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

VIIl] Cecrops as Daimon-Hero 263
longing to join his dear dikasts and violently held back by the
chorus, cries aloud :
Cecrops, hero, King, O thou who at thy feet art serpent-shaped.
The scholiast apologizes and explains, but every Athenian knew
that in his serpent's tail was the true nature and glory of the
hero.
As serpent-tailed the artist of the delightful archaic terra-
cotta 1 in Fig. 63 shows him to us. Half of him is a decorous
jfep.iike
Fig. 63.
and civilized statesman. He is bearded, and wears a neat chiton
he holds an olive spray in one human hand, he is thallophoros 2
;
with the forefinger of the other he touches his lips to enjoin a
sacred silence at the birth of a holy child. He stands erect and
solemn but he has no feet, only a coiling snake's-tail. So he
appears on many a vase-painting and relief; so Euripides 3 figured
him at the door of Ion's tent at Delphi : there
1 Berlin Cat. 2537.
2 See infra, p. 366.
3 Ion 1163
Cecrops with his daughters
Rolled up his spiral coils, the votive gift
Of some Athenian.
kolt elcrodovs 8k KeKpowa dvyareptov ire\as
'
(nreipas ovveCKiffcovT , AOwvaicov rivbs
dvddrifxa.
The daughters of Cecrops, unlike their father, are never figured with snakes' tails.
For female snake-tailed daimones see infra, p. 280, Fig. 71.
;