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Cook, Arthur B.
Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes — Cambridge, 1940

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14698#0094

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54

N ephelokokkygia

Pisthetairos announces that the sacrifice has proved to be most
auspicious, and a Messenger brings word that the great wall is now
completely built—six hundred feet high and broad enough for two
chariots to pass.

After this, enter Iris. She has been sent by Zeus to bid men
sacrifice to the gods1. But Pisthetairos scares her off with threats
reminiscent of Zeus himself2:

Knowest thou this? If Zeus keeps bothering me,
His halls palatial, yea Amphion's house,
Will I burn down with eagles bearing fire3,
And up against him to the sky I'll send
Six hundred stout Porphyrion-gallinules4,
All clad in leopard-skins. Yet I remember
When one Porphyrion gave him toil enough5.

1 Aristoph. av. 1230ff. Earlier and cruder is the conception of 'the Brygos painter,'
who ona^/w in the British Museum [Brit. Mus. Cat. Vases iii. 87 ff. no. E 65 Mon. d.
Inst, ix pi. 46, 1 (coloured and gilded), Furtwangler—Reichhold Gr. Vasenmalerei
i. 238 ff. pi. 47, 2, Perrot—Chipiez Hist, de I'Art x. 560 ff. fig. 323, Hoppin Red-fig.
Vases i. 110 f. no. 4 fig., P. Ducati Storm delta ceramica greca Firenze s.a. ii. 318 ff.
fig. 242, J. D. Beazley Attische Vasenmaler des rotfigurigen Stils Tubingen 1925 p. 176
no. 5) represents Iris ambushed bytheSilenoi Echon, Lepsis(Nepsis?), and Dromis (on these
names see Charlotte Frankel Satyr- und Bakchennamen auf Vasenbildem Halle a. S. 1912
pp. 23, 25 ff.) just as she has collected an oxtail from the altar of Dionysos. The scene,
which recurs in abbreviated form on a red-figured skyphos from Nola, now at Berlin
(Furtwangler Vasensamml. Berlin ii. 732 no. 2591, Gerhard Ant. Bildw, p. 294
('Irene' !) pi. 48, Welcker Alt. Denkm. iii. 243 ff. ('Eirene'!) pi. 16, 2, J. D. Beazley
Attic red-figured Vases in American Museums Cambridge Mass. 1.918 p. 131 (attributed
to 'the Penthesilea painter'), Hoppin Red-fig. Vases ii. 337 f. no. 4, G." von Liicken
Greek Vase-Paintings The Hague 1921 pi. 10, 1 (cyclographic), J. D. Beazley Attische
Vasenmaler des rotfigurigen Stils Tubingen 1925 p. 276 no. 58), was presumably taken
from some Satyric drama, though hardly from the Iris of Achaios (W. Helbig in the Bull,
d. Inst. 1872 p. 41, F. Matz in the Ann. d. Inst. 1872 xliv. 299 f., C. Robert Bild und
Lied Berlin 1881 p. 28 n. 29) or the Inachos of Sophokles (IC. L. von Urlichs Der
Vasenmaler Brygos Wuerzburg 1875 p. 5 on the strength of Soph. Inachos frag. 250
Nauck2, 272 Pearson ap. schol. Aristoph. av. 1203), these plays being of later date
(Furtwangler—Reichhold op. cit. i. 241, L. Sechan Etudes sur la tragc'die grecque dans
ses rapports avec la ce'ramique Paris 1926 p. 41).

2 Aristoph. av. 1246 ff. dp' olad' Sti Zeus et fie \virqaei ire1 pa, | ix(\a$pa p.ev airov koX
(F. Wieseler cj. Kara) dofiovs ' Afufitovos | KaraiSaXdiaci irupfybpoiaiv alerots ; J. van
Leeuwen, observing 'alienum hinc est nomen Amphionis, quod ante me sensit qui Sb/xovs
' 0\upnrwus proposuit,' rewrites rai dp.<piKlovas Sb/xous, cp. Soph. Ant. 285 f. But G. Setti
in the Rivista di filologia 1903 xxxi. 112 f. justly defends the text in view of Soph. Ant.
1155 KdSfiov wdpoiKot nai db/xuv ' A/xtplovos = dwellers in Thebes. Aristophanes, according
to his scholiast, is quoting Aisch. Niobefirag. 160 Nauck2. Apparently in that play Zeus
threatened to bum the palace and walls of Amphion, husband of Niobe (H. W. Stoll in
Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 314, K. Wernicke in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. i. 1946, Gruppe
Gr. Myth. Rel. pp. 509, 1251 n. o), whose house had notoriously come to a bad end
(Paus. 2. 21. 10 ovtos fiev By {sc. Homer) rbv oUov t6v 'Afuplovos e~k fidBpwv avarpairivTa
oUe). Here Pisthetairos threatens to turn the tables on Zeus by burning his 'palace and
Amphionian walls.' The whole phrase ix4\a8pa...Kai ddfiovs 'A/j.<ptovos must be taken with
the possessive aiirov, sc. Aids.
 
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