Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

494
Apollon and Artemis
branch of this great trade-route ran direct from the Baltic to the
Black Sea, traversing the valleys of the Vistula and the Dniester,
while a second branch, passing along the Elbe, the Moldau, the
Danube, came down to the Adriatic, the Balkans, and Greece'. In
the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age the Elbe-Danube-Adriatic
route was extensively used by the amber-trade^. It may therefore
be regarded as reasonable to place the Hyperboreans of the myth
pretty much where Pindar placed them, near ' the shady springs
of Istros^'
This location is to some extent confirmed by recent enquiries
into the etymology of the name Hyperboreoi. In 1892 W. Prellwitz*
first propounded the view that Boreas means the wind ' from the
mountain' (Church Slavonic gora)—a view accepted in 1898 by
H. Pedersen^ and in 1901 by O. Schrader**. Pedersen accordingly
takes the word hyperboreos to denote 'beyond the mountains.' In
1905 O. Schroeder'^ argued that the Hyperboreans were, not an
idealised earthly tribe, but a ' Hivtmelsvolk' of divinised heroes.
Belief in them arose in a land where and at a time when the word
for 'mountain' was *bdris—a form presumed for the pre-Greek
dialects of northern Greece. Now the highest mountain between
the rivers Haliakmon and Axios is the ancient Bora^ or modern
Nidje, which attains an elevation of over 2000"!". We must conceive
of the Hyperbdreoi as dwelling, not on the earth 'beyond Bora^",'
but in the sky ' above Bora".' Schroeder's conclusions were approved
in 1914 by R. Gi-inther and Daebritz''^. In the same year Kiessling"
admitted that ' Hyperbdreoi really meant above Bora,' but insisted
that from the beginning of s. v B.C. it was interpreted ' beyond
und die Goldfunde' ib. 1891 xxiii Verhandlungen p. 286 ff., H. Bliimner in Pauly
Wissowa Rcal-Eiic. iii. 298 f., Schrader Reallex.- pp. 96— loi.
^
J.
Dechelette Matiitd (T arch^ologie prehisloriqite Paris 1908 i. 626 f.
^ Id. op. cit. Paris 1910 ii. i. I9ff., 1913 ii. 2. 872 ff., 1914 ii. 3. 1327 ff., 1573
to roads down the eastern side of the Adriatic, A. J. B. Wace and M. S. Thompson
Prehistoiic Thessaly Cambridge 191 2 p. 3 observe :
ff. As
' The main route from north to south
seems to have come down Central Epirus to Ambracia (Arta, "kpra.), and thence to have
crept round the coast past Amphilochian Argos into the lower Achelous valley.'
' Supra p. 465.
* Prellwitz Etym. Wdrterb. d. Gr. Spr.^ p. 50, id. ih."^ p. 81.
' H. Pedersen in the Zeitschriftfiir vergleichende Sprachfo7-schitng 1898 xxxvi. 319.
^ Schrader Keallex. p. 956.
' O. Schroeder ' Hyperboreer' in the Archiv f. Rel. 1905 viii. 79 f., 82 f.
Epiro.
^ Liv. 45. 29 quarta regio trans Boram montem, una parte confinis Illyrico, altera
^ H. Kiepert Formae orbis antiqiii Berlin 1894 xvii J i gives the altitude as 2320'".
^^ Cp. virepirovTios. '1 Cp. inrepd.Kpi.os.
'^ R. Giinther and Daebritz in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. ix. 260.
^* Kiessling in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. i a. 8575.