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)

Hephaistos and Athena

223

Such explanations are the expiring efforts of the mythopoeic mind;
but at least they imply that there was something to be explained.
And that something was the startlingly blasphemous, but ancient,
Orthodox, and wholly irrepressible, conviction that Hephaistos was
the mate of Athena.

Now the pairing of Hephaistos with Athena has often been
regarded as a mere juxtaposition of two deities drawn together by
their common patronage of the arts and crafts1. And doubtless that
immunity of interest did much to strengthen their union. But the
root of the matter goes deeper. When we remember that the grouping
together of these two occurs already in Homeric verse2 and Hesiodic
myth3, that it is attested by the ancient pandemic festival of the
Chalkeia 4, that it produced the Hephaisteion5, one of the noblest
fifth-century buildings of Athens6, and finally that the cult-statues
of Hephaistos and Athena Hepliaistia, in all probability the work of
Alkamenes7, were there worshipped side by side for more than half
a millennium8, it becomes increasingly difficult toresisttheimpression
that in the remote prehistoric past Hephaistos and Athena were
SlRlply husband and wife9.

1 See e.g. Harrison Myth. Mon. Anc. Ath. p. 119 f., F. Diimmler in Pauly—Wissowa
Keal'Enc. ii. 1991, Farnell Cults of Gk. Stales v. 377 (a more cautious statement: 'his
association in Attica with Athena, which may have been devised originally to connect
0rne Prominent tribe that worshipped him with the national religious polity, was regarded
s 'he natural fellowship of the divinities of art').

Supra p. 200 f. 3 Supra p. 201. J Supra p. 211 ff. 5 Supra p. 213 f.
The identification of the 'Theseion' with the Hephaisteion, first mooted by D. Sour-
*\es Arrt/tds Athens 1863 p. i65ff. and P. Pervanoglu 'Das Hephaesteion in Athen' in
^Uologus 1868 xxvii. 660—672, was better founded by H. G. Lolling in the Nachr. d. kdn.
"ettsch. d. Wiss. Gbttingen Phil.-hist. Classe 1874 p. 17 ff. and B. Sauer Das sogenannte
eseion Leipzig 1899 pp. M f., 255 ff., and is now the almost universally accepted
Union (W.Judeich Topograpliie von Athen Miinchen 1905 p. 325 n. 4, Gruppe Myth. Lit.
tho P' 507 f'' Farne11 Cults °f Gk- States \. 378). H. Koch and E. v. Stockar, after a
bttj^U examination of the 'Theseion' and its sculptures, would refer the extant
■ Ing to the decade 450—440 B.C. {Jahrb. d. hat's, deutsch. arch.Jnst. 1928 xliii Arch.

t> S PP —721 With 8 ^gS'' summar'sec* m tne Am.Journ. Arch. 1931 xxxv. 174 f.).

' ' Robertson A Handbook of Greek Roman Architecture Cambridge 1929 pp. 118,
^dates it c. 428 B.C.

Th' v

4,. 1.. heen seen with varying degrees of clearness by many scholars, e.g. O. Jahn

fy ^fgische Aufsaize Greifswald 1845 p. 60 ff., F. L. W. Schwartz Der Ursprung der
"logic Berlin i860 p. 208, id. Indogermauische Volksglaube Berlin 1885 p. 122 f.,

Loeff / m Roscher Lex- My^. i. 2064, Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 27 f., A. K. van der
der a *"f** Eleusiniis Lugduni-Batavorum 1903 p. 54, E. Petersen Die Burgtempel
the"aia Berlin 1907 p. 89, E. Fehrle Die kuitische Keuschheit im Altertum Giessen
y,° P- 188 f.

^hena?1" Systematisers declared that the first Apollon was the son of Hephaistos by
a (Cic. de not. deor. 3. 55 Vulcani item complures: primus Caelo natus, ex quo et