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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#0869

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The snake of Athena 775

m

suppose that we have here a dead woman ready to receive offerings
in the presence of her ancestral snake. Of course the early date of
°ur vase, c. 470 B.C., rules out any attempt to interpret the subject
ks Athena Hygieia beside the corner column of the Propylaia1 or
Hygieia herself arriving with the divine snake in the newly-built
Asklepieion2. But why, by the way, did Asklepios ever come to
dwell on the southern slope of the Akropolis? Had the snakes of
the rock anything to do with it (fig. )3?
A final puzzle: what did Cyprian4, bishop
°f Antioch in the third century after Christ,
mean by stating that as a boy of ten he had
'performed the liturgy of Pallas' snake on Fig. 569.

the Akropolis'? The empress Eudokia5 hitched into hexameters
the recital of his various initiations and makes him say:

I wrought the snaky rites
Of Athenaia on the citadel.

But what exactly were these rites? We are reduced to blank
c°njecture6.

The fact is, snake-myths and snake-cults of every kind fairly
cluster round the Akropolis-rock, almost all of them in close
association with Athena the rock-mother. Is it not fair to infer that

1 Supra i. 727.

J- Tambomino in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. ix. 94 concludes that Hygieia 'schon
Vor der Zeit des Peloponnesischen Krieges in Athen verehrt wurde, zu einer Zeit also,
Vo Asklepios in Athen noch eine unbekannte Grosse war. Die Zeit, wann H. zur
P^s6nlichen Gottheit ausgebildet wurde, lasst sich selbstredend nicht genau angeben.
lr miissen uns mit der Tatsache begniigen, dass die Entwicklung im 5. Jhdt. ihren
?«*luss erreicht hat.'

A- Korte in ihe Ath. Mitth. 1893 xviii. 245 ff. and E. Preuner in the Rhcin. Mus.
94 xlix. 313 ff. fix the date in 420 B.C. on the strength of Inscr. Gr. ed. min. ii—iii. 3
4960, 2 ff. = Dittenberger SyU. inset: Gr.3 no 88, 2 ff. = Michel Kecueil (Timer, gr.

■j,' '529. 2ff. [.......a]ve\$i>y Se 0[fo]|[s fivaTT)pi]oiS rots p.eya,[\ois />aT]?)-yeTO <?t t6

j 'p^"10]" ko! otKoVev I [/leTairenW&tievos Jp4[(c]|[o«to Vy]aye>> devpe i<p' [a]|I>JMlTOf]
a^ WM^o [d7r]o[i']|[Ti)<rai'To]s- d>a ^X0«« "Ty\[leta <cal] oOras iSpidri | [t6 iep6]v r65e

*» i*l I ['A(TTu0i]Xo dpxoPTos Kv[SavrlSo]. I follow the text of Dittenberger.
a Sundry small bronze coins of late date have obv. the head of Athena, rev. A6H and
^fearing sna^c y< N Svoronos Ies „wnnaies d'Athenes Munich 1923—1926 pL 98, 17
8„a,ln I=my'fig. 569), Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Attica etc. p. 102 no. 740). Is this the

4e of Athena or that of Asklepios?
ynpil °"Jess"> s- Cypriani (supra i. 110 n. 6) 1 Kal us 'A6Vaios irljkvTOS u", inro Si twv

i\HT^ ^Pf t6 \cvk6v irivBos uW/uetva Kal ttjs ii> rjj a.Kpoir6\ei IlaXXdios rip SpaKovTi

5 yp'j'"1' f's KpoKoiryiv vewxipov naTaaTas.
Te'out \ * S' Cyp'ian. 2. 20. f. 'Ae-qvairjs 5', '-qfus ir6\iv cotIv is aKprjp, j pe£a SpaKov-
TfXerds.

°ssibly we should compare 6 did k6\ttov 8eds (supra i. 393 n. o, 394).
 
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