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

IX] The King as Snake 433
interpreted as a well-house and may be such, but it is, I think,
more like ' 1 the imitation of the .'
dwelling of a tyrant or king
Fig. 133.
It will be remembered that on grave reliefs we have the hero
in human form standing with or without his
horse—a saga-figure drawn from reality—and
by his side his daimon-form, a coiled snake.
Now it is not a little curious that in a few
grave reliefs, an instance 2 of which is given in
Fig. 134, we have a man killing a snake. This
does not, I think, refer to any actual incident
in the man's life, does not imply that a man
died of the bite of a snake. It is simply the
old type misunderstood and made into a
pseudo-fact. A man and a snake side by
Fig. 134.
side on a tombstone. What does it mean ? We do not really
know, we have forgotten. It must mean something. Well then
the man must be killing the snake. Something like this happened
in mythology. There was a snake at Delphi probably painted on
the omphalos, and, it may be, a real snake used for divination.
There came to be a human god Apollo, side by side with the
snake. What was Apollo the bright and beautiful doing with
Snjtni, p. 42fi. 2 Sparta Cat. 565.
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