Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/455

 The European Sky -god. 425

solar powers. The name " lion "-tree points in the same direction, for the lion was a common symbol of the sun.^^^ Again, Ptolemaeus,^^* who records the Rhodian version of the myth of Helen, viz., that she was the daughter of the sun and hanged herself on an oak, mentions in the same context that she went by the name of Aeoi/r?;, " Lioness." One of her suitors was called Aeoi^reu?, " Lion/' ^^^ so that once more we find the sun connected with the lion, and both of them with the oak. Further, there is reason to believe that in Rhodes the mistletoe stood in close relation to the sun. For, not only was there a cult of Mistletoe Apollo ("I|^i09 ^ A.TToWwv) at Ixiai, a Rhodian town named after the mistletoe ; ^^^ but Leonteus, the suitor of Helen was by some^-''^ regarded as the father of Ixion, whose

^ See Preller-Robert, p. 455, Gruppe, p. 798 f. The former quotes from Clem.. Alex., protr., 47, p. 41 Potter, the statement that at Patara in Lycia the statues of Zeus and Apollo had lions set beside them. Cp. the rock- cut lion inscribed 'AttoXAoji/i Sr£0av;;06p(^ in the precinct of Artemidorus at Thera [Inscrr. Graec, xii., 3 suppl. 295 f., no. 1346). The latter cites Ael. de nat. an., 12. 7, kTrtiSi) Sk ayav irvpuickc tern, oIkov 'UXiov (paciv dvai, Lact. Plac. ?'« Stat. Theb., i. 720, Pers^ in spelseis Solem colunt .... est autem ipse Sol leonis vultu cum tiara Persico habitu et utrisque manibus bovis cornua comprimens, &c., Lyd. de mens., I. 22, on iipepov 01 aTparrjyol tTri twv iroXifiaiv Aibg koI 'HXiov koL 'EeXrjvtjg, 'Epfiov re Koi 'ApEog criifi}3oXa ' koL Aiog fiiv aerov, "HXiow Si Xkovra, XeXi)vr]Q Sk ^ovv, "Apeo^ Si Xvkov, "Epjiov Si Spc'iKovra, Serv. inYexg. georg., i. 33, sciendum deinde est voluisse maiores in his signis [xii] esse deorum domicilia : ut Solis est Leo, Lunae vero Cancer, Add Macrob. 6"^/., i. 20. 12, capti indicaverunt apparuisse sibi leones proris Gaditanse classis superstantes ac subito suas naves inmissis radiis, quales in Solis capite pinguntur, exustas, &c., i. 21. 16, propterea Aegyptii animal in zodiaco consecravere ea cseli parte qua maxime annuo cursu sol valido efifervet calore, Leonisque inibi signum domicilium solis appellant, quia id animal videtur ex natura solis substantiam ducere, &c. Other evidence is collected by Creuzer, Symbolik,^ iv., 85, cp. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, ii., 359 ff., Roscher Lex. iii. 253 ff., " Nergal als Gott der verzehrenden Sonnenglut und als Lowengott."


 * ^* Ptolem. 7tov. hist., 4, p. 189, Westermann.

335 Apollod., 3. 10. 8, Ybjg.fab., 81.

«'« Steph. Byz. s.v. 'Miai.

3" Wyg.fab., 62.