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Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

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302 The Mother-goddess and h^r pdredros<br />

Kybele\ Set aga<strong>in</strong>st the background of a great scallop-shell, a motif<br />

appropriate to a Mother-goddess^, we see Laberia pour<strong>in</strong>g a libation,<br />

not, as we might have expected, to Kybele, but to <strong>Zeus</strong>. The small<br />

Fig. 194.<br />

altar decorated with a festooned eagle, the garland of bay-leaves^<br />

hang<strong>in</strong>g from the left hand of the priestess, the bearded head slung<br />

between her breasts, all proclaim the essential relation of the Mothergoddess<br />

to the Father-god.<br />

^ The <strong>in</strong>scription {Corp. iitscr. Lai. vi no. 2257 = Dessau Inscr. Lat. sel. no. 4160)<br />

runs : Laberia Felicia |<br />

sacerdos<br />

maxima |<br />

Matris<br />

deum m(agnae) I(daeae).<br />

^ See L. Stephani <strong>in</strong> the Compte-rendu St. P^t. 1870— 1871 p. 17 ff., Gruppe Gr.<br />

Myth. Ret. p. 1349<br />

f., S. Seligmann Der b'dse Blick i<strong>in</strong>d Verivandtes Berl<strong>in</strong> 1910 ii. i26f.,<br />

2048"., alib., O. \\.t\\er Die antikc Tierwdt Leipzig 1913 ii. 560 f. The symbolism rests<br />

on the resemblance of the shell to the womb : the Greeks spoke of the scallop as Kxeis or<br />

KTivLov (Stephanus Thes. Gr. L<strong>in</strong>g. iv. 2028 A— c).<br />

^ So Amelung loc. cit. Baumeister loc. cit. says ' Eichenzweig,' Dessau loc. cit.<br />

'coronam quernam.' Apparently a trail of bay-leaves has been wrongly restored as a<br />

wreath of oak.

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