Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

The axe carried by priests and priestesses 629
not to mention many little votive double axes of the same material
(fig. 534, a—dy. P. Perdrizet^ indeed, conjectures that Ldbys, the
eunuch temple-sweeper sometimes credited with the Delphic maxim
' Know thyself ^' was the eponym of the Delphian phratry Labyddai*,
and that both names should be connected with the words
Labyrinthos and Idbrys.
Fig- 534-
A good example of the Idbrys surviving for ritual purposes has
recently been published by Schweitzer^ It is a bronze medallion
from Smyrna, of the first or second century A.D., now in the Ethnological
Museum at Munich. On it we see (fig. 535) a man wearing
a pointed pilos with chin-band and a heavy cloak, who puts incense
1 p. Perdrizet loc. cit. v. 2. 119 ff. figs. 438, 439, 440 ( = my fig. 534,0:: length
0-095'"), 441 (=my fig. 534,/^: length o'oy'"), 442, 443 ( = niy fig. 534,
0-065"'), 444 ( = my fig. 534, d\ length of axe-head 0-05'"), 445.
^ P. Perdrizet loc. cit. v. 1.4.
'^ Schol. Plat. Phileb. 48 c.
f: length
^ The AajSudSai are mentioned in Roehl Inscr. Gr. ant. no. 319, 2 (a rock-cut inscrip-
tion at Delphoi) tov Aa5i;d5ai' {sic) and in J. Baunack in Collitz—Bechtel Gr. Dial.-
Inschr. ii. 7188". no. 2561 = Michel Recueil d^ Inscr. gr. no. 995 = Dittenberger 6///. inscr.
Gr.- no. 438 a 3, 7, 10, 19, b 64, 83 f., lor, 107, rfr86, 207 f., 208 f., 214 (an inscription
found at Delphoi, giving regulations for the phratry Labyadai and dating from the close
of J. V B.C.).
^ Schweitzer in \he/ahrb. d. kais. deutsch. ai-ch. Inst. 1919 xxxiv Arch. Anz. pp. 38
49 fig. I (=my fig. 535). Diameter of medallion 6-6'='".