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Attica is strewn with Mycenaean remains. Best known are those from the Acropolis of Athens. The hill is surrounded by an old Cyclopean wall which follows the natural sinuosities of the rock and is probably of Mycenaean date. On the Acropolis are the remains of Mycenaean buildings, and beneath the so-called old temple of Athena are walls of a Mycenaean palace with column bases. Not a few Mycenaean sherds were found here during the excavations, but they are all of a late period. Notable but little known is a hoard of bronze utensils found near the Cyclopean wall. 1 Tombs with sub-Mycenaean pottery were found on the southern slope of the Acropolis.
A fairly large bee-hive tomb was explored at Menidi, old Acharnae, and yielded interesting finds. A most remarkable fact is that the cult at this tomb
was continued down to the time of the Peloponnesian war. 2 At Aphidna in northern Attica Professors Wide and Kjellberg excavated long ago a big tumulus. This excavation is remarkable because here for the first time Middle Helladic vases were found in a regular excavation and taken up in scientific discussion. The place was inhabited in the Mycenaean age also. The acropolis was not explored, but walls of an uncertain date are recorded and on the terraces toward the east Mycenaean sherds were found. We shall presently see that the mythological importance of this site is such that it ought to be searched more thoroughly. In the interior of the province two or three necropolises were discovered near the modern village of Markopoulo in the Mesogaia. At Spata on the road from Athens to Marathon Mycenaean chamber tombs were found which contained not a few remains of funeral furniture. 3 In a cave called Lychnospelaion on Mount Parnes Mycenaean sherds of a late style were discovered. 4
On the eastern coast there are several Mycenaean sites. At Brauron, an unexplored acropolis with traces of walls, both pre-Mycenaean and Mycenaean sherds have been found. In a neighboring hill are Mycenaean chamber tombs and others have been found not far to the south, at Porto Raphti, north of the small bay; south of it is the site of old Prasiai.
[paragraph continues] At Thorikus near Cape Sunium houses with sherds, belonging partly to pre-Mycenaean, partly to Mycenaean times, have been discovered. There is also a small tholos tomb there, and another in the neighborhood. On the western coast several Mycenaean chamber tombs have been found near Haliki (Halai Aixonides), south of Athens. Mycenaean sherds are mentioned as having been found at Phaleron.
Eleusis is a Mycenaean site. Mycenaean and pre-Mycenaean sherds were collected on the surface of the acropolis and in other places also. There is a small tholos tomb, and other traces of Mycenaean occupation have been found. 5 The opinion that the oldest walls of the sacred precinct and of the hall of mysteries go back to the Mycenaean age 6 is, however, contested. 7
Thus Mycenaean remains are scattered over all Attica and prove that this province was deeply penetrated by Mycenaean civilization; but on the other hand they are not very significant and cannot be compared with those of Boeotia, not to speak of those of Argolis. To this state of things the mythical importance of Attica corresponds closely. In the great days of Athens the Athenians and their great poets strove to surround the city with a mythical glory corresponding to its renown in their own age; but it is recognized that the prominence of Attic mythology is late; we ought not to let ourselves be deceived by it. In reality heroic mythology in
[paragraph continues] Attica is on the whole poor, with one great exception, the Theseus cycle--but this is a special case to which we must recur at length below. It is a well-known and curious fact that the Athenians play a most unimportant part in Homer.
The list of the Athenian kings is a rather late compilation, pieced together from different elements and various heroes, who often were doubled in order to make up a sufficiently long list and to smooth over discrepancies. It need not detain us for long. Certain of the kings belong, moreover, to hieratic mythology.
