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

vni] Snake and Cornucopia 311
but because to him as Agathos Daimon libation of the new wine
will be made. In his left he holds a pomegranate, the symbol,
with its bursting seeds, of perennial fertility.
The relief in Fig. 89 * shows us another instructive element
We have the accustomed banquet scene made very human by the
crouching dog under the table. In the background, close to the
horse's head, is a tree, and round it is coiled a snake. The tree
and the snake wound round it are the ' immemorial symbol ' of
life. The snake, the Agathos Daimon, is the genius of growing
things, guardian of the Tree of Life, from the garden of Eden to
the garden of the Hesperides.
In Fig. 89 the foremost of the three banqueting men holds
a great horn from which the snake seems about to drink. Is the
horn just a drinking-cup, a rhyton, used by the dead man, or has
it some more solemn significance, some real connection with the
snake ? A chance notice in Athenaeus 2 gives us the needful clue.
Chamaileon, a disciple of Aristotle, in his treatise ' On
Drunkenness
noted that large cups were a characteristic of barbarians and not
in use among the Greeks. But he is aware of one exception.
In the various parts of Greece nowhere shall we find, either in paintings
or in historical records, any large-sized cup except those used in hero-ceremonies.
For example, they assign the cup called rhyton only to heroes.
Chamaileon feels that there is a difficulty somewhere, but he
explains that the cups of heroes are large because heroes are of
' difficult ' temper and dangerous habits. The reason I would
suggest is simpler. They '
assign ' the rhyton, the great horn,
as appropriate to a hero, because the hero as daimon had it from
the beginning—the rhyton is the cornucopia.
The snake and the great cornucopia, the ' Horn of Amaltheia,'
the ' Eniautos ' cup 3 are, I think, evidence enough that the ban-
queting man is conceived of as an Agathos Daimon. It is not
necessary to suppose that everywhere he was locally known by
1 From a relief in the local museum at Samos. Inv. 55. See Wiegand, Antike
Skulpturen in Samos, A. Mitth. 1900, p. 176.
2
XI. 4. 461 ev St roh wepl ttjv EXXdSa t6ttois, oifr' if ypcupais, oi"r' eirl rwv
irpbrepov, evp7)