Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

Retrospect 843
over with oak-leaves because she was an oak-goddess\ whose
sacred tree, or a descendant of the same, was subsistmg as late
the eighteenth centuryl
as
A section on Zeus and the Twins showed first how the supports
of the Sky were gradually transformed into its supporters, passing
through successive stages as pillars, pillars with personal names,
pillars with individual effigies, and pillars in the shape of the
Dioskouroi^. When the old popular belief in a flat earth over-
arched by a solid sky resting on side-props gave place to the
philosophic idea of a globe enclosed in a sphere half light, half
dark, room was still found for the Dioskouroi by a daring personi-
fication of the two hemispheres ^ Next it was contended that the
Sky, appearing alternately as Day and Night, is essentially of a
twin character. Hence the savage notion that twins in general are
'Children of the Sky^' Hence too the contrast between numerous
mythical pairs of Twins", for instance Kastor and Polydeukes'',
Romulus and Remus^ Zetes and Kalais®, Zethos and Amphion^",
Herakles and Iphikles". A recurring feature in such cases is the
comparative feebleness of one of the Twins, a feebleness sometimes
amounting to effeminacy, which therefore paves the way for the
recognition of Twins male and female^-. Lastly, in this connexion
we investigated the supposed twinship of Apollon and Artemis^^
A survey of recent opinions with regard to \}l\& provenance of Apollon"
was followed by a detailed discussion of the crucial Hyperborean
myth". The 'wondrous way' to the land of the Hyperboreoi men-
tioned by Pindar was held to be none other than the celestial
'road of Zeus,' but the Hyperborean sacrifice of asses to Apollon
suggested rather a terrestrial abode in or near Thrace^''. And this
bilocation squared with other mythical happenings— Herakles' cap-
ture of the hind with golden horns among the Hyperboreoi of 'the
Istrian land'',' his introduction of the white-poplar to Olympia from
Thesprotia'^ and the metamorphosis of the Heliades into black-
poplars on the banks of the Eridanos'^—the poplar, white or black,
being a Borderland or Otherworld tree^". Special attention was here
drawn to a neglected statement by Apollonios of Rhodes to the
effect that the Keltoi took amber to be the tears, not of the poplars,
but of Apollon, when banished by Zeus to the Hyperborean haunts'-^^
1 Supra p. 400 ff.
* Supra p. 432 ff.
^ Supra p. 436 ff.
10 Supra p. 445.
1* Supra p. 452 ff. " Supra p. 453 ff.
16 Supra p. 462 ff.
i« Supra p. 472 ff.
^ Supra p. 41 7 ff. ^ Supra p. 422 ff.
5 Supra p. 434 f. " Supra p. 435 ff., cp. p. 317.
^ Supra p. 440 ff.
'•* Supra p. 444 f.
" Stipra p. 445 ff.
'^ Supra p. 447 ff.
1" Supra p. 465 f.
'^ Supra p. 470 ff.
^^ Supra p. 459 ff.
'* Supra p. 467 ff.
-^ Supra p. 484.