The name of the aboriginal king, Cecrops, shows an ending well known from tribal names, -ops, plur. -opes, and from this it has been inferred that he was the eponymous hero of a vanished tribe formerly inhabiting Athens. Such an explanation is possible but cannot be demonstrated. The name of the second king appears in two forms, Erichthonius and the abbreviated form Erechtheus, but there cannot be any doubt concerning their fundamental identity, although Erichthonius and Erechtheus have been split up into two persons. The name is etymologically clear. Erichthonius is derived from χθών, "earth," with the prefix ἐπι-, "much." For certain reasons which cannot be repeated here I have inferred that Erichthonius is originally the Divine Child, the newborn spirit of vegetation, of whom there are many traces in connection with the Minoan-Mycenaean religion. 8 King Pandion is also doubled; he has hardly any importance for our subject. The connection of his myths with Megara is notable.
[paragraph continues] They can have been created only in the early historical period in which Athens strove to extend its power to the Megaris and succeeded in possessing itself of the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara, and of its hero Aias. By reason of this tendency Megarian myths were joined with Attic ones.
Other Attic myths, among which the best known are those of Ion, of Cephalus and Procris, and of Procne and Philomele, may be passed over as being of slight importance for our subject; in other respects they are interesting, but they cannot be proved to have any connection with the Mycenaean age.
The most famous of all Athenian myths remains the great Theseus cycle. 9 It is generally and justly recognized that the mythical fame and glory of Theseus grew and developed together with the power and glory of the state of Athens and the self-consciousness of its people. Theseus was made the national hero of Athens, the aspirations of which were, as usually happened, projected back into the mythical age. In the Athenian monuments of the earlier archaic period Heracles is prominent and Theseus almost absent. From the days of the Peisistratidae Theseus gains ever more ground until, during its heyday in the fifth century B.C., he is made
the hero of the Athenian democracy, the founder of the Athenian state through the synoecism and of the democratic institutions of Athens.
In the development of the Theseus cycle the tendency appears clearly to make it rival the Heracles cycle, i.e., to create a series of adventures and great deeds attributed to Theseus resembling those performed by Heracles, who, according to the monuments, was very popular in Athens in the early archaic age. There must, however, have been an old kernel around which these accretions were able to crystallize.
The later group of the cycle comprises the adventures of Theseus on his way from Troezen to Athens; they appear first on late black-figured vases. 10 According to Pausanias, 11 Sinis is localized on the Isthmus, near Cenchreai, a harbor of Corinth on the Saronian gulf. Crommyon, where Theseus slew the wild sow, was a village on the boundary between Megara and Corinth, to which it belonged in historical times. Sciron dwelt on the steep rocks on the shores of Geraneia, nowadays called Kakais Skalais, south of Megara. Cercyon lived near Eleusis, and Procrustes farther westward on the river called Cephissus, which flowed through the Thriasian plain; or on the mountain of Corydallus, which must be identified with Mount Aegaleos, the mountain which separates the Thriasian and the Athenian plains.
These localizations show very definitely the tendency which appears in the myths of Pandion and
[paragraph continues] Nisus 12 to carry the mythological claims of Athens to the Isthmus and to Megara, and here they extend to Eleusis also, which Athens succeeded in conquering in the seventh century B.C. As to the importance of such claims there is an illuminating story told by Plutarch 13 that when the Spartans were called upon as arbitrators in the contention of Athens and Megara concerning the island of Salamis, they adjudicated the island to Athens because it is said in Homer that Aias of Salamis placed his ships on the same place as the Athenians. If the hero of Athens, Theseus, had liberated these tracts from wild beasts and highwaymen his city had a mythical title to lay claim to them. Athens annexed Eleusis in the seventh century B.C. and succeeded in wresting the island of Salamis from the Megarians in the first half of the sixth century B.C. Mythology proves that its aspirations went farther.
Consequently these myths cannot be older, at least as applied to Theseus, than the early historical age. There may have been earlier myths made over and reshaped in order that they might be attached to Theseus, but we do not know what these myths may have been, nor are they of any importance for our purpose.
