Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

Lightning as a flash from an Eye 501
straws' But, as K. Wernicke- points out, 'Artemis Basileia is merely
Herodotos' translation of the Thracian Bendis^; and we have not the
remotest reason to connect Bendis with Apollon. Again, the story
of Kleinis made that Mesopotamian worthy accompany Apollon and
Artemis to the land of the Hyperboreans'*. But, when they got
there, it was Apollon, not Artemis, that received the sacrifice; and,
in any case, a contaminated Hellenistic romance is a source of very
dubious valuel O. Crusius" would emend Pindar's account of the
Hyperborean 'brute beasts ramping bolt upright {orthian)''' in such
a way as to make the delighted spectator, not Apollon, but Artemis
Orthia—a desperate expedient. Crusius urges that Pindar elsewhere
describes how 'Leto's horse-driving daughter' (Artemis) welcomed
Herakles to 'the Istrian land**.' But Pindar wishes us to believe that
Herakles brought thence the wild-olive and, as we have already
seen**, is giving a southern colour to a northern myth. Lastly, it
might be contended that the names of the Hyperborean maidens
Opis and Arge (Hekaerge), or Hyperoche and Laodike, imply the
cult of Artemis. That is probably true, and has been admitted'".
But they imply the cult of Artemis at Delos rather than in the land
of the Hyperboreans.
In short, we have no real ground for supposing that Artemis was
ab initio the twin sister of Apollon. There is more to be said for the
view that he first met her in Asia Minor or the Archipelago,
where she originated as the younger form of the Anatolian mothergoddess,
being related to Leto in much the same way as Persephone
to Demeter".
{b) Lightning as a flash from an Eye.
W. Schwartz in a noteworthy chapter of his Indogermanisclier
Volksglaiibe collects a mass of evidence to show that lightning is
^ Hdt. 4. 33
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