Three Presocratic Cosmologies PDF

Three Presocratic Cosmologies
Author(s): M. L. West
Source: The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Nov., 1963), pp. 154-176
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
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THREE PRESOCRATIC COSMOLOGIES
I. ALCMAN
A PAPYRUS commentary on Alcman published in 1957' brings us news

poem in which Alcman 'physiologized'. The lemmata and commentary
gether witness to a semi-philosophical cosmogony unlike any other hither
known from Greece. The evidence is meagre, but it seems worth while to
what can be made of it; for it is perhaps possible to go a little farther than
so far been done.2
The text of the third column of the papyrus (the second in Page's edition),
where the cosmogony is discussed, begins to be intelligible at line 3:
TCLS. EIK 8' 4)7[

KALWP EyEVETro -r[
In the next lines the commentator discusses the coming into being of rdpos and
-dKtLwp, and the sense of the lemma, or the verse from which it is taken, must
clearly have been 'and from him' (or 'after that') 'Poros and Tekmor were
born' (or 'appeared'). 'After that' is the more likely translation, for it appears
from lines 15-1 7, T99 oinsos yEoLE l pX Ka7 7Y [A]o[S J]a T,-W9 5y, EVE[7~]O,
that Poros and Tekmor were preceded by a female deity. It is probable that
]-LS, in line
belongs 3 islemma
to the to be supplemented OE]-t-S ('aon
or to the commentary long
theshot'-Lobel), whether
preceding lemma: theit
latter seems more probable. At the end of the comment on this lemma, in
lines 20-21, we find the note 7rpday[vs] 8~ 8v'- to 70 prpEaflVr`s. The 8E shows
that this is a further note on the same portion of text. The masculine grpdayvs
cannot have referred to Thetis or Tekmor; it must have qualified Poros, and
this agrees well with the mention in the Louvre Partheneion, fr. I. 13 ff., of
Aisa and Poros as yEpaLrrdroL crv. We can now supplement line 3: EK 8% 7-r
7r[prCayvs HIdpos TEKLw'p 7rE' rE]Kpwp etc.
We cannot tell whether Thetis was the first deity to appear, though the
commentary certainly suggests that she was. She seems to play the part of a
demiurge: ,ca'l - pd v rdTvra [cdJo]lav i XEa "7rv ay -r- -ro 0o xaAKo ,A,7KO 'i ~ %
O'TrL 7[-] 70"r - TEXvIrov (lines 17-19). It looks as if this likening of Thetis to a
bronze-worker was suggested by something in the poem: Alcman may for
example have referred to her as XaAKEv7pLa rav-rwv, or in the invocation of
the Muse he may have said 'sing how heaven and earth E'XcAKEVOEVO TO
rp-rov' (cf. Homer's XaAKE0 o' pavds). The introduction of a female demiurge
is best paralleled,
identified perhaps,
as Aphrodite by Parmenides'
by Plutarch 8al/wv 41qby
and as Dike-Ananke 7Tdva- KVUEpvc,
Aetius, and (fr. 12. 3),
Empedocles' Aphrodite (fr. 73, 75, 95, al.).3 The Nereid Thetis is the last
goddess we should have expected to find fulfilling this role. Lloyd-Jones's
suggestion (ap. Bowra) that it is attributed to her because of an association
I Edited by E. Lobel in Oxyrhynchus (1961), pp. 25-26. A discussion has also been
Papyri, xxiv, no. 2390 fr. 2; now fr. 5 of promised by W. Peek (Philologus civ [1960],
Alcman in Page's Poetae Melici Graeci. I80).
2 Cf. Lobel, ad loc.; Page, C.R. N.S. ix 3 In later literature compare Ananke in
(I959), 20-21 ; Barrett, Gnomon xxxiii (1961), Simmias' Pteryges, Natura in Claud. de
689; Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry, 2nd ed. raptu Proserp. I. 248 (cf. Ov. M. I. 21).
THREE PRESOCRATIC COSMOLOGIES 155
between her name and the verb G-rl0qtL is certainly right;

further. The suffix --ts (gen. --L-oS) often denoted a femal
the legitimate female equivalent of Ohrq-, and occurs as such
OEctoOGTLs, voLoOG'LS. Besides this there is another suffix -~-s,

erally developed to -ats, and was used extensively for formi
This too occasionally has an agent-signification, as in olv-4p
the names of goddesses such as Lachesis, Nemesis, Bubrostis
possible that in Alcman's dialect this suffix survived in the f
has resisted the change to ac in the verb forms E~VI-, qar-, e

fr. I. 36 the papyrus gives -r-ais, but here Alcman may have
(literary) form for the sake of euphony, just as he used ad
(fr. 70). We may say, therefore, that Alcman could certainl
the name Thetis as 'she who sets'; and that the associatio
suggested by the actual existence of a *O-E' (gen. * -OTos) for
he did not have to take her from poetic mythology. The
Sparta in Alcman's time: it was founded at the time of the
War by Laiandris, the wife of king Anaxander (Paus. 3-
Poros and Tekmor seem to be quasi-allegorical figures. Por
tion with Aisa in fr. I. 14 suggests that he represents 'p
accessory idea of 'apportionment'. Why Alcman chose him i
Poros, like Thetis, was an etymologizing reinterpretation of
god. Plato's reference to Poros as the father of Eros (Sm
light on the problem. The commentator identifies Poros as
assumed that any cosmological theory must disclose to an
reasoned that -EdKLOp must be the -EAOS, as the word itself
was nothing else but Poros that could be the adpX'. It is becau
tion that the scholiast A on fr. I. 14 equates Poros with Hes
interpretations of Poros and Tekmor are of course to be dis
-rEKioWp is a form otherwise known only from epic for the

