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

Zeus Meilichios

1151

had served with Alexander the Great in Asia, returned home and testified their
gratitude by a votive offering to Zeus Soterx.

At Thespiai, another ancient city of Boiotia, Zeus MUichos had a consort
Miltche'1. Since Thespios, the eponymous hero of the place, was said to have
been an Athenian and the son of Erechtheus3, or of Teuthras son of Pandion4,
we may legitimately compare the cult with that of Zeus Meiltchios at Athens.
Accordingly, we are not surprised to learn that Thespiai made much of Zeus
Saotes, the local equivalent of Zeus Soter. Pausanias heard all about him :

' The Thespians have in their town a bronze image of Zeus Saotes. The story
they tell of it is this. Once upon a time, when a snake [drdkon) was ravaging
the town, the god commanded that every year a youth, chosen by lot, should be
given to the monster. They do not, they say, remember the names of the victims
who thus perished. But they add that, when the lot fell on Kleostratos, his lover
Menestratos resorted to the following expedient. He had a bronze breastplate
made with a fish-hook on each of its plates, pointing upwards. This breastplate
he put on, and offered himself willingly to the snake; for he meant by his
offering to kill the monster, though he died for it. Hence Zeus got the name of
Saotes (the " Saviour")5.'

So the Greeks had their own version of Slingsby and the Snapping Turtle!
Indeed, the episode is but one variety of a world-wide myth, that of the dragon-
slayer6. We must not, therefore, too hastily assume that the snake in question
was the animal form of a divinised ancestor. Not improbably, however, the
Boeotian Zeus Saotes, like the Elean Sosiftolis'*', appeared on occasion as a snake,
so that the old snake-myth, which originated elsewhere in a different connexion,
would in Boiotia readily attach itself to the ancestral theriomorphic Zeus.

A relic of his cult has survived in a votive relief of white marble found at
Stalest and now in the Berlin collection (fig. 967)s. This monument, which
might be good Attic work of the fourth century B.C., shows a bearded man and
a boy approaching a cave in a rocky hill-side. The man holds an egg-shaped
object, perhaps a honey-cake9, in his raised right hand. And a large snake
writhes out of the cave to get it. If Stalest is rightly identified with the site of
the ancient Eteonos10 (later Skarphe), the tave may well represent the burying-

1 P. Foucart in the Bull. Corr. Hell. 1879 iii. 452 ff., R. Meister in Collitz—Bechtel
Gr. Dial.-Jnsckr. i. lyof. no. 470, Inscr. Gr. sept, i no. 3206, Michel Recueil Inscr. gr.
no. 1112 [rol 'nriroTTj to]1 iv rav 'Affia[v] aT[parevcrafxevoi j3a:(riXeio]s 'AXe^dvdpuj ffrpaTayiovTos,
..........|. odtaplu piXapxtovTos, Ad 'Zcorelpi dv[ediav • k.t.X.].

2 P. Foucart in the Bull. Corr. Hell. 1885 ix. 404 no. 15, Inscr. Gr. sept, i no.
1814 QwokXiScls Alovov,(Tlu Ad MtXtx1' «V Mt|X£x?7 (an inscription of .r. ii or iii b.C.).

3 Diod. 4. 29, Paus. 9. 26. 6 (with Thespia daughter of Asopos as alternative eponym).

4 Stepli. Byz. s.v. Qecrireia, Eustath. in 11. p. 266, 6 f.
3 Paus. 9. 26. 7 f.

0 See Sir J. G. Frazer on Paus. 9. 26. 7 and the authorities cited supra i. [78 n., 782.

7 Paus. 6. 20. 5. See further C. Robert' Sosipolis in Olympia' in the Att. Mitth. 1893
xviii. 37—45 and the excellent article of L. Weniger in Roscher Lex. Myth. iv. 1222 ff.

8 Ant. Skitlpt. Berlin p. 271 no. 724 fig., C. O. Miiller—A. Scholl Archaeologische
Mittheilungen aus Griechenland Frankfort a/M. 1843 p. 97 no. 103 ('Opferandie (Askle-
pios-) Schlange fur einen (kranken) Knaben;), R. Kekule von Stradonitz Die griechische
Skulftur2 Berlin 1907 p. 202 fig. (' Weihrelief an Zeus Meilichios'), Reinach Rep. Reliefs
ii. 14 no. 1 (' Hommage au serpent d'Asklepios'), Harrison Proleg. Gr. Ret.'2 p. 20 f. fig. 5
and Themis p. 282 f. fig. 73. I am indebted to Miss Harrison for the photograph, from
which my fig. 967 was drawn. Height o-265m, breadth o-495m to o*505m.

9 So Harrison Themis p. 282.

10 C. O. Miiller—A. Scholl loc. cit., Ant. Skitlpt. Berlin lot. cit.