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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#1023

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The stone siderites or oreites

921

bishop of Rennes, between 1067 and 1081, and in that form became
the most popular lapidary of the middle ages. More than a hundred
manuscripts of it are extant, not to mention versions in six or
seven languages1.

The Latin Damigeron2 distinguishes three varieties of oreites or
siderites. The first is deep black and round3. It is good for bites.
If pounded and rubbed in with rose unguent, it quickly cures
wounds made by wild animals. If tied on to the sufferer, it makes
his sinews unite4. Whoever takes it with him will foil any attack
by wild beasts. Hence it is worn by the Magi when they cross the
desert. The second sort is green with whitish spots. If genuine, it
will not be consumed by the fiercest fire5. It is invaluable as
a protection against all dangers and alarms. The third kind looks
like an iron plate smooth on one side but studded with sharp nails
on the other6. Great are its virtues. Kings bind it upon their
concubines to prevent them from losing their good looks, or from
producing imperfect offspring, or from failing to conceive at all.
Indeed, so powerful is its effect on childbirth that, placed on a
pregnant woman, it will at once bring on her delivery7.

The ' Orphic' Litkikd, a work assigned on stylistic and other
grounds to the latter part of the fourth century8, expatiates in a
tasteless way on the virtues of the stone as recorded by Damigeron9,
but prefixes a passage10 of much mythical and magical interest
drawn from some unknown source—hardly Damigeron, certainly
°ot Orpheus11.

Helenos—we read—advised the Greeks to fetch Philoktetes
from Lemnos to Troy, and the arrival of Philoktetes meant the

I For a detailed and documented account see Joan Evans op. cit. p. 33 ff.
Damig. de lapid. 16 Abel, 39 Evans.

Cp. Plin. loc. cit. (supra p. 920 n. 5).

Cp. Orph. lilh. 364 f. (infra p. 922 n. 1).

Cp. PHn. loc. cit. (supra p. 920 n. 5).

Cp. Orph. lith. 363 vTorprixiv (infra p. 922 n. 1).

The text of the last two sentences is defective and stands in need of emendation
(see Abel ad loc). But the general sense is clear from a passage in the prose epitome of
Ph. lith. p. 2 f. Abel Kai orelpais deywai^l Tr(pi8eap.ov/Aevoi> evrodav <paol irapix^v-
jo See E. Abel's 'praefatio' pp. 1—4. 9 Orph. lith. 390—473.

II f ■ 357-389.

in spite of Tzetz. posthom. 571 ff. Kai rbre nh "EXevos, 0(6(potTos fiavris a/x6fuoi>, j
K fi%,iTao, KaT' 'Op^a, navTLTr6\oio, \ \Wov avSpoKbyow, fiaBuv Sea Tt6xeT° Tpoifl, j
** *'Wt5)too fil-qv KOfAa-ai airb \-qfivov, k.t.\. and chil. 6. 614 ff. T) atSypiTLS \L60s ris
0 ^a"«, Kar' 'Opcpia, \ rjv aevvaoii rats -r-riyah el \ovoi tis, ibs ypa<pei, \ Kai ols Mpois 54
dA '"a - ""e'"*"">7<rc'S ravT-qv, \ dWep iraiSbs vtoyCKov rafrnis <pwvr)v aKovom, \ ^avTevonhiji
ws 7rtpl Trpay/nxTuv iravrav. \ dra Si d7ro^i/xfTaI> KaOdwep T(6vrjKvia. \ eK raiirr/s Kai
"•tevo, vbpBriaiv Tpo/as (4,7,.
 
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