DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0052
i6
MYTHICAL ART.
they had made all things in due order and ruled in every region.'
Even as late as the time of Pausanias there was a grove in Mount
Lycseus in Arcadia consecrated to Zeus Lycseus, into which men
were forbidden to enter. 'Whoever enters dies within the year.'1 On
the summit of this very mountain a conical mound of earth is still to
be seen, and similar ones have been found in the Altis of Olympia,
and on the top of Mount ^Enus in Cephalonia. This ^//^'-mono-
theistic worship of the Arcadian Zeus must therefore have existed
side by side with fully developed polytheism during the whole period
of Greek history.
According to Herodotus the Pelasgi learned the names of the
gods from the Egyptians. They seem, however, to have received
some of their idols with their names from the Phoenicians. Among
the first and most popular of these strange deities was the image of
Astarte Aphrodite? who was said to have risen from the sea. But
though many of the Gods of Greece may have been foreign importa-
tions, others were the natural development of symbols. It is not
necessary, of course, that the symbol should in any proper sense repre-
sent the object of worship. The form of the symbol is a matter
of indifference; nay, we may say that mystical religion has always
preferred the most shapeless and grotesque objects. Pausanias;i
speaks of thirty pillars erected at Pherse, each of which has the
name of a God and received divine honours from the inhabitants.
In the temple of the Graces at Cyzicus was a three-cornered pillar
which Athene herself presented as the first work of art,4 and coins of
Ambracia, Apollonia and Oricus in Illyria bear on them a pointed
pillar (AttoWcov iccovoei&iis) which represents Apollo 'Ajuievs.''
Spears were looked on as symbols of the Gods, and even the spear
of Agamemnon was an object of worship in Chnsroneia.n The first
Here (Juno) at Argos was a pillar (iclav), the Athene at Lindos a smooth
1 Pausan. viii. 48. Conf. Curtius, Hist,
of Greece (WarcTs translation).
■ For the prototype of Aphrodite viife
Layard, A/on. of Nineveh, pi. xiv. 5, 6.
Conf. Birch, Anc. Pottery, ' Mylitta of the
Greeks.'
J vii. 22, 3.
1 Jacobs, Anthol. Pal. p. 297 11. 342. O.
Midler, ffandb. if. ArchHol. sec. 66.
s O. Midler, Archiiol. if. K. sec. 66 and
Den km. if. a/ten Kunst, Taf. 1, No. 2.
" l'aus. i.\. 40, 6.
MYTHICAL ART.
they had made all things in due order and ruled in every region.'
Even as late as the time of Pausanias there was a grove in Mount
Lycseus in Arcadia consecrated to Zeus Lycseus, into which men
were forbidden to enter. 'Whoever enters dies within the year.'1 On
the summit of this very mountain a conical mound of earth is still to
be seen, and similar ones have been found in the Altis of Olympia,
and on the top of Mount ^Enus in Cephalonia. This ^//^'-mono-
theistic worship of the Arcadian Zeus must therefore have existed
side by side with fully developed polytheism during the whole period
of Greek history.
According to Herodotus the Pelasgi learned the names of the
gods from the Egyptians. They seem, however, to have received
some of their idols with their names from the Phoenicians. Among
the first and most popular of these strange deities was the image of
Astarte Aphrodite? who was said to have risen from the sea. But
though many of the Gods of Greece may have been foreign importa-
tions, others were the natural development of symbols. It is not
necessary, of course, that the symbol should in any proper sense repre-
sent the object of worship. The form of the symbol is a matter
of indifference; nay, we may say that mystical religion has always
preferred the most shapeless and grotesque objects. Pausanias;i
speaks of thirty pillars erected at Pherse, each of which has the
name of a God and received divine honours from the inhabitants.
In the temple of the Graces at Cyzicus was a three-cornered pillar
which Athene herself presented as the first work of art,4 and coins of
Ambracia, Apollonia and Oricus in Illyria bear on them a pointed
pillar (AttoWcov iccovoei&iis) which represents Apollo 'Ajuievs.''
Spears were looked on as symbols of the Gods, and even the spear
of Agamemnon was an object of worship in Chnsroneia.n The first
Here (Juno) at Argos was a pillar (iclav), the Athene at Lindos a smooth
1 Pausan. viii. 48. Conf. Curtius, Hist,
of Greece (WarcTs translation).
■ For the prototype of Aphrodite viife
Layard, A/on. of Nineveh, pi. xiv. 5, 6.
Conf. Birch, Anc. Pottery, ' Mylitta of the
Greeks.'
J vii. 22, 3.
1 Jacobs, Anthol. Pal. p. 297 11. 342. O.
Midler, ffandb. if. ArchHol. sec. 66.
s O. Midler, Archiiol. if. K. sec. 66 and
Den km. if. a/ten Kunst, Taf. 1, No. 2.
" l'aus. i.\. 40, 6.