Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

The Delphic 07nphal6s 189
were two, not one, is hardly to be explained as a device of heraldry',
or the result of a desire for symmetry-, or an attempt to represent
both sides of a single bird^, or a juxtaposition of memory pictures*.
Rather it illustrates Usener's law of religious development' : the
eagles are Augenblicksgotter that have not yet coalesced into a
Sondergott.
But I am far from supposing that we have thus exhausted the
import of the Delphic omphalos. It will not do to blink the question
: Why was a particular mound of earth reduced to a compact
shape and safeguarded by a whole network of fillets ? When
W. H. Roscher shows that the term ovipJialds was used of earth's
central pointy he does indeed insist upon a truth which helps to
explain a variety o{ data, but he does not— to my thinking—really
get down to the root of things. For, after all, early man was {pace
Piette'') a poor mathematician and knew little of circles and centres.
No, we must assume that to him the word omphalos meant just
what it says— 'the navel,' that is, the navel of the human body, not
the hub of the universe. Now there is reason to believe that the
Delphic cult was once comparable with that of 'Minoan' Crete^
P. Weizsacker in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 1598 f. fig.: but see P. Fiiedlander in Pauly
Wissowa Real-Enc. vii. 744).
It may be objected that some of these transformation-scenes are palpably late figments
[e.g. the eagle spying upon Semele), that others were probably modelled on the myth of
Ganymedes [e.g. the eagle ravishing Aigina : so P. Friedlander loc. cit. vii. 739), and that
in his case earlier versions of the tale are extant not involving the bird-metamorphosis at
all {id. ib. vii. 737 ff.). But we do well to bear in mind that late writers often used early
materials (cp. Gruppe Gr. Atyth. Rel. p. 126 n. 5), and that the appearance of Zeus as
an eagle is supported by numerous parallels.
' E. Curtius Ut'ber VVappengebrauch tmd Wappenstil im griechischen Allerthttni {Abk.
d. berl. Akad. 1874 Phil. -hist. Classe) Berlin 1874 p. 104 ff., Perrot—Chipiez Hist, de
PArt vi. 8-;6f., M. Hoernes Urgcschichte der bildendcn Kimst in Europa Wien 1898
pp. 489 f., 495, 501 f., 630, Furtwangler Ant. Gemmen iii. 55, Sir A. J. Evans in the
Jotirn. Hell. Stud. 1901 xxi. 152 ff.
- A. Riegl Stilfragen Berlin 1893 pp. 33— 40.
•' Good examples of ' split ' quadrupeds and bii'ds are given by F. Boas ' The Decorative
Art of the Indians of the North Pacific Coast ' in the Bulletitt of the American
JMitseum of Natural History 1897 ix. 144 ff. with figs.—a reference kindly supplied to me
by my friend Dr A. C. Haddon.
^ E. Loewy The Rendering of Nature in early Greek Art trans. J. Fothergill London
1907 p. 29 f. fig. 7.
•' Supra p. 13 n. I.
'° Supra p. 167.
" E. Piette ' Etudes d'ethnographie prehistorique iii Les galets colories du Mas-d'Azil
in L^Anthropologic 1896 vii. 385—427 with figs, i— 107 and Atlas of 25 col. pis., cp.
'Les galets peints du Mas-d'Azil' ib. 1903 xiv. 655—660 with figs, i— 4, H. Obermaier
Der Mensch aller Zeiten i
and figs. 136— 138.
(Der Mensch der Vorzeit) Berlin etc. 1912 p. 216 ff. col. pi. 13
** The first priests of Apollon Delphhiios at Pytho were Kp^res ciTro Kvixxraov Mivtifiov
(h. Ap. 388 ff. : see further W. Aly Der kretische Apollonkult Leipzig 1908 p. 35 ff.,
M. II. .Swindler Cretan Elements in the Cults and Ritual of Apollo (Bryn Mawr College