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Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

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The Classical Review , Volume 17 , Issue 5 , June 1903 , pp. 268 - 281
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Copyright © The Classical Association 1903

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page 269 note 1 for is a noteworthy variation: Zeus at Dodona was telluric (p. 179).

page 269 note 2 Others used the same Dodonaean oracle to account for the ritual of the argei. Ov. fast. 6. 625 ff. states that Zeus of Dodona (626 fatidici…Iovis) bade sacrifice to Saturn (627 falcifero…seni) every year two human victims (627 duo corpora gentis) by flinging them into the river; and that his bidding was literally carried out till Hercules substituted puppets for men. Ovid perhaps drew upon M. Verrius Flaocus de fastis (so H. Winther de fastis Verrii Flacci ab Ovidio adhibitis Diss. Berol. 1885 p. 53, Wissowa in Pauly-Wissowa i. 692, 62 f.: but see Schanz Röm. Lit. II. i.2 320 f.), as probably did Festus p. 334 Müll. s.v. ‘sexagenaries’: sexagenarios <de ponte olim deiciebant,> cuius causam Mani<lius hanc refert, quod Romam> qui incoluerint <primi Aborigines aliquem h > ominem sexaginta <annorum qui esset immolar>e Diti Patri quot<annis soliti fuerint.> quod facere eos de <stitisse adventu Her>culis. sed religio < sa veteris ritus observatione sc>irpeas hominum ef>figies de ponte in Tiberim antiquo> modo mittere < instituisse >. Lactantius, indeed (die. inst. 1. 21), cites Varro as his authority, when he declares that the practice of flinging a man from the Pons Milvius into the Tiber arose from the oracle : but the blunder Milvius for Sublicius makes us suspicious. In all probability, as Wissowa has shown (Pauly-Wissowa i. 692, 66 ff.), it was not Varro, but Verrius, who traced the argei to Dodona. Now Verrius, though not such a polymath aa Varro, was no fool: and we may even accept his view in the modified senie that that the argei were an institution of the Pelasgians or of the Aborigines their kinsmen (Ridgeway Early Age i. 255 f.). If, whare so much is obscure, a conjecture is permissible, I would hazard the guess that the argeus or sexagenarius was the superannuated representative of a vegetation god, probably of a tree-Jupiter. This at least would account for the main features of the ceremony—the presence, not only of the pontifices, but also of the fiaminica Dialis with dishevelled hair and signs of mourning (Gell. 10. 15, Pint, quaestt. Rom. 86); the part taken by the Vestal Virgins (Paul. p. 15, Ov. fast. 5. 621); the immersion of the straw puppets from the bridge (G.B.2 chap. 3); and perhaps the fact that the Ides of May, on which according to Dion. Hal 1. 38. 3 the sacra argeorum took place, were also marked by feriae lovi Merewrio Maine. It would also suit the probable meaning of the word argeus, viz. ‘white,’ i.e. whiteheaded, a grey-beard (L. Lange Röm. Altert. i.3 83, W. Warde Fowler Rom. Fest. p. 118 f.), and the Oscan name casnar, ‘an old man’ (Varro ap. Non. p. 86 Merc. s.v. ‘carnales’: vix ecfatus erat cum more maiorum ultro carnales arripiunt, de ponte in Tiberim deturbant, Varro de l. Lat. 7. 86, Paul. s.v. ‘easnar’), cp. eanus for *casnus (Lindsay Lat. lang. p. 307). Mr. Warde Fowler (Rom. Fest. p. 118) has remarked that the puppets used in analogous rites throughout Europe are of ten called ‘the old one,’ ‘the white man with the white hair, the snow-white husband,’ or are dressed in a white shirt. Note also that the flamen Dialis according to Varro (ap. Gell. 10. 15, 32) ‘solum album habet galerum.’

page 270 note 1 Tarquinius Superbus is said to have ‘restored’ the Compitalia. An oracle of Apollo ordered ‘ut pro capitibus capitibus supplicaretur’; and for some time boys were sacrificed to Mania, mother of the Lares, to secure the safety of the household. On the expulsion of Tarquinius the consul Junius Brutus bade the people substitute garlic and poppy heads, and hang up before their doors puppets for Mania (Macrob. 1. 7. 34 f.).

page 270 note 2 Cercyon of Eleusis, who forced strangers to wrestle with him and slew them when they were thrown, also furnishes a parallel to the grim figure of Phorbas. Observe too that his name Κερκυών or Κερυανες denotes the ‘oak‘-man, being in all probability connected with quercus. Thus the trial of personal strength is again associated with an oakking. Perhaps too a trace of the ‘heads’ can be discovered in his myth. Cercyon of Eleusis is commonly identified with Cercyon of Stymphalus: e.g. Charax (ap. schol. Aristoph. nub. 508) relates that Agamedes, king of Stymphalus, married Epicaste, who brought him Trophonius as a step-son and bore him Cercyon as a son. Agamedes, Trophonius, and Cercyon together plundered the treasure-house of Augeias at Elis. Agamedes was there caught in a trap; and, to prevent discovery, Trophonius cut off his head and fled with Cercyon to Orchomenus in Boeotia. Agamedes pursued them and they parted—Trophonius going to Lebadea, Cercyon to Athens. Pausanias' version of this tale (9. 37. 5) mentions Agamedes and Trophonius, but says nothing about Cercyon. The parallel story of Rhampsinitus' treasury (Hdt. 2. 121) also has two thieves. It seems possible, therefore, that Cercyon is an interloper in the myth, having been imported into it because he too was in the habit of cutting off heads. Again, Apollo may have figured in the story of Cercyon, as he did in that of Phorbas: cp. C.I.A. 3. 1203 .