The basic meaning of the word is 'boundary-mark'; hen
two senses of 'boundary, end' and 'mark, sign'. Here it is ap
with Poros as a principle of differentiation. There is a
in a Vedic hymn, R. V. 10. 129. 2-3:
Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sig
day's and night's divider....
Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this all was undiscriminated
chaos.2
This concept of a 'sign' appears in a more familiar text too, Gen. i. 14:
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide
the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for
days, and years.
Similarly in the Babylonian creation poem Enuma Elis, 5. 12-13:
The Moon he caused to shine, the night (to him) entrusting.
He appointed him a creature of the night to signify the days.3
I On the development of abstracta from 2 I quote from the translation of R. T. H.
nomina agentis and other adjectival forma-Griffith, The Hymns of the Rigveda (1897).
tions cf. H. Usener, G6tternamen, pp. 364-75; 3 I quote from the translation of E. A.
P. Kretschmer, Glotta xiii (1924), IO iff. Speiser in Ancient Near Eastern Texts, edited by
156 M. L. WEST
But we need not look beyond G

verse 13, we are told of the Moo
A. P. V. 454-8; A.R. I. 496-500
and visible sign such as the M
hypostasis from these things, i
to classify it, we shall have to sa
rather than a specific event.
The next lemma is Kat 7rp'ros U
was darkness because neither su
being still undifferentiated. The
Ka 7prov
taking aKdO70
azap (Q's the
to include add.sun,
Page
darkness, and afterwards, as
end of the sentence has to be
phrase 'and with them Darkness
places where it is written. Lobe
it in the one rather than the oth
Day and Moon, and has been w
and Tekmor. I can see nothing in
commentary, which consistentl
and Moon, and explicitly says in
IrKoLWP Kat UKdO70. Secondly i
light in early Greek cosmogon
pp. 19-24). Thirdly the text is i
lemma, and it is economical to
corruption. Kal 7rp7ro UKdO70 c
Tekmor. In the text of the po
preceding lemma:
&K U r rTP&TayvS Hodp
TEIKIpwp -E Kati 7p'70o
What Darkness has to do with

Tekmor has an obvious cosmo
the two, or rather the action of
leads at once to the appearanc
actually named in the next lem
pretation of Tekmor.
Professor Lloyd-Jones suggests

XE?ua K6Trropav 7rp&av etc., m
the fragment, iambic dimeters K
of our lemmata. If this conjectur
The occurrence of the word pap
aassume
corruptionthat Alcman
of, e.g., scanned
Kaipapvyag. it ?,apLapigyas
In the initial (cf. col.
words of the poem, apapvly),
ii (i) 22 f. or even that it is
[oC M]o'a
would haveloroop
to be atdiscarded
7T[... ]wvin,favour
ALto7a,ofLobel's suggested
an iambic word; supplement
for example,7ravTr5v
Barrett's
Alotal -r[E might be continued with a ]r.v (monosyllabic, cf. fr. 56. 2).2
J. B. Pritchard, 2nd ed., 1955 (hereafter For the masculine see Barrett, loc. cit.,
abbreviated A.N.E.T.2), p. 68. note 5-
2 But I have doubts about Barrett's Wc
"rpl7rov in Lobel's transcript is a mistake.
II. PHERECYDES
Some nine square inches of Pherecydes' fascinating cosmic h

delivered up by the illimitable sands of Egypt nearly seventy year
unless they should achieve a second such parturition, it is unlikely t
about the basic outlines of its contents will be radically revised
of its details remain puzzling and unsatisfactory, and it is in the ho
some of them less so, and of setting the whole structure on a firme
I offer the following discussion.
First the title of Pherecydes' book. This is given in the Sud
Pherecydes as follows: " JrLvxos 77ro& OEoKpaora 3 1Eoyovia. Ev7L
EV fltfAlo' C Exovua OEW V yE'VETLV Kai ataaoXa-g (-ovU codd., corr.
general interpretation of this is that there are three alternative ti
mychos, Theokrasia, and Theogonia. But nJ-dTLvxos- is an adjective
as a book-title we expect a noun. More probably there are two
TTdcrdt[VXSZ2 OEOKpaclka and E-dktvxoS OEotovla.3 The following
merely descriptive; the further addition Xovara OEWOv YEVELV K
suggests that &EoKpaata meant or was taken to mean not 'mixing o
but 'reigns of the gods', with -Kpaala equivalent to -KpaTrla as
dXhoKparaa, XELpoKpaala etc. But these titles are certainly Alexan
tions; Pherecydes will have been content to sign his name at the b
the work, e.g. EPEKU8139~ iSptOLo 7C-8E AEE~ BcUvoS Uv~d.4
It is generally agreed that the Suda's statement on the length of
erroneously taken over from a notice concerning the Athenian
and it is generally assumed that it actually occupied only one volum
quite likely to be correct, though it should be observed that the ex
Diogenes Laertius I. I19 a ' 3- atUoi , vptov -d TE ~flMov 3 Uv

