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

x] The Olympians reject Ouranian Aspect 453
are simply armed men, hoplites, like the crop of men who sprang
at Thebes from the dragon's teeth. On later and more learned
monuments, as for example red-figured vases and the great Altar
of Pergamos, they are men with bodies ending in serpents' tails.
They are, even to the detail of the added wings, creatures just
like the opponent of Zeus in Fig. 141. They prove to be in fact
nothing but the gods, or rather the snake-tailed daimones, of the
early population. They began like the daimon on the Daphnae
vase and like Cecrops and Kadmos as fertility-daimones, as Agathoi
Daimones. When the human-shaped Olympians triumph they
become evil monsters to be overthrown. Their kingdom is of
this earth.
(3) The Olympian refuses to be a daimon of air and sky.
Mythology tells us not only of a Gigantomachia but of a Titano-
machia. The Titans cannot be very precisely delimited from the
Giants. They too are in some sense Earth-born 1 . Titaia was a
title of Earth, Titias was own brother to Kyllenos, and the nature
of Hermes Kyllenios we know, and both were paredroi of the
Earth-born Tityos
Mother and both were Idaean Daktyls 2 . The
is a figure that needs no comment. Priapos, Lucian 3 tells us, was
either 'one of the Titans or of the Idaean Daktyls 4 .' Picus and
Faunus, says Plutarch, 'either Satyrs or Titanes.'
But, and this is the interesting point, the Titans, unlike the
Giants, seem early to have left their earth-nature behind them
and climbed one step up the ladder to heaven. Fertility-daimones
they remain, but rather as potencies of sky than earth. A little
south of Sikyon Pausanias 5 saw the town of Titane, the town,
according to the natives, where Titan first dwelt.
.
They say that he was brother to the Sun, that the place took its nanie
Titane from him. I think that Titan was great at marking the seasons of
the year and the time when the sun gives increase to and ripens the fruit
of trees.
1 For the primitive Daktyl and phallic nature of the Titans see Kaibel, Daktyloi
Idaioi, 1902.
2
3
See Kaibel, op. cit., pp. 489—492.
De Salt. 21, speaking of the invention of the armed dance by Priapos, t&v
Titolvuv olfiai iva 7) tujv 'ISaicov AaKTv\iov
4
Vit. Num. 15 ods to. fxiv &\\a —arvpoiv 6.v tls t) Tirdvcov yevei irpoaeiKaoeu. From
lack of understanding of the nature of the Titanes Tirdvwv has been emended into
Uo.vwv.
6
ii. 11. 5.