Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,2): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits) (Cambridge, 1940)

The Hierbs Gdmos

In the first place, the great bulk of the evidence is comparatively late. If
we except one passage in the Iliad, neither ritual nor myth is attested before
the fifth century B.C. Moreover, the single exception is itself certainly an
addition, probably a late addition, to the Iliad. W. Leaf and M. A. Bayfield
assigned it to the third and latest stratum of the poem, a stratum which they
date between iooo and 800 B.C.1 Professor G. Murray, who lays stress on the
'Milesian' tone of the episode, speaks of it as 'that late Homeric story of the
Outwitting of Zeus' and refers it to a period when 'the Epos as a form of
living and growing poetry was doomed2.' However that may be, not a single
allusion to the sacred marriage of Zeus with Hera is forthcoming from the
Homeric hymns or Hesiod, from Pindar or the other lyrical poets, one indirect
reference only from Aischylos3, none from Sophokles, none from Herodotos,
Thoukydides, Demosthenes, Xenophon, Platon, none even from Pausanias.
Nor is the scene represented by monuments of any kind belonging to the
genuinely archaic period of Greek civilisation. This almost complete absence
of early evidence raises a suspicion that the hierbs gdmos was of comparatively
recent introduction.

In the second place, this suspicion is deepened by the fact that here and
there, even where the hierbs gdmos is attested, Zeus seems to have had an older
partner, who was not Hera, or Hera an older partner, who was not Zeus. For
example, we have seen reason to think that on Mount Kithairon Leto MycMa
or Nychia was paired with Zeus before the arrival of Hera4, and that in the
myth of Zeus' western marriage Themis, not Hera, was the original bride6.
A kylix by the painter Oltos strangely ignored Hera in favour of Hestia in
a scene perhaps reminiscent of the hierbs gdmos0. At Argos the evidence
pointed to a marriage of Hera, but did not prove that her original consort was
Zeus7; while at Knossos it was practically certain that the ritual marriage
of Zeus and Hera had been preceded by a ritual marriage of a sun-god and
a moon-goddess in bovine form8.

In short, the case for Hera as essentially and ab origiue the bride of Zeus
is neither proven nor probable.

1 The Iliad of Homer ed. W. Leaf and M. A. Bayfield London 1898 ii pp. xx, xxiii,
329 ff.

2 G. Murray The Rise of the Greek Epic Oxford 1907 p. 242 ff. Id. ib? Oxford 1924
p. 275 still speaks of ' that late Homeric story of the Tricking of Zeus'

3 Supra p. 1060 n. 7. 4 Supra p. 1042.

6 Supra p. 1064. 6 Supra p. 1049 n. 2 (2), fig. 843.

7 Supra p. 1045. 8 Supra i. 523, iii. 1032.