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)

924

mon

indeed a meteorite like others already found in the service of
Kybele. It may be that the varieties distinguished by Damigeron
include both the telluric and the meteoric sort. Certainly the
epithets chosen in the Lithikd—somewhat rough, black, dense,
covered with sinews like wrinkles—would be easy to parallel from
actual meteorites of the kind called siderites1.

(g) Akmon.

The name Akmon in this Idaean context raises a point of
interest. In a familiar passage of the Iliad12, Zeus awakes on the
summit of Ide and, angered at Hera's deception3, threatens her
with the lash. He goes on to taunt her with past punishment4:

Dost thou not mind how thou wast hung aloft,

While to thy feet I fastened anvils twain

And bound thy hands too with a golden bond

That none might break? In the aithe'r and the clouds

Thou hangedst helpless, ay and all the gods

In long Olympos were exceeding wroth,

Yet could not take thy part or loose thy chain.

W. Leaf5 observes that the word rendered ' anvils' (dkmonas)
' originally meant large stones, especially meteoric stones, commonly
known as thunderbolts.' And Eustathios6 informs us that some
texts here added a couple of lines:

Till I unfettered thee and cast the clogs
Down on Troy-land—for future folk to see.

This sounds like a piece of local lore. Two conspicuous blocks 1^
the Trojan plain were pointed out as being the very 'anvils
dropped by Zeus. Moreover, since the term used of them (jn$df°y
means properly 'a glowing mass of metal7,' Leaf8 is justified ^
concluding that ' such blocks can only have been meteoric massed

1 See O. C. Farrington Meteorites Chicago 1915 pp. 78 ff. ('Crust of meteori'e^
85 ff. ('Veins of meteorites'). L. Beck op. cit. p. 19 states that the earliest exact desC|^0
tion of meteoric iron is in Plin. nat. hist. 2. 147 item ferro in Lucanis (sc. pluisse)
ante quam M. Crassus a Parthis interemptus est (53 B.C.) omnesque cum eo Lu ' ^
milites, quorum magnus numerus in exercitu erat. effigies quo pluit ferri spong'ar
similis fuit.

2 II. 15. 4 ff. 3 Supra i. 154, ii. 950 n. o, 1020, iii. 35, 180. .5.
4 //. 15. 18 ff. 6 W. Leaf A Companion to the Iliad London 1892 P' J

6 Eustath. in II. p. 1003, 13 ff. els Se t6v t6tov tovtov ttpocryp&tpovfft tlvcs Ka^ r°fitp^
roii <ttIx<jvs- 'wplv y 6re drf a awiXvaa irodwv, pvopovs 8' ivl Tpoly | /cd/3/3a^<"''
ireXoiTO Kal e&aop.e'voMTL irv8e,e8ai.i Kai SeiKVWTixl., (paaiv, uirb tuiv irepirjy^TCjv ol r
pihpoi, 08s avwripui &Kfiovas elirev. Qt'

7 Prellwitz Etym. WSrterb. d. Gr. Spr.'2 p. 302, Boisacq Diet. (tym. de la Lcv'S11
p. 648. Cp. Hesych. ap.vSpos- diairvpos trlS-qpos.

8 W. Leaf op. cit. p. 256.