The question of sacred animals is always liable to be mixed up with the question of Totemism. There are, indubitably, certain facts in the re- ligious ceremonial and symbolism of the Greek peoples which can be most easily and naturally explained as survivals of Totemism. But we can- not think that Totemism held any place in Greek or Anatolian religion as it presents itself to our study. Similarly, the black stone of the Kaaba in Mecca is an old fetish, the veneration of which has survived in Mohammedanism; but fetishism is not really an influence in, or part of, Mohammedanism. Many survivals of pagan rites and symbols are apparent in the developed Hebrew worship, but they did not touch its essence or affect its develop- ment except to be successively eliminated from it. Similarly, the survivals of Totemistic forms in the Greek world do not attect our study of its religion, though they are of extreme interest to the archeeo- logical investigator. The religious ideas of the tribes and races, whose contact and intercourse pro- duced the form of thought, religion, and ee tion which we call Hellenism, were raised above the level of Totemism ; and even the earliest Greek thought did not understand those survivals in a Totemistic way, but put anew, and historically in- correct, interpretation on them in popular legend.
* Acta Sanctorum, 19th May, p. 324. + Mouceiov xa} BiBa. ris Heavy. Syorys, Smyrna, 1880, p. 164.
Also, the form of religious thought in which the sacred animal was regarded and worshipped as being actually a god incarnate is not characteristic of Anatolia. The nearest approach to that idea is in the Ephesian religion of Artemis (7), where the goddess was the queen bee; but there is no proof that any actual bee was worshipped. The ex- planations of sacrificial rites as being cases 1n which celebrants kill and eat the sacred animal as the body of their god, are not admissible, except perhaps in some borrowed rites of external origin.
We may, with some confidence, lay down the general principle (which we shall find confirmed in several instances and contradicted in none), that the sacred animals of Anatolian religion are re- garded in relation to a more generalized concep- tion of the Divine power, which lies behind them and finds expression through them. Hence they are often represented in the rude symbolism of primitive Anatolian art as associated with, or employed in, the service of some deity or Divine figure, who is an embodiment of that higher Divine power.
(1) Animals as parts of the god. —'The most typical appearance of animals in this way is as bearers or supporters or companions or components of gods. A god or goddess is often shown in rude Anatolian cult-representations as standing on an animal or bird: that is the case with a god, pre- sumably Sandon or Baal-Tarz (Hellenized as Zeus Tarsios), represented on coins of Tarsus, with several deities on the religious sculptures in the adytum at Boghaz-Keui, and with various small works of art in bronze or on seals or in other forms. The Horseman-god described below, (5), perhaps belongs to this class.*
In other cases the figure of a god has a rough resemblance to the human form, but is composed of one or more animal forms, supporting a human head, or in an Egyptianizing type the head is that of a beast or bird, but the body is human (as in some figures at Boghaz- Keui, or the Black Demeter with the head of a horse at Phigalia in Areadia).
To this class belong the representations of Cybele with her lions, or of Artemis with her stags. In those cases the earliest known types show the Deity with a form in which nothing is human except the head and perhaps the arms: the rest of the figure is a mere shapeless non-human mass or stump. The animals stand on each side of this central figure. In one case Cybele’s lions rest their forepaws on her shoulders.t Greek art took these ancient native types and developed them freely, making the figures of the goddesses entirely human, giving beauty and dignity to them, seating Cybele on a throne with her symbols (patera and tympanon) in her hands, representing Artemis after the type of the Greek hunting goddess, and introducing some dramatic motive in their relation to the accompanying animals: the goddess plays with the animals or caresses one of them with her hand. Sometimes the lion reclines in Cybele’s lap like a pet dog. See also § V (8).
In such representations it is clear that the origi- nal religious conception did not regard the Deity as of human form. There is sufficient resemblance to suggest at first sight the human form; but at the second glance the differences are seen to be very marked. The types arose, as we shall see, in the way of votive offerings. The worshipper offered to the Divine power some rude representa- tion of itself, laying this on or near the stone, or
*@. F. Hill, Catalogue of Coins Brit. Mus.: Cilicia, p. 178; Perrot, Histoire de l’Art dans l’ Antig. iv. pp. 637-40, 646, 772, ete. See also § I (8).
t Journal of Hell. Studies, 1884, p. 245 and plate.
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RELIGION OF GREECE
hanging it from the tree, which was considered to be the home of the Divinity. The representa- tion rudely embodied the vague, unformed concep- tion entertained by the worshippers: the Divine power was not wholly unlike human, but it was different, and contained the strength and swift- ness or the teeming productive power of various animals.