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

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254 The Origin of the Olympic Games [ch.
When we put these scattered indications together, we con-
jecture that the Kronian sacrifice of the Basilai at Olympia was
one of those old spring festivals of the New Year, at which the
resurrection of life in nature was symbolised in various ways '.
To resume this part of our argument. We find that the stoiy
of the eating and resurrection of Pelops at the mountain banquet
hangs together with the presence at Olympia, both in legend and
in cult, of the Kouretes, attendant on the Mother and Child.
Pindar's description preserves a trait which, with the evidence of
Athenaeus, points to the Kronian character of the rite. On the
hill of Kronos we know of a festival connected with Kronos, which
was celebrated at the spring equinox, when the youthful sun comes
of age. The sacrifice is conducted by priests called Basilai, or
Kings : and the re/cvocjxiyLai characteristic of the house of Pelops
are associated with the succession to the kingdom. From these
indications we conclude that, while the birth of the new Year God
was celebrated in the cult of the infant Sosipolis, his Easter death
and resurrection—his initiation or inauguration when he passes
from childhood to youth—was marked in ritual by the Kronian
festival of the Basilai in March, and in myth by the death and
rebirth of the youth Pelops at the mountain banquet of Tantalus.
In the Third Olympian Pelops is actually called ' Kronios'—
the very epithet by which the Kouros is invoked in the Cretan
hymn :
'16),
Meyierre Kovpe, xa 6
'P '
P0l i
Kpoiue.
It is to be wished that Pausanias had recorded more details of
the vernal sacrifice of the Basilai on the hill of Kronos. The title
Basileus is constantly given to Kronos; at Olympia he seems to
have been the arch-basileus of a college of Basilai. Possibly some
light may be thrown upon his obscure figure by the Basileus at
Priene 2 .
An inscription has come to light upon the basis of a statue
1 An Attic spring sacrifice (in Elaphebolion) to Kronos is attested by an
inscription I. G. 3. 77. 23. "Wissowa in Eoscher, Lex., s.v. Saturnus, col. 438,
rejects von Prott's view (Leges graec. sacrae, i. 12) that this was borrowed from
Rome.
2 H. v. Gartringen, Inschr. v. Priene, 1906, p. 136, No. 186, gives an inscription
from the base of a bronze statue of the second century b.c. found in situ at the N.W.
corner of the Agora at the entrance to a temple : Ba