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)

The olive of Athena 751

them asunder and appointed as arbiters...the twelve gods. By their verdict the
land was adjudged to Athena, because Kekrops bore witness that she had been
the first to plant the olive. Athena, therefore, called the city Athens after herself,
while Poseidon1 in hot anger flooded the Thriasian plain and laid Attike under
the sea.'

The story is related by Greek and Roman writers with some variety
°f detail2. But the main points are sufficiently clear. And it is the
unanimous, or all but unanimous, opinion of modern scholars that
this legend covers a historic fact—the attempted supersession of
Athena -cult by Poseidon-cult3. Or, as 1 should venture to put it,
the intrusion of the Ionian god upon the Pelasgian goddess4.

And here we must take into account the western pediment of
the Parthenon, about which Pausanias5 says simply: 'The back
gable contains the strife of Poseidon with Athena for possession of

land.' This pediment at once met the eye of all visitors to the
Akropolis, and in ancient times lent dignity to a somewhat barren

1 Poseidon, despite his stormy strength, really seemed born to lose lawsuits! Similar
^£ends told how he strove with Hera for Argos, lost his case, and in anger first drained
e country of water and then swamped it with a flood (Pairs. 2. 15. 5, 2. 22. 4); how
e contended with Zeus for Aigina and again lost (Orph. frag. 335 Kern ap. schol.
' Isthm. 8. 92 r) #rt i(pi\ovein'qaa.v Uo<rei8Qv re nai Zei)s wept Aiyivr]S, ore Kal /iera-
? 6'" SoKel tjji/ vt)<jov lloaeiSQv, naffa &\\oi t£ 0a<ri Kal llvSalveros (an addendum to Frag.
. ■ Gr. iv. 487 Miiller) irpo<Taybp.evos 'QpQe'a.. See further J. P. Harland Prehistoric
^ xgWa Paris 1925 pp. 52, 81 ff.); how he disputed the possession of Trozen with Athena,
Was forced to go shares, and vented his spleen by flooding the land with salt water
l^aus. 2

^corou:

aus. 2. 30. 6, 2. 32. 8). But, so far as Athens is concerned, notice the orderly and
s nature of the proceedings—the two litigants, the rival claims, the production of

We'll6"102 aUC' mater'a' exh'hits, the peaceful settlement by adjudicators on the ground of
tiin attesle<^ priority. I should infer that the legend took shape in comparatively recent
s> and I should be disposed to conjecture that the or'irinal dispute was a fiaht, not a
lawsuit at all.

j. teller—Robert Gr. Myth. i. 203 n. 1, F. Diimmler in Pauly—Wissowa Kcal-Ene.
4nt*"' I'arne11 Culls °f Gk- States i. 270 ff., G. Fougeres in Daremberg—Saglio Diet.
*»i*Ul' I9'9' Sir J' G- Frazer 011 Apollod. 3. 14. 1, H. J. Rose A Handbook of Greek

ythol0fry London 1928 pp. 68, 76 f.
p| 1 on°graphs include L. Stephani in the Compte-rendu St. PCt. 1872 pp. 5—142 Atlas
infra **obert 'Der Streit der Gotter urn Athen' in Hermes 1881 xvi. 60—87 (see
t2+__P' 7»3 n- 2), E. Petersen '"Der Streit der Gotter um Athen'" it. 1882 xvii.
■882 ^' ^°hert 'Das Schiedsgericht tiber Athena und Poseidon' in the Ath. Mitth.
'n f{/VU ^ 58 pis. i, 2 and 2, E. Petersen 'Der Streit des Poseidon und der Athena'
Aihe'enf. ^/u^'e" '883 v. 42—51, W. Amelung 'Schiedsgericht zwischen Poseidon und

Ane in the Ath. Mitth. 1898 xxiii. 235—241.
Lon(j0 °nsPectus of literary variants is given in A Guide to the Sculptures oj the Parthenon

Attic ^° ^Uote ,:mt one recent judgment, Prof. H. J. Rose op. cit. p. 68 sees here ' a local
c°rnin ^.enc*' which perhaps reflects the contests between a Greek (Ionian?) people,
Minr,- " may 1,e> by sea, and the natives of the place with their ancient cult of a
^0an goddess.'

St#n p. 736 ,. « Paus. .. 24. 5-