4q aPXq etc. does not necessarily imply a single volume. When Call
/dya ftflAlov d'kya KaKdv, he must have been thinking of works occ
volumes (pace Birt), and Livius Andronicus' translation of the Odys
be referred to as a liber.s
Mc6]aa. C seems not to be used in invocations 4 Cf. Alcmaion of Croton fr. I. As the
of the Muse in the early period. name of Pherecydes' father was known and
The most sensible account is that by not disputed in antiquity, he probably
G. S. Kirk in Kirk-Raven, Presocratic Philo- named him, as do Alcmaion and Antiochus
sophers, pp. 48-72. in their sphragides. Hecataeus, Herodotus,
2 The 'seven nooks' of the Suda title are and Thucydides only give their city. Against
notoriously discrepant from the five nooks the assumption that Pherecydes began with
in which, in Pherecydes' cosmogony, a sphragis of this kind is the fact that Dio-
Chronos' seed was distributed so as to pro-genes Laertius, obviously following a library
duce the 'five-nook generation of gods' catalogue, quotes fr. I as the beginning of
(Damasc. Pr. 124 b = Diels-Kranz 7 A 8). the work. But it may be that the sphragis was
I find it hard to believe that these five nooks ignored in the pinax entry; to include it
were somehow augmented by two further might have led to confusion where there
nooks in a separate category, and the most
were two works by the same author. There
is reason to think that this has been done in
reasonable course is surely to alter l7rd'vLUXOS
to 7TEvr'lvQxoS with Preller (Rh. Mus. the iv case of the Triagmoi of Ion of Chios, of
which Harpocration cites from a catalogue
[1846], 378), or better to 7TEvrda1LvXos (see
below).
3 e-rdj4wvos seems to have been taken in pX1 3dE /ot
probably the70ro
sameA'dyov
with 7Tdra 7pla
fr. I of etc. It is
Heraclitus,
the way I advocate by Wilamowitz, KI. which Aristotle and Sextus mention as the
Schr. v (2), p. 129, since he prints it with beginning of his book, though they are not
a small initial and OEoKpaa'a and O9oyovIa following a catalogue.
with capitals. s Gell. i8. 9. 5; T. Birt, Das antike Buch-
158 M. L. WEST
The book began with the thr

adlE Kat XOovlrv. XOov8y 8 vo
and Chronos have something i
but the new forms of the nam
something partly new and un
to Earth,2 but she is not Eart
event is certainly connected w
is the subject of our papyrus f
XOov7 8o 8vol a dyEvETro Q7I
beginning more understandin
to say that Zas and Chronos
not. Chthonie's change into G
belongs to our present-day wo
Kronos would be the reverse
a figure of mythology who pl
Isles of the Blest, or else sit
lose or gain by becoming Zeus
the absence of evidence to the
The first stage in the cosmog
'five-nook generation'.4 This
SEpEKV'8q d ?Uptoo ZivTa ,dv EL
rowt?7ra EK -TO YVOV Eaw'oTv
SLtP?7IYIVWV roAA 'v dAAqv yEEV
meaning of notijat E'K TOO Yd

aptly compares the creative
mogonic myth (A.N.E. T.2, p
told by ZC B 783 (Kirk-Raven
it may be worth mentioning a
of the birth of Orion. Zeus, P
at Tanagra by Hyrieus, a son o
thing he wanted. Being childl
semen into the hide of the ox
bury it in the earth for ten m
born.s Two points may be n
womb corresponds to the [zv
wesen (1882), Empedocles'
pp. 482-4, and
catalogue of personified oppo- Kr
Hermeneutik (Handb. d.(fr.
sites, paired with Heliope Altertu
I22. I).
[19131), p. 295. I3 Against
owe Kirk-Raven,
these p. 56. referen
4 If Pherecydes Deplant.
wife. Cf. also [Arist.] used this expression, as22.
' rc E- p C flgA'p 7i -7TEp'
seems likely, it will have been /LETEEI
in the form
I I. 356 and 16. 7TEVTardfvXoS
88 3[3Aos 'OC1Ojpo
yEvEq rather than r7TvrE'ivXos as
This is the accentuation of the manu- Damascius has it. Cf. Hdt. I. 136 7Evra'rTjs,
scripts of Diogenes (with v.1. ZEt)S) and Clem.
14489 7Tvd7ToAL-,
Strom. 6. 9, and it is supported by ancient
6. 2. 9.
7TEvra8paxLos-, IO 83
and 4- 47 7vrdEaro1?_oL,
'rVTraTIlXvs (v. 1.
grammarians. See A. B. Cook, Zeus ii.
r7TEvTEd77xv), and A. Debrunner, Griechische
351 n. 2. Wortbildungslehre, p. 69. In the title of
2 She appears to be a hypostasis from the
the book r7TvataLvXos- would be more easily
ITh XOovtl( attested on an inscription from
Myconos, B.C.H. vii (1883), 398. In cult corrupted
the
would. to r7rdtavxos than nEvroTLvXos
epithet is more often borne by Zeus ands Euphorion fr. o10 Powell and other
Demeter. Ge is called Chthonie by 'Musaeus'
sources, cf. Roscher, iii. 1030.
fr. II Diels; a Chthonie also appears in
the discretion with which the story is told, rather than th

