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)

962 General Conclusions with regard to

weary in soul, having drained many sufferings and sorrows in his
life without the solace of sweet sleep, even he, methinks, if he stood
over against this statue, would forget all the terrors and hardships
of humanity1.' Aforetime, adds Dion, in lack of clear knowledge
we dreamed our several dreams and fashioned our individual
fancies, or at most combined the unconvincing likenesses produced
by previous craftsmen2. 'But you,' he says turning to Pheidias,
' through the potency of your art have conquered and combined
Hellas first and then the rest of the world by means of this marvel,
a work so amazing and brilliant that no man who had once set
eyes on it could afterwards readily form a different conception3.'

Yet, granted all this, continues Dion, in making a human figure
of more than human beauty and magnitude out of these pleasing
materials, did you really select the right type and create a form
worthy of the god4? To which penetrating question Pheidias in his
own defence replies6, that he was not the first exponent and teacher
of truth heard by Plelias in her infancy. He had to deal with
a people already grown up and holding earnestly enough religious
views already accepted and established. He would not stress the
agreement of sculptors and painters in the past, but look rather to
those other craftsmen, the poets, older and wiser than himself.
They by virtue of their poems could lead men to form concepts,
whereas his handiwork could at best raise a sufficient probability.. ••
Mind and wisdom no modeller or painter can portray. Their task
is to know the human body in which these qualities reside, and
they attribute the same to God. In default of the original, they
seek by means of that which is seen and imaginable to show forth
that which is unimaginable and unseen, using a symbol superior
to the animal types by which barbarians represent the divine. •••
Nor can we maintain that it would have been a better plan to have
made no statue or semblance of the gods, but to have looked only
upon the heavenly bodies. The wise man worships every one of
these, deeming that he can see the blessed gods afar off. But all
men are so disposed towards the divine that they feel a passionate

1 Id. ib. p. 229 f. Dindorf avdp&irojv St, 6? av y iraprehws tiriirovos tt]V tpvxnvi 7roA^aJ
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%aXe7ra yiyveTai iraBeiv.

2 Id. ib. p. 230 Dindorf.

3 Id. ib. p. 230 Dindorf crv Be iax^' rixvys eW/cTjtras Kal crWXefas tt)v

^7retra tovs &\\ovs Tbide r^j <pd(T/j.arc, Oeaireaiov Kai \afXTrpbv airodd^as, d)s }j,7]devcL
IbbvTiov bb^av erepav '4tl Xafieiv paSiois.

4 Id. ib. p. 230 Dindorf. 5 Id. ib. p. 231 ff. Dindorf.