Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

Apollon and Artemis 473
earliest extant representation, that of an Arretine mould acquired in
1898 by the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston. A cast taken from the
mould (fig. 366)^ shows a relief, signed by Bargates a slave of the
potter M. Perennius, which subdivides into two distinct scenes. On
the right we see Phaethon fallen from the solar car. One wheel of it
lies beside him. The other is collected, as Valerius Flaccus says^ by
Tethys the wife of Okeanos, his grandmother*. Helios*, on horseback
with a spare horse at his side, has already caught two of the
chariot-team by the reins and will next turn his attention to the
remaining pair, of which one rears high in the air, the other collapses
on the ground. The scene is completed by the cause of Phaethon's
fall— Zeus in the act of hurling his bolt, accompanied by Artemis,
whose arrow would avenge the wrong done to Apollon, and by Iris^,
whose outstretched arms hold a fillet suggestive of a rainbow span-
ning the storm. On the left is the transformation of Phaethon's sisters.
One of them has been completely metamorphosed into a tree, from
whose branches large leaves of black-poplar are sprouting. The other
two are stiffening into the shape of Caryatids^ as they endeavour
with uplifted hand to free themselves from the branches visible above
them. In this last desperate effort they and their vanished sister
are helped by three young men, in all probability their brothers'',
with schol. ad he, Diod. 5. 23, Strab. 215, Dionys. ^er. 288 ff. with Eustath. ad loc,
Loukian. de salt. 55, de electro i ff., Philostr. mai. imagg. i. 11, Aristot. ?nir. ausc. 81 =
Steph. Byz. s.z>. "H.\€KTpi5es utjo-oi., Nonn. Dioti. 2. 152 ff., append, prov. 3. 8 (E. L. von
Leutsch—F. W. Schneidewin Paroeniiographi Graeci Gottingae 1839 i. 416 f.), Hesych.
s.v. ijXeKTpos, et. mag. pp. 425, 18 ff., 427, 6 ff.
^ E. Robinson in the Annual Report of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston 1898 xxiii.
89 no. 63 (diameter o'lg, height o"o8), P. Hartwig ' Eine Aretinische Gefassform mit
Scenen aus der Phaethonsage ' in Philologus 1899 Iviii. 481—497 with pi. ( = my fig. 366),
H. Goez ' Zu der Aretinischen Gefassform mit Scenen aus der Phaethonsage' ih. 1901 Ix.
478
f., G. Knaack in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 2195^2197 fig. i, H. B. Walters History
of Ancient Pottery London 1905 ii. 483 f. fig. 218, F. Oswald—T. D. Pryce An Intro-
duction to the Study of Terra Sigillata London 1920 p. 7.
^ Val. Flacc. 5. 431.
* Phaethon was the son of Helios by the Oceanid Klymene (G. Knaack in Roscher
Lex. Myth. iii. 2177). E. Robinson loc. cit. took the figure of Tethys to be ' possibly one
of the Heliades.' F. Hauser {Philologus 1899 Iviii. 485 n. 5) suggested Nemesis (^«/ra
i. 269 ff., 276). The right interpretation was first given by P. Hartwig loc. cit.
•• So P. Hartwig loc. cit.: certainly not ' Phaethon... vainly trying to hold his six
horses' (E. Robinson loc. cit.).
^ ' Nike or Iris?' (E. Robinson loc. cit.) : 'Aura oder Hora' (P. Hartwig loc. cit. with
express reservation) :
' eine gefltigelte Frauengestalt, die einen bogenformig ausgebreiteten
Gegenstand emporhalt (wohl Andeutung des Himmelsgewolbes) '
^ Supra p. 402 n. o.
(G. Knaack loc. cit.).
' E. Robinson loc. cit. is content to speak of them in each case as a ' youth.' P. Hartwig
loc. cit., after weighing the possibility that they may be ' Brlider oder Verwandte der
Heliaden,' accepts a suggestion of W. Helbig that they are labourers hacking at the trees
to get drops of amber: we are to assume that the ancients confused the method of collecting