Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/306

 28o Greek Votive Offerings.

Before ending his book Dr. Rouse criticises two theories once much in vogue and still accepted as sound by many writers on the subject. In pp. 373-391 he investigates symbolism, or rather the application of it to votive offerings : and on p. 393 he utters a final protest against belief in any early specialisation of functions on the part of hero or god. Both points are worthy of attention ; for they belong to "the old assumptions " that the author, "as the evidence displayed itself, saw drop away one by one" (p. vi.).

The symbolists assume "that the attributes of a deity were regarded in some sort as representing him, and that they were dedicated to him for that reason ; that Artemis, say, was specially pleased by the offering of a deer, Athena by an owl, Zeus by an axe " (p. 373 f.). Dr. Rouse in sifting this theory distinguishes between {a) animate and {b) inanimate attributes. {a) He sums up the case for the former as follows (p. 382 i.) : " There is no series of attendant animals dedicated to a deity on which an argu- ment can be based. A few sporadic examples of these animals are found ; but such animals dedicated to one deity generally are dedicated to one or more others. Those which can be shown to imply the idea that a deity preferred his attendant animal as a votive offering are all too late to be brought in evidence ; those of which this cannot be shown are better explained on other and simpler principles. The doubtful ones cannot be proved to have been dedicated independently, and most of them are clearly parts of some- thing else. Some few, apparently old and genuine, remain unexplained, such as the crows and the owl of Athens, which stand on independent bases (Ridder, Caf. des Bronzes 541-543, 434). I will grant these to the symbolists; to build up a reversed Chinese pagoda, on a point supported by three crows and one obscure bird of night." Dr. Rouse really grants rather more than this, viz. that occasionally before and more frequently after " the great dividing line of the fourth century " (p. 375) we do find the dedication of