which Re recalls his achievement in the Egyptian text, is lik
the characteristic tone of Pherecydes' narrative. He may ha
expression as we have in Damascius.
We are told that Chronos made fire, breath, and wat
that these were divided among five nooks; and that mo
them. As the reader may have observed, I assume that it wa
was distributed among the nooks, and that it was in the no
the different elements (cf. Kirk-Raven, p. 58). All the myth
demand that the seed be sown in some definite place, rec
of womb, before anything grows from it: the births of Typ
birth of the Giants, Erinyes and Meliai from the blood o
and of Aphrodite from the genitals themselves (Hes. Th. 18
to this in the Hurrian-Hittite Kumarbi myth, where the go
River Tigris are born after Kumarbi spits Anu's genitals ou
the birth of Erichthonios from the seed which Hephaestus
in his pursuit of Athena (Apollod. 3. 14. 6, with Frazer's
the second Aphrodite from Zeus' seed, which fell in the
This is what Pherecydes' nooks are for. How and where he i
impossible to say. Robert Eisler conjectured that Pherecydes
stage of his cosmogony in the form of a pentagram.I This i
but there need be no such mystical significance in the choi
five. Presumably there are five nooks because five gods (if
to be born. The product of the seed is the important th
merely accessories, and it may be that Pherecydes gave no s
their arrangement.
Damascius names only three products of Chronos' seed; no
mation is abridged or lacunose. Kirk believes that it is actua
on later, perhaps Stoic, interpretation of the seed itself. Th
likely in itself, and also unnecessary. It is certainly not
Pherecydes named the products as 7rrp, 7rvE jia, i owp and
two were (e.g. Y- and Jjp): this is a doxographer's simplifica
doxographer's terminology. Pherecydes will have dressed th
as Empedocles does with his four elements, calling them
Zeus, Nestis, etc. That this was possible in the sixth century
fact that Theagenes of Rhegium, in the time of Cambys
Homeric gods in just this way, as physical allegories
'Hephaestus' sometimes means simply 'fire', Scamander i
a river, Uranos and Gaia themselves are at once gods and
the principle was easily extended.
The seed ofTime in five wombs develops into five different
This is an intelligible cosmogonical doctrine, and there i
should not be attributed to Pherecydes, provided that w
in our reconstruction of his history what is obviously the ne
mixture of the elements into a composite whole. Fortunatel
difficulty. It exactly fits what we are told by Proclus in Tim
often(I91o)
' Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt injudiciously
i. used. His attempt to
322 ff. A considerable part of this book symbolisms in the word
psephological
bears on the interpretation ofnames
Pherecydes;
used by Pherecydes (pp. 334 ff
it contains vast learning, which isnohowever
found followers.
2 See ZB Y 67-
16o M. L. WEST
d 0PEKV&S EE EtS "Epor

OTT, 87)TO'Y KO'OJOV EK
Tavdrc7pya 7rdaty EVEa
Love is a familiar figur
an even more important
but even in Hesiod the p
(Th. 120) implies a cosm
sophisticated or advance
reported by Eudemus
ap. Eus. P.E. i. io. I (F.G
already mentioned in c
All that existed then w
was born that Unit.
Thereafter rose Desire (Kama) in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and
germ of spirit.
The identification of this Eros with Zas gives the latter a demiurgic impor-
tance that the Greek Zeus had never had. Now Lydus, De Mens. 4- 3, tells us
that Zeus (sc. Zas) was 'HALos ahd'-T Ka- aJEpEKdV8Yv. A composite primeval
Zas-Eros-Helios is a figure not unlike the Orphic Phanes, with whom Proclus,
loc. cit., actually compares him. Phanes is a god of light, with shining golden
wings (Orph. fr. 78, hymn. 6. 2). He is identified with Eros (frr. 83, 168.9), he is
called Phaethon (fr. 73), and he becomes united with Zeus as a result of being
swallowed by him (fr. 167); while Zeus is identified with Helios (fr. 47, 236,
239, hymn. 8. 13).I The identification of Zeus and the Sun is common from
the Hellenistic period on (see A. B. Cook, Zeus i. 186 ff.). The earliest certain
instance apart from Pherecydes is Orph. fr. 47 (iv-iii B.C.); but no better
restoration than the obvious one has been suggested for I.G. xii (7). 87 (Amorgos,
vi-v B.C.) ZEYZ HA[. . ]Z. For the identification of Sun and demiurge we
may also compare the Egyptian Re with whom we have already had to compare
Pherecydes' Chronos.
It is clear that the activity of Zas-Eros belongs at this stage of the cosmogony:
this is where it is most obviously needed (so K. von Fritz, R.-E. xix. 2031-2).
Chronos produces the materials, and Zas brings them into order. The five
elemental gods mate among themselves, and many new gods are born. By now,
presumably, some sort of world exists. It is not the present-day world, which
only comes into being after the wedding of Zas and Chthonie; there are no
men in it, only a host of strange and unfamiliar gods; but they have a stage on
which they can act out their destined history, where they can build houses and
make war.
We cannot be sure that the war of the gods was the next event to be recorded,
but the hypothesis has analogy in its favour. In Hesiod the Titanomachy
comes as soon as the Titan families are complete, and it is only after this and
the battle with Typhoeus that Zeus undertakes the series of marriages which
establish the present world order. Similarly in the Babylonian creation poem,
the theomachy comes before the establishment of the present world order under
the rule of Marduk. He actually creates heaven and earth from the body of the
defeated Tiamat (En. El. 4- I35ff., A.N.E.T.2, p. 67). So the most likely
I In frr. 236 and 239 Zeus-Helios is equated with Dionysus, and in fr. 237 Dionysus with
Phanes.
sequence of events in Pherecydes is first the th