Next to these exploits of Theseus on his way from Troezen to Athens we have to consider the myth of his birth and his youth before these deeds. He is a son of the Athenian king Aegeus, who in obedience to an oracle went to Troezen and there wedded Aithra, the daughter of King Pittheus of Troezen. This town is situated on the northern shore of the
Argive peninsula, not far from its easternmost end. Theseus' son Hippolytus had a sanctuary at Troezen. Aithra, Pittheus' daughter, is first mentioned in the Iliad as a servant of Helen. 14
Here opinions differ. Professor Wilamowitz admits no doubt that Theseus was originally at home at Troezen. 15 Professor Robert gives voice to the opinion that the myth of the birth of Theseus was created in the sixth century B.C. 16 It may be adduced as an argument for the former view that the northern shore of the Argive peninsula is said to have been inhabited by Ionians in early times, 17 but on the other hand it is a serious objection to the antiquity of the myth that nothing Mycenaean, not even a single sherd, has been found at Troezen, though remains have been sought for. 18 The town seems to be a post-Mycenaean foundation.
It cannot possibly be doubted that Theseus is at home in Attica, for the really and undoubtedly old myths about him, namely, the myths of the Marathonian bull, of the rape of Ariadne, and of the rape of Helen, are localized here, and these myths unquestionably go back into the Mycenaean age. Then it would seem amazing if he were born and bred in Troezen and not in Attica, and we had another case similar to that of Heracles. 19 But
this can hardly be so. Theseus is no hero common to the Greek people or even to the Ionians, but is of local Attic origin. The father of his mother, Pittheus, is the eponymous hero of the demos of Pithus, a member of which is called a Pittheus. Its exact situation is not known, but as it belonged to the seventh tribe, Cecropis, together with Athmonon, Phlya, and Sypalettus, it is reasonably inferred that it may be sought for to the southwest of Mount Pentelicon. Thus Pittheus belongs certainly to Attica and his genealogical connection with Pelops was invented later, after his being transferred to the Peloponnese.
Professor Wilamowitz thinks that Theseus' mother Aithra must be at home at Troezen, because there is no trace of her in Attica. That is true, but on the other hand the trace of her in Troezenian cult legend is not of much value. For that she founded the temple of Athena Apaturia on the island of Sphairia 20 is a hieratic legend of indeterminate and probably rather late date. If Pittheus' daughter Aithra really is a Troezenian, it is very curious that in the Iliad she appears as one of the servants of Helen. For this presupposes the further development of the myth of Helen's rape by Theseus; viz., that Helen was rescued by her brothers, the Dioscuri, who abducted Theseus' mother as a captive. The book of the Iliad in which the passage is found belongs of course to its later parts, but in spite of this its date is so early that it seems difficult to suppose that a Troezenian legend transferred to Attica should be current at that time. For the
myth must have been a current one, from the casual manner in which it is mentioned. The passage is not of such a nature as the Athenians would have introduced in order to enhance the mythical fame of Athens, which is almost passed over in Homer. Therefore it seems probable that Aithra, like her father, was originally at home in Attica, although it ought to be stated that there is no trace of her there. The myths of Hippolytus and Phaidra are more loosely connected with Theseus and are of hardly any importance for our subject.
We have seen that there are certain reasons for assuming that the grandfather of Theseus and probably even his mother were originally at home in Attica, but it is not to be concealed that this view implies difficulties, for we cannot see any definite reason why they were localized at Troezen. Although the political aspirations of Athens were directed to the Megaris and the Isthmus, it would be hazardous to guess that they laid claim to Troezen; i.e., to the southern coast of the Saronian gulf, also. The birth of Theseus at Troezen is connected with his wandering through the Isthmus but is not a necessary premiss for it. There may have existed some myths or cults at Troezen by which the myth of Theseus was attracted, since it had transgressed the boundaries of Attica, but I am unable to point to such cults or myths; 21 I can only point to the
fact that the same tribe that inhabited Attica once lived in the Argive peninsula also. Happily this intricate question is of no importance for our main purpose, for even if Theseus' ancestors should be Troezenian, it can not be proved that they belong to a Mycenaean myth. At all events the birth story is a later addition.
