DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9840#0267
XIII.]
SITE OK THE TOMB OF ZEUS.
213
the length of which was about eighty feet. Within
this space is an aperture in the ground, which may
perhaps once have led into a moderate-sized cave ; but,
whatever may have been its former size, it is now so
filled up, that a man cannot stand in it, and its diameter
is not above eight or ten feet6.
These then are the only remains of that object of
deep religious veneration, the supposed tomb of " the
Father of gods and men," with its celebrated inscription,
All which devouring Time, in his so mighty waste,
Demolishing those walls, hath utterly defac'd:
So that the earth doth feel the ruinous heaps of stones,
That with their burd'nous weight now press his sacred bones 7.
I now stand on the spot, in which Zeus was sup-
posed to be at rest from all celestial and terrestrial
cares, and which was so celebrated during many ages !
The testimony of a long series of ancient and ecclesi-
astical authors8, proves fully and distinctly, that the
6 A good deal of alteration has been produced, during the last four
centuries, in the cavern, if its locality was the same in the days of Buon-
delmonti, in Cornelius, Creta Sacra, Vol. i. p. 10. "Juxta viam euntem
ad montem Jurte ad dexteram spileum in saxo parvo ore est, cujus longitudo
xlii, latitudo vero iv, passuum, in cujus capite sepulcrum Jovis maximi
est, cum Uteris deletis." Ibid. p. 97- " Cum epitaphio tarn deleto quod vix
literam cognoscere potuimus aliquam, sed quia per totam insulam ita esse
pervulgatum cognovi, omnia credere non difficile fuit." See also Belon,
Observations etc. c. xvn. " Le sepulcre de Jupiter, tel que les anciens l'ont
descrit, est encor monstre pour le jour d'huy, qui dure en son entier." I
cannot believe the incredulous sneer of Tournefort, Voyage du Levant,
Tom. i. p. 68. to be deserved by this careful and trustworthy observer.
Savary was shewn the summit like myself, Lettre xxu. p. 194. If the
supposed tomb was here, on the summit of Juktas, we may compare it with
another at the top of a lofty mountain, near Petra the capital of Idumea, and
which, according to traditions preserved among the Arabs, is the burial-place
of the prophet Harun or Aaron : see Numbers xx. 22—29. and Laborde,
Arabia Petraea, p. 191. and 194. ed. Lond. This comparison becomes still
more appropriate, if we follow the Scholiast of Callimachus, Hymn to
Zeus, v. 8. who says that the tomb was, at first, that of the Cretan lawgiver
Minos, and that its inscription was Mivwos rov Aids Ta^os.
7 Drayton, Poly-Olbion, Song xvi.
8 Cicero, de N. D. in. 21. "Tertium (Jovem) Cretensem, Saturni
filium : cujus in ilia insula sepulcrum ostenditur." Diodorus Siculus,
ill. 61. (p. 230.) AeiKWfievov tov ti\v Ta<pijv fie^a/ievou tottov fxeypi twv
SITE OK THE TOMB OF ZEUS.
213
the length of which was about eighty feet. Within
this space is an aperture in the ground, which may
perhaps once have led into a moderate-sized cave ; but,
whatever may have been its former size, it is now so
filled up, that a man cannot stand in it, and its diameter
is not above eight or ten feet6.
These then are the only remains of that object of
deep religious veneration, the supposed tomb of " the
Father of gods and men," with its celebrated inscription,
All which devouring Time, in his so mighty waste,
Demolishing those walls, hath utterly defac'd:
So that the earth doth feel the ruinous heaps of stones,
That with their burd'nous weight now press his sacred bones 7.
I now stand on the spot, in which Zeus was sup-
posed to be at rest from all celestial and terrestrial
cares, and which was so celebrated during many ages !
The testimony of a long series of ancient and ecclesi-
astical authors8, proves fully and distinctly, that the
6 A good deal of alteration has been produced, during the last four
centuries, in the cavern, if its locality was the same in the days of Buon-
delmonti, in Cornelius, Creta Sacra, Vol. i. p. 10. "Juxta viam euntem
ad montem Jurte ad dexteram spileum in saxo parvo ore est, cujus longitudo
xlii, latitudo vero iv, passuum, in cujus capite sepulcrum Jovis maximi
est, cum Uteris deletis." Ibid. p. 97- " Cum epitaphio tarn deleto quod vix
literam cognoscere potuimus aliquam, sed quia per totam insulam ita esse
pervulgatum cognovi, omnia credere non difficile fuit." See also Belon,
Observations etc. c. xvn. " Le sepulcre de Jupiter, tel que les anciens l'ont
descrit, est encor monstre pour le jour d'huy, qui dure en son entier." I
cannot believe the incredulous sneer of Tournefort, Voyage du Levant,
Tom. i. p. 68. to be deserved by this careful and trustworthy observer.
Savary was shewn the summit like myself, Lettre xxu. p. 194. If the
supposed tomb was here, on the summit of Juktas, we may compare it with
another at the top of a lofty mountain, near Petra the capital of Idumea, and
which, according to traditions preserved among the Arabs, is the burial-place
of the prophet Harun or Aaron : see Numbers xx. 22—29. and Laborde,
Arabia Petraea, p. 191. and 194. ed. Lond. This comparison becomes still
more appropriate, if we follow the Scholiast of Callimachus, Hymn to
Zeus, v. 8. who says that the tomb was, at first, that of the Cretan lawgiver
Minos, and that its inscription was Mivwos rov Aids Ta^os.
7 Drayton, Poly-Olbion, Song xvi.
8 Cicero, de N. D. in. 21. "Tertium (Jovem) Cretensem, Saturni
filium : cujus in ilia insula sepulcrum ostenditur." Diodorus Siculus,
ill. 61. (p. 230.) AeiKWfievov tov ti\v Ta<pijv fie^a/ievou tottov fxeypi twv