wedding of Zas and Chthonie. The analogy i
not play the decisive part in the theomachy
parallel histories; so far as we can tell, he took n
suggested is still the most likely.
The battle was between forces led by Chr
c. Cels. 6. 42). The name of Ophioneus, or O
call him, suggests a serpentiform creature. Thi
but it is further indicated by Dionysius, Bassar
Heitsch, ]ae " aLEv 'O0lowv,' and by the fact th
to A.R. I. 503 and others, was Eurynome, a g
Phigalia in the form of a mermaid.2 We do not
Pherecydes; but Ophioneus seems to have h
(F.G.H. 790 F 4) says that Pherecydes told ab
nidai. It must be judged likely that these Op
opposed Chronos, and that they were of a mon
and putative mother.
A battle between the gods and a band of mon
mythology; Typhoeus is alone in his combat
Marduk has to face not only Tiamat, the dra
monstrous beings created by her: the Viper, th
Great-Lion, the Mad-Dog, and the Scorpion-M
Dragon-Fly, the Centaur.3 Now the monsters w
tional catalogue4 bear a remarkable resemblanc
in the exploits of Heracles, Perseus, and Bel
Hesiod's Theogony (306 ff.) as a united famil
Echidna: the fearful hounds Orthos and Cerber
the Sphinx, and the Nemean Lion. Typhaon and
like Ophioneus and Eurynome. Three of the fo
are anthropomorphic above the waist and fish
point in Kirk's comparison (p. 68) of the Oph
but the Babylonian myth makes an indispensab
parallels we may mention the Norse myth of Ra
between the gods and the sons of Muspell, who
Fenrir, the Mi6gar6-Serpent, etc., and the Iran
Ormuzd and the followers of the serpent Ahri
snake, the scorpion, the frog, the lizard, and t
This division of words, which I have Enuma Elil, no extant text of which is
proposed in Gitt. Gel. Anz. 1963, 170, isearlier than 000ooo B.C., these monsters were
preferable on purely metrical grounds todepicted on door-panels of sanctuaries of
the usual division ]dELS aLev, besides beingMarduk and his consort Sarpanitu, accord-
easier to supplement: Svaad'& or t6r~pa i'. ing to an inscription of Agum II, who re-
2 Paus. 8. 41. 4. The locals for some reasonstored them in the fifteenth century B.C.
regarded her as a form of Artemis. Cf. (A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, 2nd ed.
Wilamowitz, Glaube der Hellenen i. 221. [1951], p. 13).
3 En. El. I. 140-2, 2. 27-29, 3. 31-33, s It was first compared with Pherecydes
89-91. The translation 'Sphinx' is marked by P. Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier (1890),
as uncertain by Speiser. In the case of the PP. 303 f.
Viper, Dragon, Great-Lion, and Mad-Dog, 6 For a full account of the Norse myth see
a variant has the plural in one or other place
Axel Olrik, Ragnariik (1922). Although set
where the list occurs. in the future instead of the past, it shows
4 Besides their several appearances in other similarities with the Near Eastern
4599.2 M
162 M. L. WEST
In Pherecydes' narrativ
Max. Tyr. 4. 4 &AAd Kal

A0ovu?7v Kal troyv & -roo
Kal 7 oV'pOV KaL 7dV %

guess (p. 70) that they w
is himself represented a
fr. I8 Diels, Claud. Laud.
p. 39); but Ophioneus n
Once born, he presum
become king in heaven
so for a period. Ophion
I. 503 ff., Lyc. ii9I wi
sch. Ar. Nub. 247), and
most likely to have be
substance to the Suda's s
is a parallel in the Irani
it was agreed between O
the world for nine tho
completely into Ahrima
save his country from r
At all events, war is de
It is conducted accordin
8E Kal c 4Aeas a.i3rc tev L
EtyS 3v'yvj 1 _kV7T&TEoU
vLKrlaav7ra, rotrov; XEL
formal speeches such
something here of Hesio
Zeus' exchanges with Kot
and with Prometheus a
side falls into Ogenos sh
suspect that it was a ref
recorded. In fact we do
Sparta, described by Lu
were divided into two
a puppy to Enyalios at t
ing to the result of the
that of Lycurgus. Then
was victorious generally
place at a place called Pla
moat. Two bridges led o
of Lycurgus. Shortly b
appropriate bridges, an
party was pressed back
early legend associates P
[1953], 8-13) ; and it is c
by Lucian and Pausanias,
is quite possible that sim
Succession Myth,
is and in
related may
the b
shoot of it carried
West north
in by
volume
the shores ofed.
theF. Max Sea.
Black Mui T
is not likely to have been the first to see in it the repr

machy: this will have been the official interpretation
his time.
Ophioneus is pushed back into Ogenos, and the st
corresponds to the pressing of the defeated party back i
But it must also have had some significance at the myt
play no part in the world's affairs, because they are bou
defeat in the Titanomachy explains why they are there
because Typhon is imprisoned under it: his defeat by
came to be there. If Ophioneus and the Ophionidai were
that girdles the earth, then that is where they are
traces of this view in later literature. In Myth. Vat. I. 2
identified with Oceanus-at least by 'philosophers': Ophio
sophos Oceanus, qui et Nereus, de maiore Thetide genuit C
is of course Tethys). He is closely associated with Ocean
e&1rai-i,)v %
Tvuorartv em'rav
o iAevuop.at 'QKEavo'o
7 E vor tonEV LKV
a''pa KaAAE4ac Xa v /,po-rwv vlpeva'lv
T77voos aPXEYovoto uTvM WSt EVgEV ?KaVWo
E9S oLov EvpvvoP~' s Kat ' Ol'ovos eyyvO' I,/pvw.