Three deeds of Theseus remain which are of earlier origin. The capture of the bull of Marathon by Theseus is a close parallel to the capture of the Cretan bull by Heracles; the bulls were identified by the ancient mythographers. In this case it is supposed that, in contrast to what usually happened, a deed of Theseus was transferred to Heracles. 22 I cannot see any necessary reason for assuming such a transference; nor can I see why Professor Bethe identifies the Marathonian bull with the Minotaur. 23 Bulls were among the beasts of chase, and hunting such big game was a valued pastime in the Mycenaean age. Such a simple adventure was told of more than one hero. 24 Professor Bethe .is right in stating that this deed belongs originally to Theseus as well as to Heracles. 25 There may be so much truth in his identification of the Minotaur with the Marathonian bull that the myth of the latter was the starting point for developing the Minotaur myth.
This deed of Theseus is represented in vase pictures at an earlier date than his other deeds, 26 and this
fact is of a certain value, although the earliest representations belong to the sixth century B.C. More important is the localization of the myth at Marathon in northeastern Attica in that part of the province to which the old Theseus myths belong. It is very probable that this myth belongs to the old stock, although this cannot be demonstrated with arguments of absolute certainty.
The two remaining myths, the rape of Ariadne and the rape of Helen--their parallelism ought to be noticed from the outset--can with certainty be proved to go back to the Mycenaean age. In discussing the Laconian myths 27 I spoke of the abduction of Helen by Theseus and stated that all attempts have failed to separate this myth from Aphidna in northern Attica, a site with an unexplored acropolis which was inhabited in Mycenaean times, not very far to the northwest from the plain of Marathon. Helen belongs to Attica also. In the epos called Cypria she was said to be a daughter of Nemesis, who had a temple at Rhamnus on the coast north of Marathon. 28 But in this connection of Helen with Nemesis, the goddess of retaliation, there appears a certain speculative strain which makes its date doubtful, and probably late; and I have to acknowledge that the goddess Nemesis as a cult goddess still seems to me to be an unsolved riddle. I should not venture to emphasize this connection. We saw further that Helen is a pre-Greek goddess of vegetation whose peculiarity it is to be carried off, just as Kore was carried off by
[paragraph continues] Pluto. Thus we have a pre-Greek hieratic myth, the rape of the goddess of vegetation by a god, which was made a heroic myth in various ways. This myth was secularized by the Greek invaders and transferred to an Asiatic prince by epic poetry. It may be asked if the case of Theseus is similar. I am distinctly disinclined to believe so, for in two other myths, those of Ariadne and of Persephone, Theseus appears as the abductor of a goddess of vegetation. He may have been originally the chief male personage of the old hieratic myth. 29
The myth telling how Theseus, with the help of Ariadne, entered the Labyrinth, slew the Minotaur, rescued the Athenian children, and sailed away, taking Ariadne with him, is well known. Of all the myths from the Greek mainland, it has the most numerous and evident relations with Crete and the Minoan world, so that there cannot be any reasonable doubt that it goes back into the Mycenaean age and moreover to that early part of this age in which Crete and Cnossus still flourished and were powerful. It is generally recognized to contain reminiscences from the Minoan age.
I have collected and discussed in earlier works 30 the evidence concerning Ariadne and need not repeat the discussion here. The conclusion is that Ariadne seems to be a goddess of vegetation derived from Minoan times. She was venerated especially on the islands of the Aegean but is said to have had a festival in the Opuntian Locris too. The salient feature of her myths is her death, which was told in various versions, but there was also a joyous festival in her honor. Once she is said to have hanged herself like Helen Dendritis. The most perplexing myth is, however, the Homeric one, according to which she was killed by Artemis on the island of Dia, because of information given by Dionysus. 31 In the common myth Ariadne is the wife of Dionysus. I have explained these contradicting myths by the assumption that the Minoan vegetation goddess Ariadne entered into competition with the kindred cult of Dionysus, and on one hand was vanquished and ousted by him, or on the other hand became associated with his cult. 32
Both Ariadne and Helen are pre-Greek vegetation goddesses, and there are some similarities in detail between them also, to which I have pointed in another place. 33 The most salient similarity is, however, that both were carried off by Theseus. I cannot but find the same pre-Greek myth here, the carrying off of the vegetation goddess, in two different versions. Consequently I take this to be
the kernel of the Theseus myth and I have expressed my belief that Theseus is originally the chief male personage in the myth of the rape and that he was transferred to heroic mythology because the immigrated Greeks did not grasp the sacred nature of the myth. Another form of the same myth, with other names, was preserved in the tradition of the mysteries, which seem to be a survival of Minoan religious ideas. This myth is akin to another sacred vegetation myth the Minoan origin of which I have tried to show, the myth of the Divine Child.
