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)

836 The owl of Athena

The strongest point in favour of your argument would be the association of
snakes1 and owls with the same deity. It might be possible to assume that the
snakes who are associated with Ishtar are the snakes who carry out the
commands of Shamash, the god of Law and Righteousness.'

In answer to the friendly criticisms of Mr Sidney Smith I would
urge that the formidable and rapacious aspect of the goddess
desiderated by him is to be sought in Athena's relation to the
Gorgon2, who sometimes at least was conceived as a ravening bird
of prey (fig. 649)3. That this side of her nature made a strong
appeal to the popular mind is sufficiently proved by the survival of
her epithet Gorgoepekoos^.

Fig. 649.

1 Supra p. 833 n. o sub fin. 2 Supra ii. ,502 n. 2, hi- l&9 n' ^7u|Ci W

3 A black-figured kydrla of late, Etruscan, style, found by E. Gerhard at^
1834 and now at Berlin, shows a Gorgon-headed monster, with four wings and t ^ -y.
of a bird, clutching two naked youths (Furtwangler Vasensamml. Berlin i. 477 ^tftf
R. Engelmann in the Jahrb. d. kais. deutsch. arch. Inst. 1886 i. 110 S- y^' ^1^
fig. 649), id. in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 1847 fig., G. Weicker Der Seelenvogd 111 ^.H'1^
Litteratur und Kunst Leipzig 1902 p. 6 fig. 1, E. Sittig in Pauly—Wissowa ^ gfl •
vii. 2422 f). The very similar figure, which appears twice as a decorative f jIoSe"^'
bronze Etruscan situ/a, found at Offida, Picenum, in 1877 and now in the ^ ^ j/i/S- ^
has a purely human face with dishevelled hair in place of the GorgSnewn [B1 jjtrllS<;
Bronzes p. 107 f. no. 650 fig. 18). Weicker loc. cit. rightly assumes that

hydrla and the Etruscan situ/a presuppose a common source.

4 Supra pp. 189 n. 1, 588 n. 1.