In Dionysius, loc. cit., his hissing appears to be connected with the fury of the
sea in a tempest:
]Evoat Od. 4366.
]v-ra N-roto
taken away, came up from the seaa (Dan. 7. -a) In Norse mythology thea
]9f EAvc b'wcav
]eVtKaITITEwTE ITOV[Tp
bL&ya]s ' WptVEro Sof7ToQ
]ae'i e tIEv 'Oocobv.
It is hardly coincidence that Eurynome is a daughter of Oceanus in Hesiod

(Th. 358). There she becomes a wife of Zeus (907), which implies that she was
a figure of some importance even then. Cf. IR. 18. 398, and Zenodotus' reading
at Od. 4. 366.
It would be easy to imagine, at the bed of a river that goes round in a circle
and flows back into itsel Hymi. a serpent also going round in a circle and biting its
own tail. Serpents and rivers are not infrequently compared with each other in
poetic simile (e.g. Hes. fr. 38 Rz., Arat. 45, Virg. G. i.-245), and river-gods are
represented in art as long, undulating 'sea-serpents' with human trunk and
head. Here again non-Greek parallels force themselves upon our attention.
Tiamat, although heaven and earth are made out of her carcass, is still the
personification of the deeps; she is etymologically related to the tehom of Gen.
19. 25 and Deut. 33. 13. Leviathan, whose headsJahweh brake, is the serpent
in the waters (Ps. 74. 13-14, Isa. 27. I). The four monsters of Daniel's dream
that rose against the Ancient of Days, and were slain or had their dominion
Lay, 4- if. J6rmungand will again be Thor's antagonist at the last battle of
164 M. L. WEST
Ragnar6k: Vdluspd 148, 169 ff.' The s

Asian cosmography; cf. U. Holmbe
Scient. Fenn. xvi), Helsinki, 1922-3,
one version, is not under a mountain
Serbonis on the border of Egypt (H
A.R. 2. 1215, Eust. in D.P. 248).2 Oth
fire, he plunged into the sea, but
Sicily on top of him (Nic. fr. 59 ap.
Chronos has vanquished the usurper
established on the throne of heave
turn supplanted by Zas ? That would
not, like Kronos, a power that has
is not, like Zeus, a new-born god
maturity, but a god who has existed
easier to suppose that there is simpl
instead of Chronos becomes the cent
he merely withdraws into the backg
The only remaining event that w
wedding, and as has been intimated
theomachy. The gods have establis
their empire in order. It will be a
give the text of the papyrus fragme
TWL tOLEVuLv o ra o[L]Kta

r7oAAa 7-E KaL /LEya'Aa E"
' rai i-a E'E7E-E .,t
AEcaV 7ra'vvra Kal Xp-q- E]
jfa-a KaL Gp7Trov7aS 5 KaAv7T-Tnpta 7Tp37rovY[
Kal GEpa7ratva' Kal ytntiaL, EK T9)TOV
7-Ahha 3aa aE rrcvTa, 0 YVdO(S dEeVE[7-o] .c.4[
&v,) rpl iv v-rafpv) )l- Ktpps
yvET7a 7rto ya/4Lt, d, E.-[

Text and translation of all Norse poems Pherecydes ante omnes refert coronatum, louem
cited can be found in Vigfusson-Powell, Diodorus post deuictos Titanas. It is implied
Corpus Poeticum Boreale, Oxford, 1883that (two the occasion in Pherecydes was similar
volumes). to that in Diodorus (6 fr. 4). He may have
2 Another myth connects Typhon with explicitly made it the aition for the wearing
the bed of a river. Strabo 750-I rT 8' ovojpa of crowns; and it may have been suggested
-roo yCevpcoavros avrov 'Opdv-rov perdeLAae, to him by the actual wearing of crowns by
the victors in the ritual battle as he was
KiaAoLEvos~ rep'rEpov Tv0ckCv. pLVOEVova7 8'
d 0vra0" O vd 7rov p Tr 7rEp rv KEpa~VWV 70 Tv.o- acquainted with it.
vo0S... acOl e 'v7T rrdEjLvov 70ro KEpavvOLg 4 Cf. Zeller-Nestle, Gesch. d. gr. Phil. i6.
I 6.
(Elvat 8 8pdaKOV7ra) #EYELV KT~advUaV t 70roV--
-r7a ro .LEVaY oyV OJAKOLS EV7EIEL-V 7 7V y ^V Kat s Bodleian MS. Gr. class. f. 48 (P), no.
oLaatqUL ro ELpov roO v O ora/Lov, Ka-ra86V-ra 8' 32312 in the Supplementary Catalogue;
Es yyv avapp ta 1-r'v 7rqyqrv EK O1YrTOWV fr. 2 Diels. First edited by Grenfell and Hunt,
y'EvtioaL -ro-voa ric ^worap. Cf. Malalas, Greek Papyri, Second Series, 1897, pp. 21-23.
p. 197 Dind. The text given above is based on a re-
STertull. De corona militis 7: Saturnum collation of the original.
ya rE Kat KaAoV, Kal .[

