DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0213
THE METOPES OF SELIM US.
179
stories are as relics of a day when the godhead was
supposed to dwell actually in this or that animal form,
and, more remotely still, when the animal was itself the
god. But what the Egyptians could never free them-
selves from, the Greeks shook off for the most part in
almost prehistoric times. In a cave near Elis the
Phigaleians worshipped a hideous, wooden image of
Demeter. She was seated on a rock, with the body of a
woman, and clothed in a long robe reaching to the feet;
but she had the head of a horse with a mane, and about
the head clustered shapes of snakes and other wild beasts,
and she was called the black Demeter. This image
perished in a local fray, and the Phigaleians besought
the famous artist Onatas to fashion a new one. This he
did by the help of a drawing or copy of the old one, but
especially he was guided by a vision sent him. It seems
hardly far-fetched to suppose that he availed himself of
the vision to embody his idea of the goddess in some
shape more anthropomorphic, less grotesque. Again
and again in the note-book of Pausanias, as he travelled
in out-of-the-way country places, we come upon accounts
of strange xoana, or wooden images, worshipped with
obscure and superstitious rites, sometimes of degrading
character ; but this “seamy side” of Greek religion, un-
deniable as it is, serves only to point more emphatically
its generally beautiful and human character. When we
consider to what a flood of Oriental contagion of
179
stories are as relics of a day when the godhead was
supposed to dwell actually in this or that animal form,
and, more remotely still, when the animal was itself the
god. But what the Egyptians could never free them-
selves from, the Greeks shook off for the most part in
almost prehistoric times. In a cave near Elis the
Phigaleians worshipped a hideous, wooden image of
Demeter. She was seated on a rock, with the body of a
woman, and clothed in a long robe reaching to the feet;
but she had the head of a horse with a mane, and about
the head clustered shapes of snakes and other wild beasts,
and she was called the black Demeter. This image
perished in a local fray, and the Phigaleians besought
the famous artist Onatas to fashion a new one. This he
did by the help of a drawing or copy of the old one, but
especially he was guided by a vision sent him. It seems
hardly far-fetched to suppose that he availed himself of
the vision to embody his idea of the goddess in some
shape more anthropomorphic, less grotesque. Again
and again in the note-book of Pausanias, as he travelled
in out-of-the-way country places, we come upon accounts
of strange xoana, or wooden images, worshipped with
obscure and superstitious rites, sometimes of degrading
character ; but this “seamy side” of Greek religion, un-
deniable as it is, serves only to point more emphatically
its generally beautiful and human character. When we
consider to what a flood of Oriental contagion of