Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

794
The thunderbolt of Zeus
versions were current concerning Erechtheus' death. According to
Euripides, he was slain by a blow of Poseidon's trident and hidden
in a chasm of earths According to Hyginus, he was slain b)' a
thunderbolt from Zeus at the request of Poseidon ^ Hence Petersen
concludes that Erechtheus was a figure essentially resembling
' Zeus-Amphiaraos, Zeus-Asklepios, Zeus-Trophonios^'; that the
hypaethral opening in the Erechtheion floor was the chasm where
he, the lightning-god, had entered the earth ; and that this same
chasm, on the advent of Poseidon, had been re-interpreted as his
trident-mark^. The whole story: thus becomes coherent, and I for
one accept Petersen's reading of it—though I should stipulate that
Fig- 757-
the epic Erechtheus was not a lightning-god, but a human king
regarded as the Hghtning-god incarnate.
Now the transition from the cult of Erechtheus to that of
Poseidon is much facilitated, if we may suppose that the latter, like
the former, wielded the lightning,—that his trident, in short, was
originally the thunderbolt.
So far, however, we have not met with any direct proof that
Poseidon was a lightning-god. Once, and once only, in the extant
remains of Greek art is he represented brandishing a bolt as though
he were Zeus. A remarkable tetradrachm of Messana, formerly in
the Hirsch collection and now at Brussels (fig. 757)^ has for its
obverse design a god wearing a cJilaviys over his upper arms in the
IIoo'eiScD/'os, tlis 'H(r^o5os iv KaTaX67(fj = Favorir!. ed. in W. Dindorf Gravnnatici Graci
Lipsiae 1823 i. 361, 8 f. The oldest monumental evidence is that of a black-figured
amphora by Amasis (c. 550—530 B.C.), now at Paris (De Ridder Cat. Vases de la Bibl.
Nat. i. 129 ff. no. 222. Lenormant—de Witte El. tiion. cer. i. 254 ff. pi. 78), which
shows Athena with her lance and Poseidon with his trident standing opposite to each
other in peaceful attitudes. E. Petersen op. cit. p. 65 observes that the scene presupposes
reconciliation after the contest at the Erechtheion— 'also Poseidon stattdes Erechtheus.'
^ Eur. Ion 281 f. ^ \iy