This view of the rape of Ariadne and of the rape of Helen is supported by the third myth in which Theseus appears carrying off a woman or, to speak more exactly, the myth in which he attempts to carry off the queen of the Nether World, Persephone. 34 It is highly improbable that this attempt was originally considered a crime; success would have been the crowning end of the hero's career, just as the victory over Hades or the fetching of Cerberus crowned the career of Heracles. But the attempt of Theseus failed; he and his friend Peirithous, whom he accompanied and on whose behalf he undertook the adventure, according to the current myth were magically held fast on their seats in the Underworld. The myth must be understood in a different way.
Persephone was identified with Kore, the vegetation goddess carried off by Pluto, who was identified with the Ruler of the Dead. Consequently Theseus appears here also in his old rôle as carrying off the vegetation goddess; but, as this goddess was identified with the Queen of the Dead, his deed appeared of
course to be an attempt to vanquish the Empire of Death. This attempt was bound to fail according to current Greek ideas concerning the all-conquering and irresistible power of Death. The earlier and contrary conception of the victory over Death and the Empire of the Dead was preserved in the Heracles myth in traces only, and these were but half understood. Here the current conception won; the Vegetation Goddess was thought to be identical with the Queen of the Nether World, and thus Theseus was doomed to remain in the Underworld.
The real difficulty of this myth lies in another point. It is told that Peirithous helped Theseus to carry off Helen. But Helen was given over to Theseus, who was therefore obliged to help his friend to carry off another woman, and Peirithous conceived a desire for the Queen of the Nether World. So much is clear, that the friendship of Theseus and Peirithous serves as a means to harmonize two parallel myths which else would seem to be incompatible. The difficulty hinted at lies not in the friendship of the two heroes, for such a close friendship is a frequent feature of myth and folk-tale; it consists in the localization of Peirithous, for he is always said to be a Thessalian and king of the Lapiths. It is very difficult to find a sufficient reason why a Thessalian hero was brought to Attica; 35 the connection between the two heroes
is, moreover, close and consistent. However, there is a family of Peirithoidai in Attica after whom a demos belonging to the phyle of Oineis and situated a little to the west of Athens was named. Peirithous was of course the eponymous hero of this family, and thus it is possible to imagine why he and Theseus were connected. 36 Both were localized in Attica, not very far from each other. But why is this hero said to be a Thessalian and king of the Lapiths? I see no other way than to surmise that the Attic Peirithous was identified with a better known Thessalian hero of the same name, king of the Lapiths. Such homonymies occur in Greek mythology.
The myth of the rape of Ariadne was enlarged and complicated, the adventures of Theseus at Cnossus being added. Ariadne saved him from the Labyrinth, giving him the thread as a guide--clearly a folk-tale motif--or a crown by the splendor of which the Labyrinth was illuminated. The latter is of course a late and rather silly explanatory myth, for the crown was originally a wreath, which is appropriate to the vegetation goddess. 37 It is depicted earlier than any other detail of the Theseus myth. A late Geometric vase picture 38 shows a man embarking on a ship and leading a woman who carries a crown or a wreath in the other hand. Though myths elsewhere are almost absent from Geometric vases, there is no sufficient reason for denying that
the myth of Theseus and Ariadne is represented in this late and characteristic picture.
