Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/309

 The European Sky -god. 285

by a three-headed figure,^^-^ and appears on gems and coins with a Janiform head.^^* Other examples of " lanustypen " are collected by Roscher/^^ who maintains that the double- herm of the Greeks gave rise to the two-headed Janus of the Italians. Perhaps we should be nearer the mark if we held that Greeks and Italians alike inherited the same primitive conception from an immemorial past.^°^

It remains to apply these results to the particular case of Zeus. Was he too ever credited with a multitude of members? Were they at any time represented by a total of three ? Was he anywhere Janiform in appearance ? Now it may be at once admitted that the worship of Zeus the bright sky-god had from the first an upward and elevating tendency, which made for henotheism, not to say monotheism. I cannot refrain from quoting Professor Lewis Campbell's ^^" beautiful rendering of two passages in which Aeschylus sets forth his own conception of Zeus. The first is spoken by the chorus of Danaids : -^^^

Let highest in mind be most in might.

The choice of Zeus what charm may bind ? His thought, 'mid Fate's mysterious night

A growing blaze against the wind,

'** Harpocrat. s.v. TpiKS'paXoQ with Gronovius' n. ; Suid., s.v. TpiKk(pa\oc ; Hesych., s.v. 'T^pMS rpitciipaXog; Tzetz. z'n Lye. Alex., 680 ; Apostol., 17. 23 ; Phot., s.v. TpiK((pa\og ; Etym. Magn., 766, 24 ff.

'" Roscher, Lex., i,, 2415 ff., Furtwangler Die Antiken Gemtnen, ii., 131, pi. 26, 32, Daremberg-Saglio Diet. Ant., i., 459, fig. 551. Cp. Lucian _/?<//. trag., 43 oioi et'ffi ruiv 'Epfxwv Zvioi, cirrol kul aufporkpwQiv onoioi.

15* Roscher, Lex., ii., 53 ff.

'^^ It is possible that the two-headed type was a modification of the three- headed type. A Greek vase from the Gargiulo collection, published in the Bulletino Napolitano, N. S., vi., 17, pi. 2 (= S. Reinach Repertoire des Vases Feints, i., 493) shows a bearded male head composed of three faces conjoined. Looked at from almost any point of view this presents the exact appearance of a Janiform head. Hermes rpiicetpaXog may similarly have given rise to a Hermes SiKscpaXoQ. Further evidence bearing on the point will be considered in con- nection with the Italian Janus, who appears sometimes, though exceptionally, with three faces, not two.

'^ L. Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature, p. 273 f

'^s Aesch., stippL, 85 ff.