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)

132 The Tritopatores or Tritopatreis

If Triton thus played the part of Aiolos, can we go further and
maintain that the former, like the latter, was a keeper of souls in
some island of the Otherworld? It must, I think, be admitted that
Tritons on occasion were viewed as protectors of the dead. A stele
of Pentelic marble in the Peiraieus Museum (fig. 49), assigned by
A. Bruckner1 to the end of the second or the beginning of the first
century B.C., represents the dead man standing in an architectural
niche ifiaiskosT) with his left hand on the head of a Siren at his side.
Below this group are carved in slight relief two bearded Tritons,
wreathed with reeds (?), who confront one another, each blowing a
conch and shouldering a paddle. Why are they there? Bruckner
describes them as 'das mythologische Ornament,' which is true but
not particularly helpful. I take it that Triton with his echoing horn,
like the cock with his lively din2, was believed to keep maleficent
spirits at a distance. And this may well account for the persistent
popularity of Tritons on sarcophagi and other sepulchral monuments
of Graeco-Roman and Etruscan art3. They are often accompanied
by a train of Nereids and sea-beasts, with diminutive Erotes here,
there, and everywhere. I figure a couple of sarcophagi, one made
for a Roman lady in the third century A.D. (fig. 52)* the other made

1 A. Briickner in the Ath. Milth. 1888 xiii. 377—382 pi. 4 ( = my fig. 49), F. R. Dressier
in Roscher Lex. Myth. v. 1174 with fig. 13.

2 See E. Baethgen De vi ac significations galli in religionibus el artihis Graccorunt
et Romanorum Gottingae 1887 pp. 20—23 ('De galli vi averruncanti'), P. Perdrizet in the
Revue des itudes ancicnnes 1904 pp. 12—17, S. Seligmann Der base Blick nnd Verwaudtes
Berlin 1910 i. 125 f.,319, ii. 82, 120, 140, 151, 153, 155,311, O. Keller Dieantike Tiei-welt
Leipzig 1913 ii. i4r, F. Orth in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. viii. 2532 f., Mrs A. Strong
Apotheosis and After Life London 1915 p. 257, C. T. Seltman in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath-
1923—1925 xxvi. 100 f.

3 F. R. Dressier Triton und die Tritonen in der Litteratur und Kunst der Griecheit
und Romer Wurzen 1892/3 ii. 13—23 (§25 'Tritonen (audi Tritoniden) in Reliefs an
Sarkophagen hauptsachlich in Verbindung mit Nereiden, Eroten und Seetieren'), 23—2S
(§26 '...in anderen Sepulcralmonumenten'), 26 (§27 ' Fischschwanzige Daimonen an
etruskischen Grabdenkmalern'), id. in Roscher Lex. Myth. v. 1193—1198, 1198 f., H99f'

T. L. Shear in the Am.Joum. Arch. 1931 xxxv. 428 ff. figs. 5—10 reports the finding
of Roman chamber-tombs cut out in the hard clay of a hillside S.E. of Cheliotomylos near
Corinth. One of these, originally constructed towards the end of s. i A.D. (fig. h = m^'
fig- jo), had a circular well-shaft (o-95m across, 2-30™ deep) in the floor of its inner
chamber—perhaps to quench the thirst of the departed (Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p- 831
n. 1, infra § 9 (d) ii (a))—and was decorated with several paintings. That on the tympanum
of the niche in the S. wall of the outer chamber (fig. 6 = my fig. 51) shows a large Urate'1'
(orange ground, red lines) flanked by a pair of plunging dolphins, above which are two
Tritons (orange and red bodies, greenish-blue tails), each blowing a long reed and holding
a wand. Wavy blue strokes below the dolphins indicate the sea. On the N. wall of the
outer chamber, at the E. end of the grave is a large trident painted on the transverse wall-

4 Clarac Mus. de Sculpt, pi. 207 fig. 196 ( = Reinach Rip. Stat. i. 95 no. 3) with Texte
ii. 502, Frohner Sculpt, du Louvre i. 405 f. no. 440, F. R. Dressier in Roscher Lex. My"1*
v. 1194 f. fig. 25. A sarcophagus-front of Luna marble. Height o-55,n. Length 2-i5m'