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)

Significance of the birth of Athena 733

myth of Athena's birth as set forth in the Parthenon pediment
admits of no single, satisfactory clue. So far we have recognised
certain elements in the design as drawn from the ritual of the
Dipolieia—Zeus Polieils, like his representative ox, struck with the
double axe, the escape of the striker, the acquiescence of the
bystanders, and the intent to safeguard the fertilising power of the
sky-god1.

But that is not all. The rites of the Dipolieia on the animal
plane were in a sense paralleled by the rules of royal succession on
the human plane. Sir James Frazer2 has taught us that an early
community is apt to regard its king as a god incarnate. Where this
«s the case, the king is not allowed to grow old, lest his divine
powers should dwindle with the decay of their bodily vehicle. He
must in fact—if society is still in a backward stage—be put to
a violent death at the first symptom of physical decline: grey hairs
may be his death-warrant. When he is slain, the immanent divinity,
the potency that made him what he was, leaves his body to take
UP its abode in a younger and more vigorous frame. This rule is of
world-wide validity, and the Greeks formed no exception to it.
1 have argued elsewhere3 that early Greek kings, honoured as
embodiments of Zeus and actually called by his name, were within
traditional memory killed as soon as they began to exhibit the
signs of old age. Further, I have pointed out that, when they
were killed, the indwelling divinity was believed to quit their bodies
ln the form of a bird4. I am now emboldened to conjecture that
the myth of Athena's birth reflects just this stage of social and
religious development. At least it can be expressed in terms that
are highly suggestive of the same. Zeus—say the vase-painters in
effect—was king of the gods and sat, sceptre in hand, on a
Magnificent throne. But he had reached a mature age; indeed,
According to Phrynos {supra p. 668 f. fig. 480) and the Villa Giulia
painter (pi. Hx)» he was already a grey-beard. So another god

la Supra pp. 656 f., 661 f., 719.
Frazer Golden Boutf* ii. 1 ff., it?: The Uving God p. 14 ff., id. Led. Hist.

Polk In C/"SS' Re°' 1903 xvi'- z6H fl- 403 ff" *' 1906 XX' 4'7' especia"y
« T V90* XV' 2"~3'S. 369-383, 39*-4°8-
in Fotk-Lort 1904 xv. 385—392.

Mil 1 am indebted 10 Mr C D. Bicknell for the observation that Zeus on this important
\ **» « white-haired. The vase, which came from Athens and is now in the British
(t ,,Um 8-3'- 0. is referred by Professor Beazley to his 'Villa Giulia Painter
j£* l>- Beazley in the Rom. Milth. 1911 xxvii. 288 no. 18, Hoppin Red-fig. Vases
408 no. 21, J. D. Beazley Attache Vasenmaler des rotfigurigen Stils Tubingen 1925
35i no. 27), an artist of the 'early free style,' at work c. 460—450 B.C. (M. H.