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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

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14698#0810

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The birth of Athena in art 717

rolls can be quoted from older Greek sources1. I have not scrupled,
therefore, to use the Madrid puteal and the Tegel replica for the
restoration of these goddesses, assuming that the first designer of
such reliefs adapted the pedimental group to the requirements of
his frieze by the simple expedient of making two of the figures
stand up2. In the pediment the Fate sitting on a separate rocky-
seat is Klotho, the ' Spinner.' She holds a distaff in one hand, a
spindle in the other, and—a thoroughly natural touch—has drawn
back her right leg to leave room for the spindle to twirl. Lachesis
too is seated (Platon3 speaks of her lap) and holds the lache or
'lots,' of which Atropos the left-handed4 has just drawn the one
that she is reading. She lies on the knees of Lachesis and thereby
declares herself a personification of that irreversible fate which, as
Homer has it, ' lies on the knees of the gods5.' Intentionally or not,
Pheid ias conceived her in accordance with the strange Hesiodic6
description—literally lower than her sisters and yet the eldest and
ln a sense the most exalted of the three. Details apart, the common
'nterpretation of this famous triad as the Fates is so apt that we
may again without scruple jettison a cargo of divergent and some-
times fantastic misunderstandings7.

'he Archiv f. Rel. 1913 xvi. 316 f., W. R. Halliday Greek Divination London 1913
Pp. 205—234 ('Kleromancy'), F. E. Robbins 'The Lot Oracle at Delphi' in Class.
P/'Hol. iQI6 xi. 278—292.

E-g. supra i. 128 pi. 12, cp. 130 pi. 13.

Rhys Carpenter in his restoration (supra pi. lviii, 2) has contrived to work in the Fates
" tne puteal as three standing figures, but at the expense of more than one improbability.
. e has to place this triad in the left wing of the gable, whereas the vase-painter relegates
to the extreme right of the scene (supra fig. 530). Again, Carpenter must represent his
tes as three figures on an ascending scale, large, larger, largest—a variation which
th1 ^ '0'erate(^ m tne case °f 'hree diverse deities but becomes grotesque if applied to
ee powers of equal prestige. And lastly, the aesthetic effect of so many single figures
. an<hng erect in parallel, pillar-like lines is architectural rather than sculptural: it recalls
n eed the east pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, but is in flat and flagrant
Olltradiction of Pheidias' closely knit and subtly balanced design.
( Plat. rep. 6ij d \a(36pra £k tCjv ryjs Aax&rews yovarwv Khripovs re Kai fitwv -jrapa-
"VMara.

^ In the Platonic image (ib. 617 c) Klotho uses her right hand, Atropos her left,
an*d'leS'S e'''ler hand alternately. Platon is probably Pythagorising (J. Adam ad toe.),
c't jW'lere tnat 's tne cnse we may we" suspect a basis of popular belief (to the passages
s"pra ii. 222 n. 1 add i. 283 n. o, ii. 223fT., 354, 649, 1129, etc.).
See W. Leaf on //. 17. 514, W. W. Merry-J." Riddell on Od. 1. 267, E. Schwyzer
Q..er. hotter Knie—Abrahams Schoss' in ANTIAS2P0N (Festschrift Jacob Wackernagel)

^'ngen ,933 pp 283—293, Pfister Rel. Gr. Rom. 1930 p. 311 f.
od '^eS' SC' H£r- -58 ft". KXwtfi) Kai Adxecis e$iv iipiaraaav ■ r\ aev ixpiiaaav \ 'ArpoTros
1 *i\ev p.eya\i) 6e6s, dXX' apa yye | t£iv ye fiev aWauiv vpotpepris t t\v irpeafivTaT-q re.

(') The Kekropides Aglauros, Herse, and Pandrosos (F. G. Welcker supra p. 71J
3i J. Overbeck supra p. 716 n. 2, K. Schwerzek supra p. 716 n. 2).
 
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