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)

460 The myth of Danae and analogous myths

an aryballos of late, crude style, found in Kyrenai'ke and now in
London (fig. 297)1, complicates the scene by the addition of Eros
moving away with a gesture of encouragement on the right, and an
attendant woman—presumably the nurse of Pherekydes' narrative
struck with wonder on the left. The painter has here used actual
gilding to denote the golden drops.

Nikias of Athens, an artist who flourished c. 3 50—300 B.C.2 and
was famous at once for his careful rendering of women and his skilfu'
chiaroscuro3, must have found in Danae a congenial subject. Tiberius
is said to have dedicated this masterpiece, along with the same
artist's Hyakinthos, in the temple of Augustus at Rome4. ^ot

Fig. 296. ,
improbably5 Danae was depicted sitting on the nuptial coudT^a^,
receiving the gold in her lap, as she did in a painting desciibe ^
Terence6(or by Menandros whom Terence copied'). Martial s ep<&

1 Brit. Mus. Cat. Vases iii. 351 f. no. E 711, Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyih- , by
no. 3. Hitherto unpublished, My fig. 297 is from a photograph kindly supF

Mr F. N. Pryce.

2 A. Reinach Textes Peint. Anc. i. 286.

3 Plin. nat. hist. 35. 130 f.

4 Plin. nat. hist. 35. 131.

5 A. Reinach op. cit. i. 288 n. 1. . tabu1*1"

6 Ter. Eun. 583 ff. dum adparatur, virgo in conclavi sedet | suspectans ^ii0I1dan|
quandam pictam ; ibi inerat picturahaec, Iovem ] quo pacto Danaae m's'sse.a"jjem luserat
in gremium imbrem aureum. | egoniet quoque id spectare coepi: et qui conSI^1omjnen1 ^"i
iam olim ille ludum, inpendio magis animus gaudebat mihi, | deum sese u muli^'^
vortisse atque in alienas tegulas | venisse clanculum per pluvium fucum aC^on ftce1'6111
at quern deum ! qui templa caeli summa sonitu concutit. | ego homuncio h°c 1
ego illud vero item feci ac lubens.

7 M. Schanz Geschichte der romischen Litteratur"- Munchen 1898 i. <- -•