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)

80 The Clouds personified in Cult and Myth

The real explanation of the story is of course very different from
the sophisms of Teiresias. The pretended birth from the thigh of
Zeus1, which from the sixth, if not the seventh, century onwards
is attested by vases2, frescoes3, reliefs4, and other works of art5,

Fig. 23-

1 F. Lenormant in Daremberg—Saglio Diet. Ant. i. 601 f., H. Heydemann Dionysos''
Geburt undKindheit (Winckelmannsfest-Progr. Halle 1885) pp. 12—17 (' Schenkelgebuit"),
F. A. Voigt in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 1045 f-> E. Thraemer ib. i. 1123, Preller—Robert
Gr. Myth. i. 661 f., Farnell Cults of Gk. States v. no.

1 see no probability in the suggestion that Hesych. s.v. dnapa- to. <r/^Xij- Kp?j7-es and
et. mag. p. 45, 16 f. &napa- to <tk£\v KpfjTcs. "Axapa- ttoAis ttjs ' A.<rias, ij vvv Ka\ovfiivri
Ni5<r<ra. k.t.X. (Nysa in Lydia, near which is Acharaka : supra i. 503) imply a localised
myth of the birth of Dionysos from the leg of Zeus.

2 (1) R.Rochette Choixdepeintures de PompiH Fans 1848—1856 p. 76 ff.,with coloured
design on p. 73 (part of which = my fig. 23). published a yellow-ground Corinthian pyxis
of c. 600 B.C., found in a tomb between Corinth and Sikyon, on which he thought
to recognise the earliest extant representation of Zeus bearing Dionysos from his thigh.
This view, accepted by F. Lenormant loc. cit. i. 602 and by E. Thraemer/^. at. i. 1123,
was called in question by H. Heydemann op. cit. p. + ('die altkorinthische Vase mit
einfachen Genrescenen'). E. Wilisch Die altkorinthische Thonindustrie Leipzig 1892
p. 49 f. apparently reverts to R. Rochette's explanation (cp. ib. pp. 62 ' " Bakchusgeburt",'
63 ' Bakchusgeburt,' 97 n. 353 ' Bacchusgeburt,' 143 ' die sogenannte Bakchusgeburt'). The
vase is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris (P. Milliet—A. Giraudon Vases feints
du Cabinet des Mddailles 6-= Antiques [Bibliotheque Nationale) Paris 1891 i. pi. 10
lle Classe, ivc Serie, E, De Ridder Cat. Vases de la Bibl. Nat. i. 42 ff. no. 94 'Scene
d'enfantement (?)' etc.). The hair and the girdle of the central figure prove it to be female.
Unless, therefore, we are prepared to hold that Zeus in labour was represented as a woman,
this cannot be he. To left and right of the seated woman are the Eileithyiai. Another
female on the right holds a distaff and spindle, less probably a branch of ivy (?): Klotho?

(2) A black-figured amphora from S. Maria di Capua, likewise in the Bibliotheque
Nationale (no. 219), shows Dionysos

ids 0tis) as a naked boy, with two
torches, standing on the lap of a seated Zeus (supra ii. 273 with fig. 177, infra § 9 (h) ii

(3) A red-figured Ukythos at Boston (no. 95. 39) is described and illustrated by
J. D. Beazley Attic red-figured Vases in American Museums Cambridge Mass. 1918
p. 134 ff- fig- 83 ( = my fig. 24): 'Zeus, naked, very tall, his long hair and beard curiously
neat, is sitting out of doors on a stone, which is covered by his clothes, and carefully easing
the small god out of his thigh: his trusted Hermes stands beside him, watching, and
holding his master's sceptre.' The vase is referred by the same authority to 'the