Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

41 8 The Golden or Purple
Ram of Phrixos
But, while recognising that the golden ram was intimately
related to Zeus, we have yet to ask—what was the significance of
the ram itself? In ancient times this question called forth an
amazing crop of rationalistic replies, stupid, stupider, and stupidest 1
.
The only one worth weighing at all is that put forward by Strabon,
who, in his account of Kolchis, writes as follows of the Soanes, a tribe
inhabiting the heights
of Mount Kaukasos above Dioskourias :
'In their country, so it is said, the torrents bring down gold, which is caught
by the barbarians in vats pierced with holes and on fleecy skins ; from which
practice arose the myth of the golden fleece 2 .'
But religion in general, and mythology in particular, has suf-
fered much at the hands of would-be rationalists. The only really
reasonable method of solving such problems is to abjure ingenious
guesses, get back to the earliest ascertainable form of the myth
and seek to understand it in comparison with other analogous
myths. Now the earliest ascertainable form of the myth in question
is that utilised by Sophokles. In his version Phrixos and
Helle were with the flocks of Athamas, when they were warned
3>t)£tos at his bidding (Ap. Rhod. 4. ngff.), or to Ares or Hermes (Sophoclean version :
supra p. 1 56, cp. Eudok. viol. 954) : Phrixos was brought home to Athamas by Hermes
(Hyg. poet. astr. 2. 20). The ram was the offspring of Poseidon and Theophane (Hyg.
fab. 3, 188), daughter of Bisaltis; when she was besieged by a multitude of suitors, he
carried her off to the island of Crumissa, changed her into a sheep, himself into a ram
(cp. Ov. met. 6. 117, Paus. 8. 8. 2, and see further Overbeck
pp. 344
Gr. Kunstmyth. Poseidon
— 347), the inhabitants of Crumissa into flocks, the suitors into wolves, and
consorted with her in animal form : (Hyg. fab. 188) he also rescued and had intercourse
with Helle (Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 2028).
1
Dionysios of Mytilene, an Alexandrine grammarian of the second century B.C., in
his mythological novel The Argonauts represented the ' Ram '
as a paidagogSs named
KriSs, who warned Phrixos of Ino's plot (schol. Ap. Rhod. r. 256, 2. 1144, 4. 177,
Eudok. viol. 262, cp. Palaiph. 30, Apostol. n. 58, Eudok. viol. 342, 954). When Phrixos
was captured by the Kolchoi, Krios was sacrificed to the gods, and his skin, in
accordance with an old custom, was nailed to the temple : Aietes, being warned by an
oracle that he wcftild perish as soon as strangers landed and carried off the skin of Krios,
built a wall about the precinct, established a guard there, and covered the skin with gold
to make it seem worth guarding (Diod. 4. 47). Others preferred to suppose that the
ram was the figure-head of Phrixos' ship, and that Helle, while suffering from sea-
sickness, leaned overboard and fell into the sea ! (schol. Ap. Rhod. 1. 256, Diod. 4. 47,
Eudok. viol. 954). This must surely have been the theme of some farcical performance
such as the Athamas, a satyric play by Xenokles (Ail. var. hist. 2. 8), or the pantomiims
written about the flight of Phrixos and Helle etc. (Loukian. de saltat. 42, 67). Further
choice samples may be found in Eudok. viol. 262 : the golden fleece was a treatise on
alchemy written on skins, or, according to Charax of Pergamon frag. 14 (Frag. hist. Gr.
iii. 639 Midler), a hand-book on the art of writing with gold ink bound in parchment
(cp. Eustath. in Dionys. per. 689). See further Souid. s.v. dtpas, anon, de incredib.
3 p. 321 f. Westermann, Favorin. lex. p. 1877, 5f.
2 Strab. 499, cited by Eustath. in Dionys. per. 689. My friend and colleague Prof.
W. Ridgeway The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards Cambridge 1S92
p. 70 finds this explanation '
extremely plausible.'
'
Plausible,' yes ; probable, no.