Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/291

 Greek Votive Offerings. 265

human act btessed by the god. In early times the artist selected some heroic precedent, which resembled as closely as might be the later human achievement. The people of Heraclea Pontica, having beaten the barbaric Mariandyni, sent to Olympia a group representing the labours of Heracles (Paus. 5. 26. 7). Next the human element begins to intrude — witness the group sent by Athens to Delphi after the Persian wars : in it along with protecting deities and eponymous heroes stood the actual commander Mil- tiades (Paus. 10. 10. i). Similarly a human precedent may be added side by side with the divine prototype. " Attalus I. commemorated his Gallic victories by several groups on the Acropolis of Athens : battles of the gods and giants, of the Athenians with the Amazons, and the battle of Marathon, then held of equal importance with the great deeds of legend (Paus. i. 25. 2, Plut. v. Anton. 60)." Attalus went further in the same direction, when he added a group representing his own victory over the Gauls (Paus. I. 25. 2). Lastly, the human and contemporary battle alone is portrayed, eg. a cavalry skirmish on a relief at Eleusis [C.I.A. iv. i, 422, 17 p. 184). Again, the human act is often indicated by human figures so posed as to suggest it, eg. the leaper holding his weights (Paus. 5. 27. 2), the dairyman milking his cow {Museo Italico ii. 730, a cast bronze from Crete), women in a ritual ring- dance [Bronzen von Olympia 263), models of sacrificial pigs {Journ. Hell. Stud. vii. 24, from Tarentum). The ritual acts most commonly depicted are the sacrifice or libation, the prayer, the dance, and the feast. A few monuments show the te/309 7a/A09 or " divine marriage," eg. a terra-cotta group from Samos of Zeus and Hera seated together as bridegroom and bride (Farnell, Cults. i. pi. V. 1}). The act blessed by the god is sometimes exhibited still more compendiously by a kind of ideograph. " So an ass sums up the story of a night-surprise fore- stalled by his bray (Paus. 10. 18. 4). ... a cicala recalls