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)

614 Zeus as an ox; Zeus Olbios

dealers Basseggio and Depoletti at Rome. This noteworthy paint-
ing (fig- A1 A)1 shows Athena Pollds2 seated on the left with helmet,
spear, piddle, and attendant snake. In front of her3 is a blazing
altar with Ionic volutes and a prothysis or wide base. Between
them stands a priestess, barefoot like her goddess and holding an
olive-branch. She looks toward Athena, but raises her hand to
salute a stately bull, the forepart of which is seen standing
apparently on the stylobate of a flat-roofed Doric structure4.
Gerhard after mooting various possibilities was disposed to identify
this bull with the votive gift of the Areiopagos6, which-—he
thought—might have some connexion with the city-goddess and
perhaps also with the Zeus of the Bouphonia. Gerhard's interpre-
tation was taken up and carried further by over-zealous followers.
Miss J. E. Harrison6, in discussing the Dipolieia, ventured the vie*
'that the sacred ox,about whom so much ado was made, may have
had a sort of shrine on the Acropolis, or that he may have lived m
a shrine belonging to Zeus Polieus.' She went on to suggest 'that
the votive gift of the Areopagus may have been connected with
this Polieus hieron, and that the much-disputed naos mentioned by
Pausanias may have been a small shrine set up in connection
with the Bouphonia.' Thirty-seven years later Miss Harrison7 had
dropped Zeus overboard. ' Now it is,' she says,' of course impossible

is unknown-

1 Gerhard Aaserl. Vasenb. iv. 6 ff. pi. 242, 1 ( = my fig. 414) and 2, Reinac ■
Vases ii. 122, 5 and 6. The present whereabouts of the vase, to me at least,
But there is not the smallest reason to doubt its antiquity.

2 Supra p. 573 n. 4.

3 Gerhard op. cit. iv. 123 rightly connects the altar with the 'Gotterbild.

4 Id. ib. notes that the building looks more like a hall than a temple. jji.

5 Supra p. 612. T. Bergk in the Zeitschrift fur die Alterthumswissenschafl 1
979 ff. held that the Bronze Bull of the Akropolis was of colossal dimensions. ^
op. cit. iv. 123 f. says that O. Jahn, like himself, was inclined to view the bu
hydria as 'ein Standbild.' T. Panofka too in the Arch. Zeit. 1852 iv. Arch. Anz- P; ^
decided that the bull in question must be meant for 'ein ehernes Weihgeschen ^
compared it with the small bull standing on a pedestal to be seen on tetradrac^
Selinous struck c. 466—415 B.C. {Hunter Cat. Coins i. 217 pi. 15, 20 f. See n

Mus. Cat. Coins Sicily p. 140 f. fig., p. 142 fig., Weber Cat. Coins i. 321 f. nos._
pi. 58, no. 1536 pi. 59, and above all the splendid series in the Lloyd collection \ ^ ^
nummorum Graecorum vol. ii) with the important re-interpretation of A- H- " rive1"
Num. Chron. Fifth Series 1935 xv. 86 ff. pi. 4, 14, 16, 18, 20—24, pi. 5> 25> again5''
god Selinos, sacrificing at the altar of Apollon, protects Himera (the co gelin-
Akragas (the bull of Phalaris)). Panofka thought that the Athenian bull, like
untine, might have been a votive offering to avert plague, grouped with the sea ^ ^eS
of Athena 'Tyteta. Failing that, he suggested a 'Standbild des Siier-Dionysos
Achelous.'

6 Harrison Myth. Mon. Anc. Ath. p. 428 f. fig. 37.

7 Ead. Themis'1 p. 145 fig. 25.