Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/452

 422 The European Sky-god.

Sun, were transformed according to one account into oaks,^°^ according to the usual version into poplars.^°^ Heracles too, whose relation to Zeus I hope to examine on another occasion, had solar powers -^^^ and he likewise is connected with oak and poplar. On the one hand, he planted two oaks beside the altars of Zeus ^rparto? in Pontus,^°^ and founded a cult of Aphrodite Ilacrt^aeo-o-a in Thessaly beneath an evergreen oak."'^" His toils and troubles were foretold to him by his father's oak at Dodona.^^^ He was, according to Callimachus,'^^- apotheo- sised in Phrygia beneath an oak-tree. His pyre on Mount (Eta was built of oak and wild-olive. ^^^ A branch of oak was an acceptable gift to him ;^^* and his club is surrounded on coins by a wreath of oak-leaves.^^^ On the other hand, Heracles was said to have brought the white poplar from the banks of the Acheron in Thesprotis f^^^ and the white poplar was his favourite wreath.-'^^'^ A bronze statuette of Heracles,

^^ Roscher Lex., ii., 2588.

3" lb., i., 1983.

808 Heracles forced Helios to lend him the golden cup in which he used to cross the ocean (Pherecydes ap. Athen., 470 c, Apollod., 2. 5. 10, cp. the vase-paintings in Roscher Lex., 1., 1995, Daremberg-Saglio, Did. Ant., iii., 93 fig. 3763) ; and at Megalopolis there was a statue of Helios " surnamed Saviour and LLeracles" (Paus., 8. 31. 7). Macrobius' identification of Herac es with the sun is based on evidence drawn from Tyre, Egypt, and Gades (Macrob. Sat., i. 20. 10) : on Heracles = the Tyrian Melqart see Roscher Lex. s. V. "Melqart" ; and on Heracles = the Egyptian Shu see Stein ad Hdt., 2.42. Diirrbach in Daremberg-Saglio Diet. Ant., iii., no, concludes "Heracles est comme Apollon un dieu solaire" ; Tiimpel in Roscher Zt';f., iii., 886, " Er ist ein Heliosheros . . . zum Sonnengott geworden."

3»'-' Plin. nat. hist., 16. 239.

31" [Aristot.] mir. aiisc, 133, p. 48, 12 Westermann.

3" Soph. Track., 171 f., 1 166 ff., [Sen.] Here. Oet., 1477 f.

3'- Callim. h. Dian., 159, Ji y£ ^puyi'j/ Trtp hiro SpvX yv7a QttDijuQ.

313 Soph. Track., II91 ff., cp. [Sen.] Here. Oet., 1641 ft".

311 Anth. Pal., 6. 351 Callimachus.

3'5 Brit. Mils. Cat. Gk. Coins, Ionia, p. 151, jil. 17, i ; ib., Mysia, p. i, pi. I, 2.

316 Paus., 5. 14. 2, alib.

3'' Theocr., 2. 121, Ov. ker., 9. 64, alib.