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)

2l8

Hephaistos and Athena

enamel1. One last allusion to Hephaistos and his partner is made
two hundred and fifty years later by Saint Augustine2. After
detailing the story of Erichthonios, the reputed child of Hephaistos
and Athena, he continues:

'But it must be admitted that men of learning deny the charge and wholly
exonerate their gods. They say this fanciful tale arose from the fact that in the
temple at Athens, which is shared by Hephaistos and Athena, an exposed boy
was found with a snake coiled about him. The snake signified that he would be
famous. Accordingly, since the parents were unknown, his discovery in the joint
temple led to him being called the son of Hephaistos and Athena. Yet,' adds
Augustine with a sudden flash of shrewdness, 'it is the mythical fancy rather than
the alleged fact that accounts for the child's name3.'

There is little doubt that the myth of Erichthonios, whenever
and wherever it originated, had as early as the fifth century B.C.
become attached to the Hephaisteion. Variations on the type of
Athena Hephaistia represent the goddess with a kindly maternal
air, either bearing a basket from which a snake creeps over her
bosom (fig. 139)4, or dandling the infant on her arm (fig. i/p)5-
The myth itself—a crude, not to say ugly, narrative—is told as
follows by Apollodoros6:

'Some state that he (sc. Erichthonios) was a son of Hephaistos and Atthis,
daughter of Kranaos ; others, that he was a son of Hephaistos and Athena on
this wise. Athena came to Hephaistos, wanting him to make weapons. But he,
being forsaken by Aphrodite, fell in love with Athena and began to pursue her.
Thereupon she fled from him. And he, when he drew near to her with much

leoni fuisse inditos oculos e smaragdis ita radiantibus etiam in gurgitem, ut territi thynM
refugerent, diu mirantibus novitatem piscatoribus, donee mutavere oculis gemmas, ib- 37'
186 Adadu...oculus (supra i. 569 n. 4).

1 H. Blumner Technologic Und Terminologie der Gewerbe und Kiinste bei Gruc',en
und Romern Leipzig 1884 iii. 209 f., 1887 iv. 330. 2 Aug. de civ. Dei 18. 12.

3 Id. ib. sed quoniam Minervam virginem volunt, in amborum contentione Vulcam1111
commotum effudisse aiunt semen in terram atque inde homini nato ob earn causam tale
inditum nomen. Graeca enim lingua Ipis contentio, x""" terra est, ex quibus duobus
compositum vocabulum est Erichthonius.

4 A statue from Crete in the Louvre (no. 847). Height i-42m. The back, the left
arm, etc. are unfinished. See further P. Jamot 'Minerve a la ciste' in the Monuments
grecs publics par I'Association pour Vencouragement des Etudes grecques en France Nos-
21—22 1893-—1894 pp. 17—39 wit!l heliogravure pi. 12, Reinach Rip. Stat. ii. 275 no. 2-
E. Reisch in the Jahresh. d. oest. arch. Inst. 1898 i. 55 fig. 32 (head in profile), 72
fig. 35 (after Jamot), E. A. Gardner in the Journ. Hell. Stud. 1899 xix. 6 ff. fig. 2 ( = my
fig- 139)-

5 A statue from Frascati at Berlin (Ant. Skulpt. Berlin p. 37 no. 72 fig- (= m'
fig. 140)). Height i-82m. Italian marble. Restored: head, neck, right arm with shoulde>>
Gorgdneion; also the child's head and arms with the upper part of his body. See Clarac
Mus. de Sculpt, iii. 186 pi. 462 C, fig. 888 e, J. J. Bernoulli Ueber die Muierven-StaW1
Basel 1867 p. 21.

6 Apollod. 3. 14. 6, paraphrased also by Tzetz. in Lyk. Al. 111.