Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

80 Magic [CH.
thunder of Zeus, and as such condemned to eternal blasting in
Hades.
Salmoneus saw I cruel payment making
For that he mocked the lightning and the thunder
Of Jove in high Olympus. His four steeds
Bore him aloft : shaking a fiery torch
Through the Greek folk, midway in Elis town
In triumph went he—for himself, mad man,
He claimed God's rights. The inimitable bolt
He mimicked and the storm cloud with the beat
Of brass and clashing horse hooves.
Even the kindly Plutarch 1
feels that on such as imitate
thunder and lightning God justly looks askance, but he adds.
iiiiimiimiiiiuiiiiii
Fig. 12.
pleasantly, ' to those who imitate him in virtue, God gives a share
of his Eunoinia and Dike.'
Vergil describes the mad and blasphemous king as though he
was an Olympian victor, and as such Salmoneus is depicted on the
vase-painting from the fifth century krater 2 in Fig. 12. The central
figure, Salmoneus, both holds and wears a wreath, and is all
decked about with olive sprigs and fillets. In his right hand is
1 Ad princip. incrud. 780 F vepLeaq. yap 6 Oebs rots aTro/M/j.ov/j.4i>ois
Kepawovs /ecu aKTivofiokias, aKTivofSokia probably means 'sunshine.'
WVTO.S KCL l
2 Now in Chicago, published by Prof. Ernest Gardner in the American Journal
of Archeology, in. (1899), 331, pi. 4, and wrongly, I think, interpreted as the madness
of Athamas.