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

242 The Origin of the Olympic Games [ch.
daimon of the eniautos. He is identical with the Kouros of the
Cretan hymn, who comes ' for the Year,' and brings with him the
blossoming of the Seasons 1 .
Before we leave the Kouretes and their foot-race, we must
mention a curious parallel from Hebrew tradition 2 ,
which gives us
a combination of moon and sun races, and also seems to confirm
the identification, already mentioned (p. 193), of the Kouretes
with the Roman Salii.
The Jewish Agada contains a dialogue between certain Rabbis
and their disciples concerning the hippodrome of Solomon.
Solomon held twelve horse-races in each year, one in every month.
' Why not thirteen ? ' says a disciple, for there were thirteen
months. One race, replies the Rabbi, was not a horse-race, but
a foot-race of young men of the tribe of Gad, as it is written 3 :
' And
of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David into the
hold to the wilderness, mighty men of valour, men trained for war,
that could handle shield and spear ; whose faces were like the faces
of lions, and they were swift as the roes upon the mountains.' This
race of youths was run in the intercalary month Tebeth which
contains the winter solstice. They also carried golden shields.
It is written of them 4 :
' As oft as the king went into the House
of the Lord, the Runners bare them (the golden shields), and
brought them back to their chamber.'
seem strangely
(o^n) These young men called ' Runners '
' analogous to the Roman Leapers ' (the Salii), who also kept shields
(ancilia) in a chamber and brought them out in solemn procession
in the month of Mars—the first month of the old Roman year.
The interesting point about Solomon's Kouretes-Salii is that their
race, falling in the intercalary month, seems to be a moon-race on
foot, as contrasted with the horse-races of the sun in the other
twelve months. Such may originally have been the foot-race of
the Idaean Kouretes at Olympia, becoming a sun-race when
the Kouros was identified with the sun.
1 ' Does this conception throw light on the obscure figure of the Saviour Yeaa'
(Avk&Pcls Swfwj') in Asia Minor? Cf. Eoscher,
according to Stengel (Hermes, xvin., p. 304) is
Lex. , s.v.
the moon.
Orthopolis. Awd/Saj,
2 See Wiinsche, Salomos Hippodrom als Abbild des babylonischen Himmelsbildes,
Leipzig, 1906. Cf. Eisler, Arch. f. Religionswiss. xi. (1907) 150.
s 1 Chron. xii. 8.
4 1 Kings xiv. 28. The Authorised Version not understanding the Runners
translates CVin by 'the guard.'