Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

The axes of Penelope 693
of Thrace, armed with a double axe {pelekysy, pursued Prokne and
Philomela till the gods changed them all into birds—Tereus becom-
ing a hoopoe, Prokne a nightingale, Philomela a swallow. Just so
Polytechnos of Kolophon, to whom Hephaistos had given a double
axe {pelekys), pursued Aedon and Chelidonis till Zeus transformed
the whole family into birds—Polytechnos into a woodpecker {pele-
kdii), the brother of Aedon into a hoopoe, etc.^ The boast of
Polytechnos and Aedon that they loved each other more than Zeus
and Hera suggests that Polytechnos was originally an epithet of
Zeus^ conceived as a woodpecker^ If so, Tereiis too may have been
^ So Apollod. 3. 14. 8. Other mythographers arm Tereus with a sword (Konon narr.
31, Ov. met. 6. 666, 673, Ach. Tat. 5. 3 and 5. 5, schol. Aristoph. av. ?i2), Aristophanes
equips him with shield and lance (Aristoph. Lys. 563), and an Apulian vase at Naples
gives him a couple'of spears ( Heydemann Vasensamml. Neapel p. 533 f. no. 3233, J. Roulez
in the Nouv. Ann. 1839 ii. 261 ff. pi. 21 and pi. D, Reinach R^p. Vases i. 239 f., i, 2).
F. G. Welcker Die Aeschylische Trilogie Prometheus »nd die Kabirenweihe zu Lemnos
Darmstadt 1824 p. _so2 n. 796, E. Oder in the Rhein. Miis. 1888 xliii. 555, and O. Hofer
in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 2345 n.** take the iriXeKvs to be a trait borrowed from the
Asia Minor version.
- Ant. Lib. 11 (citing Boios dpvidoyovla).
^ Cp. the description of the Dodonaean Zeus in VmA. frag. 57 Schroeder ap. Dion
Chrys. or, \2 p. 416 Reiske'AwSaii'are |iie7a(r^6>'^s |
dpicrdTex'^o.
Trdrep.' odros yap dr] TrpQros
/cat TeXeioTaTosdrj/juovpyds, x^PVyov Xa/Scoi' rrjs avTou rix^fl'S, ov ttjv 'Yi.\elwv wdXiv, dXXd tt/i'
iraaav tov Travrbs v\r]v. S. Wide in the Sertum philologictun Carolo Ferdinando Johansson
oblatum Goteborg 1910 p. 66 ff. thinks that the priests of Dodona got their name rbp-apoi
(rbixovpoL), 'carpenters,' from the sacred doves nesting in the hollow oak ('Es lag ja nahe,
den in dem heiligen Baume pickenden Vogel TSfiapo^ zu nennen, denn er war ja ein
Zimmermann mit der Axt, vgl. die modernen Benennungen des Spechtes : Schweiz. Zim-
7/iermann. fra.n7.6s. Volksprache Charpentier, italien. Carpentiere, ...u.s.w.'). T6/j.ovpoi ma.y
indeed mean 'cutters,' as I conjectured years ago {Class. Rev. 1903 xvii. i8of.), under-
standing thereby a clan privileged to cut the sacred oaks; but that they were named after
a 'cutter '-dove seems to me improbable. It was the priestesses, not the priests, who,
according to some, were known as TreXeiciSes {supra i. 443).
•* The phrase YUkos 6 Kai Zei/s, to vv^hich I drew attention some time since {Class. Rev.
1903 xvii. 412, Folk-lore 1904 xv. 387), has in sundry qwaviexs fait fortune—see e.g. Miss
J. E. Harrison in the Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of
Religions Oxford 1908 ii. 161, W. R. Halliday Greek Divination I>ondon 1913 p. 265 n.
I with context, and especially the interesting little volume of my friend J. Rendel Harris
Fieus who is also Zeus Cambridge 1916. It seems, therefore, worth while to attempt some
investigation of its antecedents, a task in which, so far as Byzantine literature is concerned,
I have had the kind assistance of Prof. J. B. Bury.
The Weltchronik, as contained in the compilation of Georgios Kedrenos {c. 1 100 A.D.),
is to the following effect (Kedren. hist. co7np. 15 B ff. (i. 28 ff. Bekker), cp. ib. 20 D (i. 37),
81 D (i. 144)) :—Of the tribe of Sem (Shem) was Chous (Cush) the Aethiopian. He begat
Nebrod (Nimrod) the founder of Babylon, called also Orion, who was the first to become
king on earth: he ruled over Assyria and took as title the name of the planet Kronos.
His wife was Semiramis, called also Rhea. Their children were Pikos, who took the name
Zeus (Ht/cos, 6s koX fj-eruvoixdcrdT) Zei/s), Belos, Ninos, and Hera. Ninos founded Nineui
(Nineveh) and married his own mother Semiramis. Africanus adds that Kronos had an-
other son, Aphros the forefather of the Aphroi (Africans), who married Astynome and
begat Aphrodite. Kronos, expelled from his kingdom by his own son Zeus, went west-