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 owl of Athena 791

We have said that the owl, as issuing from the Akropolis rock,
was held to be a special manifestation or embodiment of Athena
the rock-goddess1. It is, however, possible that there was a further
cause for its sanctity at Athens, and one which brings it into closer
connexion with Zeus. O. Gruppe2 has pointed out that over a wide
area of the ancient world3 birds of prey were believed to be filled
with the fire of the celestial region from which they came darting
down, a fire that blazed in the colouring of their beaks or glittered
in their flashing eyes. Some birds indeed got their name from their
fiery nature—the pklegyas*, the phlexis5, the incendiaria avis6, the

°wl (Ail. var. hist. 2. 9), while the Samians branded theirs with a galley (Douris ot
Samos Sa/ilav upoi frag. 59 (Frag. hist. Gr. ii. 483 MuWer) =Jrag. 66 (Frag. gr. Hist.
'!• '53 Jacoby with n. ad he.) ap. Phot. lex. and Souid. s.v. Xafilw 6 St^os). Plout.
Per. 26 has inverted the facts.

1 Supra pp. 749, 764, 776 ff. 2 Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 793 ff.

3 Analogous modern beliefs are collected by N. W. Thomas in J. Hastings Encyclo-
pedia of Religion and Ethics Edinburgh 1908 i. 5^9a_b ('Thunderbird'), J. Rendel
Harris Boanerges Cambridge 1913 pp. 20—30 ('The Thunder-bird'), Harrison Themis*
P- "3ff. ('Mana of Birds,' 'Sanctity of Birds').

4 Supra i. 199 and ii. 1134 n. 9.

5 Aristoph. av. 884 with schol. ad loc. D'Arcy W. Thompson A Glossary of Greek
Birds Oxford 1895 p. 181 suggests relation of 0\<?fis to (p\cyvas, from <p\iyia; fulgeo, etc.

e suggestion is highly probable.

Plin. nat. hist. io. 36 inauspicata est et incendiaria avis, quam propter saepenumero
ustratam urbem in annalibus invenimus, sicut L. Cassio C. Mario cos. (107 B.C.), quo
r>no et hubone viso lustratam esse, quae sit avis ea non reperitur nec traditur. quidam
8 'n'erpretantur, incendiariam esse quaecumque apparuerit carbonem ferens ex aris vel
* taribus. alii spinturnicem earn vocant, sed haec ipsa quae esset inter aves qui se scire
a'ceret non inveni.

Pliny's account of the incendiaria avis, which, some said, appeared bringing embers
roin the altars, leaves us guessing. On the one hand, we are reminded of the phoenix
carrying its parent's body to the altar of the Sun at Heliopolis and burning it there (Tac.
**■ 6- 28: see further Turk in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 345° ff-. supra i. 341). On the

ler hand, the name may cover some forgotten rite, perhaps comparable with the Scoppio
b* c<irr0 on Easter Eve at Florence. The 'Sacred Fire' is then struck from (lints

0l»ght by one of the Pazzi family from Jerusalem in the middle ages and kept in the
sol"011 °f the Holy AP°stles on lhe P'azza del Limbo. A candle thus lit is taken in

emn procession to the high altar in the Cathedral. Meantime two splendid white oxen
dra Crmison housings and gilded horns, wreathed with flowers and evergreens, have
Wn the Carro, a four-sided erection tapering both towards the top and towards the
p . ' covered with firew orks, to a point on the Piazza del Duomo between the
of tne lml a"d Ule B!lPtistery- Here il is connected by a wire with a pillar set up in front
w m'gh altar. 'Precisely at noon the "Gloria" was reached, and as the first words
With fi1"1^ tHe SaCred fire was aPPlied t0 the Pillar' which, like the "Carro," was wreathed
amid Works- '"his was the supreme moment of the ceremony; with a hissing sound,
it 8, a sllnwer of sparks, a dove, apparently of fire, flew from the pillar along the wire,—
Vphe . have reached the "Carro," and setting that alight, returned to the altar from
the " °ame' °" the success or non-success of its flight depending, in the opinion of
than 0"tadini' the fate of this year's harvest. By some unhappy chance it flew no farther
mtdway down the nave, where, with a last despairing " fizzle," it became extinguished,