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Hesiod's Titans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

M. L. West
M. L. West
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway &Bedford New College, London
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Extract

In the opening lines of the Eumenides Aeschylus' Pythia says that the first prophetic deity at Delphi was Gaia. She was followed by two of her daughters in succession, Themis and Phoibe. Phoibe gave the oracle to Phoibos as a birthday present, and it is from her that he had his name.

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Type
Notes
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The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 105 , November 1985, pp. 174 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1985

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References

1 Pind. fr. 55, Eur. IT 1245–69 (cf. Or. 164), Ephorus FGrH 70 F 31, Aristonoos i 21 f. (Powell, Coll. Alex. 163), Diod. xvi 26.3 (cf. 5.67.4), Ov. M. i 321, 4.643, Lucan v 81, Apollod. i 22, Plut. Pyth. Orac. 402d, Def. Orac. 421c, 433e, Paus. x 5.5–6 (citing Musaeus, DK 2 B 11), Orph. H. 79, sch. Pind. Pyth. hypoth. p. 2.6 Dr., Harpocr. (Phot. Suda EM) s.v. θεμιστεύειν (citing Aeschylus); Themis sitting on the tripod, RF vase Berlin 2538.

2 Sitz. Ber. Preuss. Ak. 1929, 44 = Kl. Schr. v(2) 170 = Kronos und die Titanen. Zeus (Darmstadt 1964) 16Google Scholar. In my note on Hes. Th. 1361 took a similar view.

3 Cf. Plut. De Herod. malign. 860d.

4 See Wehrli, , RE supp. v (1931) 564.14 ff.Google Scholar, for honours she received at Delphi as Apollo's mother; she had no independent significance there.

5 Callisthenes (FGrH 124 F 49) and Anaxandrides ap. Plut. Q. Gr. 292ef.

6 Geometric Greece (London 1977) 178 fGoogle Scholar.

7 E.g. Demangel, , BCH 46 (1922) 507Google Scholar; Nilsson, M. P., The Minoan—Mycenaean Religion2 (Lund 1950) 467–8Google Scholar; Parke, H. W. and Wormell, D. E. W., The Delphic Oracle2 i 7Google Scholar.

8 Plin., NH xxviii 147Google Scholar, cf. Paus. vii 25.13. She had to drink bull's blood (generally considered a deadly poison: Hdt. iii 15.4, Soph. fr. 178 Radt, Ar. Eq. 83, etc.). Drinking blood is not attested for Delphi, but at the oracle of Apollo Deiradiotes at Argos, said to have been founded from Delphi, the prophetess drank the blood of a lamb sacrificed in the night before the monthly séance, and this was what brought her into the state of divine possession (Paus. ii 24.1; cf. Od. xi 95 ff. (Teiresias), and J. G. Frazer, The Magic Art (Golden Bough 3 i [1911]) i 381–3).

9 Cf. Od. xvi 403; Pind., Pyth. iv 54Google Scholar, Paean ix 41, fr. 192.

10 Nilsson, , Geschihte d. gr. Religion i3 (Munich 1967) 171Google Scholar.

11 Philologus cx (1966) 156Google Scholar. I compared the Macedonian word κοĩος or κοĩον ‘number’ (Ath. 455de; cf. calculus). The Messenian stream Koios (Paus. iv 33.6) may have been named from its pebbly bed.

12 See Lobeck, C. A., Aglaophamus (Königsberg 1829) 814 ff.Google Scholar; Wilamowitz, Der Claube der Hellenen i2 372–4; Allen & Halliday on Hom. Hymn. 4.552; Latte, K., RE xviii. 1 (1939) 832Google Scholar; Jacoby on Philochorus FGrH 328 F 195; Amandry, P., La Mantique apollinienne à Delphes (Paris 1950) 27 ff.Google Scholar; Fontenrose, J. E., The Delphic Oracle (Berkeley 1978) 219 ffGoogle Scholar.

13 Cf. Wilamowitz, op. cit. 373–1, and Jacoby l.c.

14 See my Hesiod, Theogony (Oxford 1966) 200–1Google Scholar; Burkert, W., Die orientalisierende Epoche in d. griech. Religion u. Literatur (Sitz.-Ber. Heidelb. Ak. 1984, 1) 90–1Google Scholar.

15 See my Hesiod, Theogony 201, 204, and The Orphic Poems (Oxford 1983) 119–21Google Scholar; Burkert, op. cit., 88–90.

16 Cf. Hesiod, Theogony 278.