Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

196 The Delphic Tripod
lebes resting on a central shaft, which is conceived as a bay-trunk
and entwined with a snake— Python presumably, since the god's
quiver is hanging beside it. Similarly a statuette in Greek marble
that forms part of the same collection (fig. 137)^ represents ApoUon
Fig. 136. Fig. 137.
standing by a tripod, whose lebes again rests on a bay-trunk entwined
with a snake. The.se examples remind us that the name
tripos was given to a species of bay-tree with three roots'*. But a
statuette in Italian marble at Dresden (fig. 138)*, which presupposes
a Greek bronze* of Praxitelean character ^ shows Apollon leaning
on a columnar tripod of a much earlier type^ If it be objected that
the column necessary in a marble copy would have been absent
from the bronze original, we can point not only to reliefs' and vase-
1 Clarac Miis. de Sculpt, pi. 346 fig. 925 ( = my fig. 137), Frohner Sculpt, du Louvre i.
97 f. no. 73, Reinach Rip. Stat. i. 175 no. 5. Height 0535'". The parts restored are the
plinth, both feet of Apollon, the tip of his nose, a patch over his left breast, his right hand
with the bay-branch (tenon antique), his left hand with the snake's tail, the middle of the
snake's body, and the greater portion of the tripod-hoops.
^ Lact. Plac. in Stat. Theb. i. 509 tripos species est lauri, tres habens radices,
Apollini consecrata propter triplicem vim divinationis.
^ B. Leplat Recueil des marbres antiques qui se trouvent dans la galerie du roy de
Pologne a Dresden Dresde 1733 pi. 49, H. Hettner Die Bildwerke der k'oniglichen antiken
Sainnibuig zu Dresdm^ Dresden 1881 no. 160, Overbeck Gr. Kunsttnyth. Apollon
p. 211 Atlas pi. 22, 40 ( = myfig. 138), Reinach Rip. Stat. ii. 94 no. 6. Height 4ft. 6ins.
•* Overbeck Gr. A unstDiyth. Apollon p. 211.
^ Overbeck op. cit. p. 208 'iL, W. Klein Praxiteles Leipzig 1898 p. '58 fif.
^ Note that the supporting column tapers dowriwards like those of 'Minoan' art.
^ E. Fabricius in the fahrb. d. kais. deutsch. arch. Inst. 1886 i. 186 cites the Chigi base