v at%-VrV
Kaa -T[t]a la.LI9..[&Ae
c- yjv] 15 .[
y..voi [84opaTa .....
The papyrus (17) has no accents or breathings. Col. i. I 7roLovav 17. 9 and 2
ylverat should probably be written, as in Herodotus and Homer. 13 rrofLE H.
15-17 supplemented from Clem. Strom. 6. 9. 4. The supplement in 15 produces a line of 9
letters; none of the other lines that can be checked have more than i8, most of them 15 or I6.
Diels, S.P.A.W., 1897, 144 n. 2, suggested that 7roLE had been written instead ofrwOLKIAEL.
This is not so. One might assume that y7v was inadvertently omitted; but I think there is
actually room for it. 18 (.) . .] : the second (first) of these letters was not tall. y. : per-
haps r. t[: the upper half, slightly sloping to right. ]yLy[ perhaps possible; not ]y-'[.
Col. ii. 2 -rpco may have been written, to judge by the space. 3 The stichometric sign
belongs here, not to the following line as Grenfell-Hunt report; the papyrus is misleadingly
distorted between the columns. . v[. 7; v as in i. 15 avrw[L]. K might just be possible.
4 t]a&O was probably written: the bar of an epsilon would have been visible. The Ionic form
is known from Hecat. fr. 361. 9 ]g[ doubtful on a twisted limb. io Of 8 only
the apex. E : oL would be a possible alternative. 12 E: read by Grenfell-Hunt as a.
After it, on the line, the tip of an angle or of a vertical sloping to right. 13 ? probable.
t: perhaps -. Grenfell-Hunt read KA[. 14 The base of a circle; broad for o, which
Grenfell-Hunt read, but not impossibly so. 15 Op[ Grenfell-Hunt.
The marriage of Zas and Chthonie resembles those of Uranos and Gaia,
Zeus and Hera, and other lEpol y'CLou of mythology and cult. At the mytho-
logical level, as we find it in Pherecydes, its symbolism is easily understood.
The fructifying influence of the celestial power Zas-Helios turned the primeval
Chthonie into the earth we know, clothing her with earth's visible surface
features as with a garment.' When he gives her a robe embroidered with
y^ , dy'vds etc., and says Todvy T E Tqt w, this is the same act that is referred to in
fr. I, X~ovldy q ovoya EyEEvTO Ii, ErTEL& at T Zas ygv yqpaS o60o.2 Whether the
marriage produced further offspring, we cannot be sure. Perhaps mankind was
one of its fruits; Zeus is father of gods and men, Earth is our mother, and if
Pherecydes explained the origin of man at all, this is the most likely place.
Let us now examine fr. 2 in more detail. The palace, provisions, and servants
are in keeping with the fairly advanced stage of creation that has now been
reached. The gift of the robe takes place on the third day of the wedding, be-
cause that was the day of the anakalypteria in mortal weddings, for which
Pherecydes is supplying an aition: Hesych. s.v. avavKaAv7TT-'-pLOV 7E 7j~V V4 qIv
7Tp(J0ov
in making thedyownV y undertakes
robe Zas T7pl'r 475pxpa". It need task'
an 'unmasculine not, (Kirk-Raven,
I think, worry
p. 61)us
; overmuch that
Eisler (op. cit., p. 199) has pointed out that weaving was men's work in Egypt
(Hdt. 2. 35, S. O.C. 337 if.), but one can hardly argue that this is an oriental
motif in Pherecydes.3 The decoration of the robe comprises the earth and its
surroundings. What Tr 'Q2yr-voiY &uaLra are is a mystery. Parallels of a kind
I Compare Orph. fr. 238, where Zeus- heavens he has put upon my head as a
Dionysus puts on a robe in the likeness of crown, The earth as sandals upon my feet.'
the sun, above it a deerskin dappled to re- 2 ydpas and -qttL- can be near-synonyms,
present the stars, and round his waist a belt e.g. Hes. Th. 393-6, 426-7, 449-
representing Oceanus. In a Sumerian poem 3 There were male weavers and em-
(Falkenstein-Soden, Sumerische u. Akkadische broiderers in Greece by the fourth century
Hymnen u. Gebete [1953], pp. 67-68) the cf. P1. Phd. 87 b, Rep. 369 d, Aeschin. I. 97
goddess Inanna says of her father Enlil, 'The
166 M. L. WEST
have been adduced by O.

