Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

The double axes of Tenedos 671
father's savage anger, fled to the shore and hurled themselves from a
cliff. Apollon, however, established them in the Chersonesos, giving
Parthenos a precinct at Boubastos and Molpadia a sanctuary at
Kastabos, where 'owing to her divinely-contrived epiphany i' she
received the name of Hemithea. Libations to her are made with
honey-mixture {nielikj^atoji), not wine ;
and no man that has touched
a pig or eaten of its flesh may approach her precinct. Here she
manifests herself by night, working cures and helping women in
childbirth. Each successive detail confirms us in the belief that at
Kastabos, as in Tenedos, Hemithea was essentially an earth-goddess.
The myths told of the two localities had other points in common.
Not only are the names Molpos and Hemithea in Tenedos balanced
by the names Molpadia and Hemithea at Kastabos, but the episode
of Tennes and Hemithea sent to sea in a chest is paralleled by the
episode of Rhoio and Anios similarly cast adrift. This motif \s best
known from the story of Danae and Perseus. It occurs, however, in at
least two other Greek tales, the Tegeate tale of Auge and Telephos^,
and that of Semele and Dionysos as told at Brasiai in Lakonike^
not to mention Romulus and Remus in Italy. In fact, the Danae-
formiila, as J. G. von Hahn* and T. F. Crane^ have pointed out, recurs
in modern Mdrchen from Naples'^, Tuscany'', Wallachia®, Epeiros",
etc.'". The Epirote tale, entitled The Half-Man, deserves repetition
' Old TTiV (XTro rov Beou yevofj.evTjv iiri