565 no. 18, J. de Rouge ' Monnaies des Nomes de l'Egypte' in the Rev. Num. Nouvelle
C. II. 40
Fig. 528.
45°. 452-
large-sized females are regarded by Sir A. J. Evans1 and by G. Karo2
as goddesses. We should then assume—an easy assumption—that
the earth-goddess had borrowed the sky-god's axe3. But the same
figures are described by R. C. Bosanquet4 as women ; and there is,
after all, nothing to prevent us from supposing that they are a pair
of priestesses displaying the emblems of the goddess and the god.
Athena, who in various ways recalls the great mother-goddess
of Crete, is on occasion equipped with the double axe. Simias of
Rhodes in his picture-poem the" Double Axe makes Epeios the
Phocian dedicate to Athena as an acceptable gift the axe with
which he had made the wooden horse and thereby captured Troy5.
The fateful tool was to be seen in her temple at Eilenia in the
district of Lagaria near Metapontum6. Again, bronze coins of the
Oxyrhynchite nome, struck by Domitian, Trajan (fig. 529), Hadrian
(fig. 530), and Antoninus Pius, have for reverse type Athena bearing
Nike in one hand and a double axe with straight or rounded edges in
the other, while small pieces issued by Hadrian (fig. 531) show the
double axe without the goddess7. Lastly, a ' Gnostic ' amulet in the
1 Sir A. J. Evans in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1902—1903 ix. 92 f.
2 G. Karo in the Archiv f. Bel. 1904 vii. 147.
3 So H. Prinz in the Ath. Mitth. 1910 xxxv. 163 with 174. Cp. supra p. 564 f. figs.
4 R. C. Bosanquet in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1901—1902 viii. 300.
5 Anth. Pal. 15. 22 (Simias) = C. Haeberlin Carmina Figurata Graeca Hannoverae
1887 p. 70 with schol. Pal. ib. p. 84. See further W. Christ Geschichie der griechischen
Litteratur5 Mtinchen 1911 ii. 1. 92 n. 4. Illustrations are collected by Overbeck Gall,
her. Bildw. i. 607 ff. Atlas pi. 25, 3 f., A. Michaelis in the Ann. d. Inst. 1880 lii. 56 ff.
pi. K, P. Weizsacker in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 1279 f.
6 Aristot. mir. ausc. 108, Lyk. Al. 948 ff., lust. 20. 2. 1.
7 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Alexandria etc. p. 360 f. nos. 86—91, Hunter Cat. Coins iii.
565 no. 18, J. de Rouge ' Monnaies des Nomes de l'Egypte' in the Rev. Num. Nouvelle
C. II. 40
Fig. 528.
45°. 452-