That the myth of the Labyrinth is a reminiscence of the vast complexity of the palace at Cnossus is generally admitted, and I need not dwell upon this point nor speak of the etymology and explanation of the name. 39 I wish only to emphasize that this myth must needs go back to the time during which the palace at Cnossus was still standing in its old splendor; i.e., to the time before the final sack of Cnossus about 1400 B.C.
It is generally acknowledged that the myth of the Minotaur also is a reminiscence from the Minoan age, but as to its explanation opinions differ. The current opinion is that the bull-cult and the bull-god played a prominent part in the Minoan religion, but in fact there is no good evidence for this opinion. In the Minoan monuments, which often depict scenes from the bull-ring and from bull-hunting, there is nothing to prove that this was anything other than a popular, profane pastime. 40 Both youths and girls entered the bull-ring and took part in its performances, of which the public was exceedingly fond. They were of course trained for this perilous kind of sport; possibly the Minoans compelled captives to take up these fights, just as the Romans sometimes compelled captives to fight in the arena as gladiators. This pastime accounts for the origin of the myth of the Minotaur, especially if we take the detail into consideration that both girls and youths were sacrificed to the monster. A
vague reminiscence of the vast palace at Cnossus, which seemed to a simple man to be a true labyrinth in which everybody was unavoidably lost, and a mythologically transformed reminiscence of the perilous bull-fights in which captive youths and girls lost their lives, 41 are at the back of the myth of Theseus' rescue of the Athenian children from the Labyrinth and his slaying of the Minotaur. These reminiscences derive of course from the days of the glory of Cnossus. They were quite naturally attached to the hero who carried off the vegetation goddess, because both myths were of Minoan origin; and thus a very impressive myth was created. If it is stripped of its characteristic detail, a tale remains which tells that in spite of many perils a youth won and carried off a princess. That is perhaps the most common plot of the folk-tale and it gives the frame into which were put the elements derived from the Minoan world.
Quite a number of other myths in which Minos is implicated are enacted in Attica and its neighborhood. 42 One is the story of his son Androgeos, who went to Athens and in one way or another, for it is differently told, met his death there. His death is said to be the reason why King Minos went to war against the Athenians and imposed upon them the tribute of the seven youths and the seven girls. This myth is a later invention made in order to rationalize
and historicize the earlier myth. It has been justly observed that the name of Androgeos has a form which is special to the Attic dialect. 43
Nor can great antiquity be accorded to the myth that Procris fled to Minos and received from him the dog which nothing was able to escape, and the never failing spear. 44 For since Minos was a chief personage of the most famous Attic myth, it was almost unavoidable that he should be introduced into other tales too. Thus arose a certain exchange between Attic and Cretan myths. For example, the builder of the Labyrinth, Daedalus, was introduced into Attic myths.
Another myth localized in the Megaris is more worthy of consideration. When Minos warred against Athens he besieged Megara also, and Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, the king of Megara, fell in love with him and cut off the purple lock from her father's head on which the luck of the city depended. The faithless daughter was thrown into the sea by Minos. 45 This myth is firmly localized. Nisus is the eponymous hero of the Megarian harbor town, Nisaia, and was annexed to the genealogy of the Athenian kings when Athens extended its political aspirations to the Megaris. Minoa is a small island
outside of this harbor, and Cape Scyllaeum is the easternmost point of the Argive peninsula. It is often to be observed that old mythical elements are rearranged in order to afford an explanation of local names, and here is probably an instance of this tendency.
The really important fact is the name of the small island, Minoa. Professor Bethe very justly called attention to the many places in very different countries with the name of Minoa. It is possible that they imply a reminiscence of the power of the most famous king of Cnossus, Minos, although we should not be deceived by the modern usage of denoting the Cretan people of the Bronze Age as Minoans. Space forbids, however, a discussion which does not immediately concern our subject.
