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Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

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and the trident of Poseidon 789<br />

as the lotos is concerned, no more cause to connect the trident with<br />

the sceptre than to connect it with the thunderbolt.<br />

In 1898 O. Gilbert, undeterred by an emphatic protest on the<br />

be<br />

part of C. Robert^ announced that Poseidon's trident ' must<br />

essentially identical with the lightn<strong>in</strong>g-.' He po<strong>in</strong>ted out that the<br />

Iliad describes Poseidon as<br />

Hold<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> his stout hand a dread long-edged<br />

Sword like the lightn<strong>in</strong>g^<br />

and that the mark of Poseidon's trident to be seen on the Akropolis<br />

at Athens^ is comparable with the elysia or enelysia caused by the<br />

lightn<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>Zeus</strong>*. H. Usener <strong>in</strong> 1905 likewise declared for the<br />

' orig<strong>in</strong>al identity of the Poseidonian trident with the thunderbolt".'<br />

He too quoted the l<strong>in</strong>es from the Iliad and laid stress on the resem-<br />

blance of the hypaethralUrident-mark at Athens to the hypaethral^<br />

bidental or lightn<strong>in</strong>g-monument of the Romans. Lastly he stated,<br />

on the authority of G. Loeschcke, that the weapon of <strong>Zeus</strong> is some-<br />

times tridentiform ^ Similar views were expressed <strong>in</strong> 1907 by the<br />

mythologist E. H. Meyer ^^ and <strong>in</strong> 1909 by the historian E. Meyer".<br />

1 Preller—Robert Gr. Myth. \. 570.<br />

- Gilbert Gr. Gbtterl. p. 170.<br />

^ //. 14. 384 fif. r)pxe 5' &pa (f

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