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)

754

The olive of Athena

striking downwards? Studniczka1 suggested that to drive a spear
into the ground was to claim possession of the soil—a piece of
symbolism current in antiquity, like the modern hoisting of a flag-
But the examples of the alleged custom quoted by him are not very
convincing2. More often we are told that Athena strikes the rock
with her lance and so creates the olive, Poseidon strikes it with his
trident and so makes the salt well. The action and its immediate
result are combined in one simultaneous scene. That may be so.
Only, it is not what Apollodoros said. According to him3, Athena
never struck the rock at all! Poseidon with a blow of his trident on
the middle of the Akropolis produced his sea, but Athena merely
planted her olive-tree. What, then, are we to make of her action
with that spear? It looks to me as though Pheidias or whoever
designed the western pediment of the Parthenon had taken an old
combat-motif, two people fighting one another, and modified it to
suit a new situation—the more peaceable producing of proofs, rigW
rather than mieht.

Fig. 539- Fig- 54°-

Imperial bronze coins of Athens (figs. 539, 540)4 are often cited in
illustration of the pediment. But I doubt their relevance. For

1 F. Studniczka in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 2863. ^ urled

2 Studniczka (after W. Judeich) quotes Diod. 17. 17 (Alexander from his ship

a spear at the Troad and dveipaifeTo tt\v 'kala.v dexe&Otu SoplKTriTov) and Serv. V1 .^j;
Aen. 3. 46 (Romulus, captato augurio, hastam de Aventino monte in Palatinurn ^
quae fixa fronduit et arborem fecit). But how far was the hurling of the spear an e pe
part of the symbolism (cp. supra ii. 703 n. 2)? The Centumviral hasta (B. ten Brm ^
hasta praeciptio apud Romanes signo, imprimis iusti dominii Groningae 1839 PP" g and
mayor may not be in point (see 6. Cuq in Daremberg—Saglio Diet. Ant. in- 41
M. Wlassak in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. iii. 1935 ff.).

3 Supra p. 750 f. Gafdn£f

4 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Attica etc. p. 98 pi. 17, 4, Imhoof-Blumer . „ a00s
Num. Comm. Paus. iii. 130 f. pi. z, 11, 12, 14, 16, J. N. Svoronos Les monnaiestt (+
Munich 1923—1926 pi. 89, 1—15 (of which no. 3 Vienna=my fig. 539 311 .
Athens = my fig. 540). A specimen in my collection is shown stipra p. 187 fig- 9 igJia V-

Mrs J. P. Shear in Hesperia 1936 v. 296 connects the contest-type of ^.^tet'fi
Poseidon (her fig. 8, 1—11) with the Athenian festival of freedom, lne
(L. Deubner Attische Feste Berlin 1932 p. 235 n. 2).