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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#0861

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The snake of Athena

767

fifth centuries is notoriously scarce1. However, it is certain that
Euripides, an antiquarian at heart, is here giving the attion of an
actual custom, which placed the young Athenian under the pro-
tection of Athena's snakes2.

It is tempting to recognise the same two guardian snakes in
a couple of fragmentary reptiles found in 1888 to the east and
south-east of the Parthenon3. They are the angle-figures of a pedi-
mental group executed in painted poros between 580 and 560 B.C.

1 See F. H. Marshall in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Jewellery p. xxix t.
J- Maehly Die Schlange im Mythus und Cultus der classischcn Vblker Basel 1867
P- 22 C, cp. A. Nagele 'Der Schlangen-Cultus' in the Zeitschrift fitr Vblkerpsychologie
u"d Sprachwissenschaft 1887 xvii. 264—289 (especially p. 282 on Germanic parallels).

E. Kuster Die Schlange in der griechischen Kunst und Religion Giessen 1913 p. 113
n- 0 put forward an interesting but perhaps over-venturesome conjecture (quoted supra

Fig. 563-

p\239 n. 1), viz. that the Athenian custom and its aetiological myth presuppose a
primitive belief 'wonach eigentlich zwischen Schlange und damonischem Kind kein
grosser Unterschied besteht.' He adduced inter alia the modern Greek practice of
calling an unbaptised infant dpdKos, SpcUaixa, or the like. His Excellency Mr D. Cacla-
'nanos assures me (6 June 1936) that this practice still obtains in Greece, but he inclines
l° accept my suggestion that, in the Greek view, 'the old serpent' (Rev. 12. 9, 20. 2),
the Devil, has not yet been expelled from the child by baptism. For the Devil as a
SerPent seeN. G. Polites MeWr?) M rod piovT&v Newripuv"E\\iivuv Athens 1871 i. 165 ff.

Possibly the myth of the infant Herakles and the two snakes, familiar to us both in
^erature (Pherekyd. frag. 28 (Fraf. hist. Gr. i. 77 UiiWei) = frag. 69 a, b (Frag. gr.

lst- »• 79 f- Jacoby) ap. Apollod. 2. 4. 8 and schol. Find. Nem. 1. 65, Pind. Nem. 1.
33 ff., Eur. H. f. 1266 ff., Theokr. 24. 1 ff, Plaut. Amph. 1121 ff, Diod. 4. 10, Verg.
f en- 8. 287 ff., paus. ,. 24. 2, Hyg. fab. 30) and in art (e.g. the decorative bronze
wight 0-07") at Vienna published bv von Sacken Ant. Bronzen IVien i. 96 pi. 49, 3
pmyfig. 563), Reinach Kip. Slat. ii. 238 no. 2, or the Pompeian wall-paintings noted
Rcinach Rip. petni. Gr. Rom. p. 186 nos. 3—5) implies the existence of a Theban
(Ustom comparable with that of the Athenians. A body-guard of snakes might easily be
/vn.for foes' not Wends. But see E. Kiister Die Schlange in der griechischen Kunst und
e 'Sion Giessen 1913 p. 108.

G- Dickins Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum Cambridge 1912 i. 74 f. figs.
 
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