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 835

If this be right—it cannot be far wrong—the plaque is an apotropaic: the
thing pictured drives away the thing immaterial, a well-established principle in
Babylonian magic.

I turn back to your letter of the 18th with its very fascinating thesis....It
seems to me that a difficulty immediately occurs. Athene was preeminently the
Vlrgin, and that is just the reverse of the character we may assume for the
Babylonian goddess. You say that the Parthenos is later, that she was
Originally Meier, but recovered virginity yearly1. But Meter also is very far
from our demon, whose name may have been Lilitu (Lilith) Ardat Lili (the
slave-girl of the Night) whose characters you can discover in R. C. Thompson,
devils and Evil Spirits2. To establish a firm connection between Athene and
toe goddess of the plaque, will it not be necessary to show that the goddess
was not originally, as later, representative of Law, Liberty, and Reason, but a
'°cal demon who fell upon the transgressor (witting or unwitting) ?

Fig. 648.

l^Pp.«4ff., 748f.
pp, X!(,',;^amPbe11 Thompson The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia London 1903 1

As,

*XVl '•, xxxii, xxxvi ff., cp. p. li f. (on the owl as a bird of ill-omen among the

Wans,

29—831 ('£>e Lilith, Lamiis et Strigibm ').

53-

i;ng... s' etc-)- See further S. Bochart Hierozokon rec. E. F. C. Rosenmiiller Lipsiae
"i. 820—R