The date of the last mentioned myths is consequently uncertain; they are corollaries to the myth of Theseus, presupposing even the war of Minos against Athens. It may be safer to take them to be post-Mycenaean. But the myth of Theseus' adventures at Cnossus, of Ariadne and the Minotaur, goes back to Mycenaean and even to Minoan days, and that suffices amply for our purpose. Twenty years ago in a paper which has often been quoted, Professor Bethe called attention to this fact and added that the great antiquity of this myth is astonishing but ought not to frighten a scientific mind, for there are many instances proving that historical reminiscences in mythical form lived and were preserved through centuries. 46 That is eminently true and agrees completely with the view which is here advanced
throughout in regard to Greek mythology. The idea ought to be followed to the end consistently.
I cannot leave this subject without emphasizing the fact that reminiscences of Minoan Crete are found in Attic myths only. This fact is really worth considering and an explanation is needed. Why, for example, has Argive mythology, which is much richer, nothing to say of Cnossus and Minos except for the faint reminiscence of the bull-ring which may be contained in the localization of the capturing of the Cretan bull? 47 An evident explanation seems to be found in the view which I have sketched elsewhere 48 as a probable hypothesis concerning the immigration of the Greek tribes; viz., that the Ionians came first, plundered Crete, and traded with its people during the first and second late Minoan periods, but were ousted from Argolis by a new invading Greek tribe, the Achaeans, who sacked Cnossus finally about 1400 B.C. After the sack, and the downfall of the Minoan civilization, there was nothing to carry off from Crete and nothing to tell about it. Consequently Argive myths forgot the Minoans, but the Ionians who had seen the proud palace of Cnossus in its splendor and had learned to know the wealth and to fear the power of the king of Cnossus kept the memory in mythical form in that province to which they were thrown back, Attica.
159:1 Now at last easily accessible in O. Montelius, La Grèce préclassique, I, p. 153.
160:2 See my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, p. 524 et seq.
160:3 A survey in H. Gropengiesser, Die Gräber von Attika (Dissertation, Heidelberg, 1907). Recent discoveries of Mycenaean tombs at Porto-Raphti, Pikermi, Velanideza, and Vourvatsi, Deltion archaiologikon, XI (1927-28), App. p. 59 et seq.
160:4 See my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, p. 61 et seq.
161:5 F. Noack, Eleusis (1927), p. 15.
161:6 A. W. Persson, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, XXI (1922), p. 292 et seq.
161:7 Noack, loc. cit., p. 14.
162:8 In my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, p. 490 et seq.
163:9 In addition to Robert's exhaustive treatment of the cycle in his Griechische Heldensage, p. 676 et seq., in which earlier papers are quoted fully, the short but searching analysis by Wilamowitz, "Die griechische Heldensage," II, Sitzungsberichte der preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1925, p. 234 et seq. is especially to be consulted. Cp. also the paper of V. Costanzi already quoted, p. 74 n. 15 and E. Kjellberg, "Zur Entwicklung der attischen Theseussage" in Strena philologica Upsaliensis (1922), p. 270 et seq. A. v. Salis, Theseus and Ariadne (1930) appeared only after this section was written.
164:10 E. Buschor in Furtwängler and Reichhold, Griech. Vasenmalerei, Text, III, p. 119 et seq., gives a survey of vase paintings representing Theseus and his adventures.
164:11 Paus. ii. 1, 4.
165:13 Plutarch, Solon, chap. 10.
166:14 Il. iii v. 144.
166:15 Wilamowitz, loc. cit., p. 235.
166:16 Robert, loc. cit., p. 708.
166:17 The passages concern Epidaurus; quotations in Busolt, Griech. Geschichte (ed. 2), I, p. 216, n. 7.
166:18 Athenische Mitteilungen, XXXVI (1911), p. 33.
166:19 The exploits of Heracles belong to Tiryns and his birth story to Thebes; see below p. 200 et seq.
167:20 Paus. II, 33, 1.
168:21 There is no cult or myth at Troezen which can be proved to be of great antiquity; cp. S. Wide, De sacris Troezeniorum, etc. (Dissertation, Uppsala, 1888). In the temple of Artemis Soteira were altars of the gods ruling underground and Dionysus was said to have here brought up his mother Semele from the Underworld, but this myth is localized elsewhere also and affords no sufficient clue.
