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

VII] Sosijwlis in Magnesia 241
pre-Olympian divinities—the elder gods of the Earth or of the
Sky 1 . Sosipolis, the snake-child, like Erichthonios, was of the
Earth 2 . The Earth was his mother; for 'Eileithyia' is only one
name of the Mother Goddess, Rhea, Demeter, Gaia.
In Magnesia, as we have seen
(p. 154), Sosipolis has become Zeus Sosi-
polis. Nevertheless, right down into
Imperial times the tradition survived
of his infant form and of his therio-
morph, the snake. Fig. 61 shows one
of a series of bronze coins of Magnesia
of the time of Caracalla 3 . On it
appears the infant Saviour seated on
a table or throne with legs of thunder-
bolt pattern. Round him are his
Kouretes, clashing their shields ; and, underneath, the snake
emerges from a cista.
Who was the child Sosipolis ? Not far from Olympia, at Elis
itself, Sosipolis had a sanctuary in common with Tyche. '
There he
was represented not as an infant, but as a boy, clad in a starspangled
robe and holding the horn of Amaltheia, the goat who
suckled the infant Zeus in Crete 4—the cornucopia with the fruits
of the year 5 . Tyche and Sosipolis are the same as Eirene and
the child Ploutos—the Hora 6 carrying the Wealth of the year.
The festival of Magnesian Sosipolis has already been discussed
(p. 150) ; and it has been argued that the bull, who was designated
at the full moon of the month Kronion—the month of seed-time
fed up all through the winter, and eaten at a communal meal in
spring or early summer, embodied the life of the year, was the
1 See J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena, p. 89.
2 Compare the snake-child Opheltes-Archemoros associated with the founding
of the Nemean Games (Apollod. in. 6. 4 ; Bacchyl. vin. 10) and the child Aix which
tended its father the Python slain by Apollo, connected with the origin of the
Pythia (Plut. Qu. Gr. p. 293 c ; see Nilsson, Gr. Feste, p. 151). Another
Olympian hero, Iamos, is nursed by snakes, Pind. 01. vi. 45.
3 From Eayet, Milet et le golfe Latinique, Fig. 36, p. 139. The obverse has the
laurel -crowned head of
pi. 8. 33.
Caracalla. See also Imhoof-Blumer, Gr. Miinzen, 1890,
4 The Cretan Zeus also has his snake form, Schol. Arat. 46 ; Eratosth. catast.
25. 62 ; cf. C. Kobert, loc. cit. supra.
5 Compare also the Eniautos with Amaltheia's horn in Ptolemy's procession,
p. 186, supra.
6 Hesiod, Theog. 903; Pind. 01. xni. 6 Evt>ofj.ia...AlKa...Eipr}va, rafilai. avdpacri
ttXoijtov.
H. 16
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