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)

The Tritopatores or Tritopatreis 139

is now generally admitted that the whole design illustrates the
entrance of the soul into the Otherworld as conceived by some
Pythagorean sect in the middle of the first century A.D. But we are
concerned with the Tritons only, who here as on the sarcophagi are
present to control the winds and waves, thereby averting the perils
of the last dread voyage. If on the sarcophagus in the Galleria
Corsini at Rome (fig. 55)1 they are exceptionally equipped with the
thunderbolt of Zeus2, the helmet sword and shield of Ares, the
arrows and torch of Eros, etc., that is tantamount to saying that
Tritons and the like in this connexion are not merely graceful
gambollers but the equivalent of a whole heavenly host.

To sum up, it would seem that the Tritons came to be regarded
as, like the Tritopatores, at once controllers of the wind and guard-
ians of the soul. But this was a matter of similarity, not of identity.
If Tritogeneia meant first 'Great-granddaughter' and then 'Born

Fig. 56.

beside the Triton3,' that was a case of sheer verbal confusion. Nor
have we the right to infer from it a real relationship between the Trito-
patores and the Tritons. And, in the absence of any inward identity,
I find no sufficient reason for thinking that the Tritopatores were
ever outwardly figured as Tritons with fishy tails; still less, for
supposing that they already had the Tritonian type in the sixth
century B.C. Accordingly, I definitely reject the view of Furt-

1 O. Jahn 'Sarcofago della G-alleria Corsini a Roma' in the Ann. d. Inst. 1859 xxxi.
J7—32, Mon. d. Inst, vi pi. 26 ( = my fig. 55), C. Cavedoni in the Bull. d. Inst, i860
P- 206, E. Petersen in the Ann. d. Inst, i860 xxxii. 402 f., 412 n. 1, L. Stephani in the
c°mpte-rendu St. Pet. i860 p. 11 n. 2, Matz—Duhn Ant. Bildw. in Rom ii. 368 f. no.
Sl64, Reinach A'ep. Beliefs iii. 223 nos. 1—3.

E. Vinet in the Rev. Arch. 1853 p. 100 ff. with fig. ( = my fig. 56) published a gem-
lrr>pression, obtained from T. Cades, which shows a Triton equipped with thunderbolt
an<Urident. Vinet thought him Aigaion.

Supra p. 125.