169:22 Wilamowitz, Herakles, I. p. 302; in opposition to this the myth is localized in Argolis by P. Friedländer, Herakles (1907), p. 37.
169:23 E. Bethe, "Minos," Rheinisches Museum, LXV (1910), p. 223.
169:24 E.g. of Argos; see below p. 212.
169:25 Bethe, loc. cit., p. 218 et seq.
169:26 References in Robert, Griech. Heldensage, p. 678, n. 1.
170:28 Cp. Wide in the Athenische Mitteilungen, XXI (1896), p. 387.
171:29 The real significance of the myth of the abduction of Kore by Pluto was well explained by F. M. Cornford in Studies and Essays presented to Sir W. Ridgeway (1913), p. 153 et seq. Kore is the Corn-maiden, the grains which after the harvest are laid down in the subterranean silos or jars to be preserved until the sowing; she is here in the power of Pluto, the God of Wealth, i.e., precisely, of the store of corn by which men live. These subterranean stores being called θησαυροί, I considered whether the name {! 0x22 " !}"Δησεύς which seems to be derived from the same stem is to be explained according to this view as the "One who puts the corn down" (cp. Latin Conditor), but this guess seems to me to be too uncertain to be mentioned except in a note, although it fits in admirably with the opinion advanced in the text.
172:30 In my Griechische Feste, p. 382 et seq., and in my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, p. 451 et seq.
172:31 Od. xi. v. 323.
172:32 In my Griechische Feste, loc. cit.
172:33 In my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, p. 453.
173:34 First mentioned in the very last part of the Nekyia, Od., ix., v.631.
174:35 According to the principles I follow, I am unable to approve of the treatment by J. Toepffer in his Beiträge zur griech. Altertumswissenschaft, 1897, p. 148 et seq., reprinted from the volume Aus der Anomia (1890), p. 30 et seq. He takes up K. O. Müller's lines relying on the verse, Il. i. 265, which introduces Theseus among the Lapiths, but this verse is absent from good manuscripts and was taken from the Scutum Herculis of Hesiod, as Wilamowitz emphasizes again, loc. cit., p. 237.
175:36 Cp. Wilamowitz, loc. cit., p. 238.
175:37 It is so represented, e. g., on the famous cup of Euphronius, Furtwängler and Reichhold, Griech. Vasenmalerei, pl. v.
175:38 Journal of Hellenic Studies, XIX (1899), pl. 8; C. Robert, Archäologische Hermeneutik (1919), p. 38, fig. 24.
176:39 From λάβρυς, double axe; I have discussed it in my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, p. 189 et seq.
176:40 See my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, p. 322.
177:41 I am afraid that we all are a little hypnotized by the name Minotaur, writing it with a capital letter and taking it to be a nomen proprium. If the original sense is only Μίνωος ταῦρος "a bull of Minos’" (Pausanias, iii. 18, 11, cp. 16, says τὸν Μίνω καλούμενον ταῦρον), it may be nothing but a bull introduced into the bull-ring on the order of King Minos.
177:42 Cp. Bethe in the paper quoted p. 169, n. 23.
178:43 L. Weber, "Androgeos," Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, XXIII (1925), pp. 34 et seq. and 229 et seq., tries to show that Androgeos is an old Cretan god who was transferred to Attica and to whom the human tribute was due which, according to the common myth, was brought to the Minotaur. The testimony referred to is, however, generally derived from the Attidographers and late identifications and do not bear out so far-reaching conclusions.
178:44 Apollod. iii. 15, 1; ii. 4, 7; Eratosthenes, Catast., 33; Hygin, Astron., ii. 35, etc. I disagree in this with Bethe, loc. cit., p. 223.
178:45 The myth is first found in Aeschylus, Choeph., v. 613 et seq.
179:46 Bethe, loc. cit., p. 321.
180:48 In my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, p. 32 et seq.