page 272 note 1 Philosti. Jun. imagg. 9. 3 . So on a sarcophagus in the Vatican (Roscher lex. iii. 782) and on another at Naples (Baumeister Denhm. 1203). One of these victims was Πρας (Pans. 6. 21. 11), a name which occurs nowhere else: does it denote the ‘oak‘-man (πρῖν∘ς)?

page 272 note 2 Cp. a vase at Arezzo (Mon. dell' Inst. viii. pl. 3, Baumeister Denhm. fig. 1395), which shows Hippodamia on the car of Pelops: in the background: are two laurel-trees, and the car is accompanied by two flying doves.

page 273 note 1 See Weniger, further L.der heilige Ölbaum in Olympia, Weimar 1895, p. 8Google Scholar ff. Cp. also the white olive-branch held by Heracles on a hydria in the British Museum (Cat. Vases, F 211).

page 274 note 1 Nothing can, I think, be inferred from the griffin's head that tops this cap-of-honour. It reminds one at first of the griffins on the helmet of the Parthenos (Pans. 1. 24. 5) and so suggests a Panathenaic victor. But the griffin is most frequently associated with Apollo (see Furtwängler in Roscher lex. i. 1774, 12 ff., Dürrbach in Dar.-Sagl. Dict. Ant. ii. 1672), which would point rather to a Pythian victory. And a whole series of griffin's heads in bronze has been ound at Olympia (Furtwängler die Bronzen von Olympia, pll. 45, 46, 47, 49).

Still, ceremonial head-gear is always of importance and it is worth while to investigate the point further. A very similar helmet is found on an amphora from Capua published in the Compte Rendu de Saint-Pétersbourg 1874 p. 208, Atlas pi. vii., (here reproduced as Fig. 4). The artist has represented a winged Nike bringing a fillet to a young Isthmian or Nemean victor, who already carries in his hands the selinon and olive-sprays and is decorated with the ribbands. He wears a helmet with a curiously elongated spike, from which hangs another fillet inscribed . The nearest parallel to these spiked helmets that I can quote is the apex worn e.

page 275 note 1 Here we find ourselves on the threshold of a broader question. Did the great games of Greece in every case originate in a struggle for the post of priestly-king ? Where tradition connects them with the funeral of a local hero, the priestly-king may have been thought to embody the spirit of the deceased hero. But the question is too large to be treated in a paragraph by the flamen Dialis at Rome. It was a short wand of olive wood (Paul. s. v. ‘albogalerus’: virgula oleagina bound about with a wisp of wool (Verg. Aen. 8. 664, Serv. Aen. 2. 683, interp. Serv. Aen. 10. 270, Isid. 19. 30. 5). Now, if the victor in the moment of his triumph wore on his head a cap recalling the virgula oleagina of the flamen Dialis, may we not infer that the spike on his cap was in reality the symbol of the sacred tree ? Just as the tree once worshipped by English villagers came to be represented by the May-pole with its coloured streamers, so the sacred tree at Olympia and elsewhere may have come to be represented by the rod borne on the victor's head. A similar transition from a sacred bough wreathed with fillets to a ceremonial helmet perhaps underlies an obscure gloss in Hesychius: . Preller-Robert4 307, n. 2 had already suggested that might be connected with κους.

page 276 note 1 Prof. E. Gardner's explanation of the painting as ‘the madness of Athamas,’ though supported with much learning and ingenuity, has failed to convince me.

page 277 note 1 Dr. Frazer (Enc. Brit.9 xxiii. 18 s.v. ‘Taboo’) regards the Homeric application of to men as ‘a survival, or at least a reminiscence, of a system of taboo.’

page 277 note 2 The plane tree at Delphi was said to have been planted by Agamemnon (Theophr. hist. pl. 4. 13. 2, Plin. nat. hist. 16. 288), as was also a plane-tree at Caphyae in Arcadia (eid. ib.). At Aulis the plane-tree, under which the Greeks sacrificed (Il. 2. 306 f.), was close to ‘the bronze threshold of Agamemnon's hut’ (Paus. 9. 19. 7): cp. the relief at Lansdowne House (Jahn Bilderchron. pl. 3, 1).

page 278 note 1 See the recent articles on ‘Apotheosis’ by Prof. L. C. Purser in Smith's Dict. Ant.3 1890 and by Dr. F. F. Hiller v. Gaertringen in Pauly-Wissowa 1896; also that on ‘ Consecratio’ by Wisaowa ibid. 1900; Beurlier, E.de divinis honoribus quos acceperunt Alexander et successores eius, Paris 1890Google Scholar; E. R. Bevan ‘The Deification of Kings in the Greek Cities’ in The English Historical Review, Oct. 1901.

page 280 note 1 Berl. Phil Wock. April 11, 1903.

page 280 note 2 Ibid. May 9, 1903.

page 280 note 3 Arch. Anzeiger, 1903 (1).