quaestiones criticae (1888), p
202 Hera recalls that Oce
(Sdopot). In Aeschylus' P.
cave can be described as 8;4
or pLyapa, Od. 4- 557). O
Styx (Hes. Th. 777), Tibe
8. 56o). But if the 3OSpa-a '
deserve special mention i
have thought that &tOa-ra
iv (1846), 388, proposed vc
the reference to be to the r
whole it seems safer to ass
Ogenos as the Semitic and
world as well as round it
houses. But this bold inte
Ogenos must be somethin
is used in a sense analog
occupied by something con
through which Ogenos, rep
passes. Another, perhaps
Ogenos are not places wher
beside Ogenos, whether o
Nonn. D. 8. 16I cited abov
earth.
The rest of col. i must ha
list of things represented
and that he spoke; and at l
containing yap (ii. I). How
is numbered line 6oo, on w
597. This might represen
But stichometry in papyri
(both factors of 6oo) are ju
The column-length need
lines in the fragment we h
Before ydp a participle is
accepted, with the meani
patronage. This is unaccept
Hera, not Ge, and the ass
becoming Hera as well as G
conclusively, there is no lo
and the gift of the robe. a
wedding'-yd"pot of a singl
et saepe-and the participle
the sort. The anakalypte
1 II. 21. 195-7, Pind.
in the same fragment, fr. 326,
but the more poetic
might be mentioned word, which is once used by Herodotus
apart fro
Hes. Th. I09, Wilamowitz on Eur. H.F. (2. 62), suits the more cosmological signifi-
1296. cance to be assumed here.
2 Pherecydes uses oIKla for 'house' earlier
before her husband but before the world. Cf. Hesych., loc.
forth Zas' bride will be seen in her new guise, as Ge.
A gift from the husband was customary on this occas
JvaKaAv7r1-Tp~a was actually used of such gifts (Harpocr.,
There are other myths in which they are given by gods to
was so given by Zeus to Kore (Diod. 5. 2. 3, Plut. Tim. 8
according to another story (Euphorion fr. 107). For the gift
others have compared Cadmus' gift to Harmonia (Apollod
more striking parallel has been adduced by K. Ganta
periodical Ziva Antika vii. 2 (I957), 236 ff. According to a
the gods persuaded Anu, Heaven, to marry IJtar and make
world. He does so, and clothes her with a richly decorate
sovereignty, the glory of shining Sin (god of night and the
Having received her gift, Chthonie apparently makes
What does she do with the robe? The natural and obvious answer is that
she puts it on. That is what robes are for, and the act would symbolize h
transformation into Ge excellently. Yet Kirk and others think that she does
something quite different and really rather strange: that she spreads it over
a tree, the tree and robe together being Pherecydes' allegorical picture of th
world. This view is based on Isidorus ap. Clem. Strom. 6. 53. 5 L va xLdOc~w r
EUTLV 1 r VqT7TTrEpOS sP Ka Sp7 VT' a7 rrE7TOKtALEVOV PSo (Ka) rra 0aa
OEpEKUvIS c dAAryop ras EOEOArdyr7EV, and on the looser conjunction of robe a
tree in the passage of Maximus cited above, p. 243. The embroidered robe
Isidorus must be the one given by Zas to Chthonie, and if it is 'on' a winged
tree, then (it is argued) she must have put it there. But this conclusion involve
serious difficulties. Firstly, while it is common enough in mythical cosmolog
for the world to be represented by a tree,2 and common enough for the heave
to be represented as a mantle,3 there is no parallel for a tree covered by a mant
and even if we allowed that such a contamination of alternative concept
might occur, we should certainly expect the mantle to symbolize the sky and
the tree its support,4 whereas in Pherecydes we know that the mantle sym-
bolized the surface of the earth. Secondly, it is impossible to imagine how su
behaviour on Chthonie's part could have been motivated in the myth. T
act of covering a tree with a mantle has no parallel in real life.s It is commo
enough for a garment to be hung on the branch of a holy tree as dedication
decoration. But nobody could have used this as a picture of the world, an
anyway, why should the bride be dedicating her bridal gifts ? There are also
examples of dress being put on an image made out of a tree (cf. Kern, R.-E. i
160-2); but the dress is for the image, not for the tree. Eisler (pp. 590 f
brings forward three further kinds of parallel in support of his elaborate inte
pretation, but none of them will bear examination. He refers to a holy oak in
Prussia, which was covered with a cloth except when a pilgrim wanted to see it
this may be admitted as evidence of the habits of Prussian museum-custodian
but hardly of anything else. He connects Pherecydes' winged tree with t
For the robe of sovereignty cf. Enuma ing the sky. There are however cases where
Eli& 4. 29, Nonn. D. I. 480, 2. 571, 3- 197. it supports the earth, see Eisler, pp. 765 f.,
2 Cf. U. Holmberg, op. cit. Holmberg, pp. 53 f.
s We must assume that the tree is a tree,
3 Cf. Eisler, op. cit. passim; Gantar, loc. cit.
4 The world tree usually rises above and the not a loom or the mast of a ship; see
earth, its branches supporting or represent- Kirk-Raven, p. 63.
I68 M. L. WEST
cult scenes depicted on certain A
tree is topped with the solar symb
side holding things which hang do
to be the edges of a cloth with wh
be covered. Pherecydes' veiled tree
and Chthonie can lie together. In t
were spread over small trees whic
branches; and the erection of a ten
some Hebrew and Arab marriage
This construction is ingenious and
at every point. The interpretation
tained when all the relevant material is taken into account. From the evidence
collected and described by Danthine, op. cit. i. 94-97, it is clear that the ap-
pendages of the winged disk are separate tassels of some sort. The Assyrian
representations of tents, on which is based the assertion that trees were used
as framework, do not show trees at all, but manufactured tent-poles with arms,
perfectly straight and each forked at the end, jointed to the central pole. This
is particularly clear on the relief from Nineveh in the British Museum (no.
124927) showing the burning of an Arab encampment.z The whole structure
of each tent appears to be toppling over, which a rooted tree could not do.
Another relief, which survives only in a drawing, appears to show the erection
of a royal tent, with the framework in a half-collapsed position.3 In any case,
these tent props do not in the least resemble the sacred trees in the cult scenes,
which have close branches down to the ground, and could not possibly serve
as tents even if veiled. And there is no reason why Pherecydes should have put
his L yEp c yadoS inside a tent; there is no Greek analogy for the Semitic tent-
marriage.
We have not yet exhausted the improbabilities of the view that the robe
was spread over the tree. For if the tree and robe together represent the world,
what becomes of Chthonie-Ge ? Admittedly it is possible to counter this ques-
tion with another: if, as I have suggested is more probable, Chthonie-Ge puts
the robe on, and the clothed goddess represents the world, where does the
tree fit in ?
Two solutions of the dilemma present themselves. One is that Chthonie
is the tree, or rather (since Zas obviously does not marry a tree), she becomes
a tree, as Daphne did when Apollo chased her, and lives on as a sort of cosmic
Hamadryad. It is hard to see, however, why Pherecydes should introduce
such a development into the story, how he could have supplied a cause for it,
and above all what would be gained by it, if the robe remains a robe after the
transformation. We have still not escaped from the unsatisfying image of the
clothed tree, and we have created new problems besides. Once Zas has
married Chthonie and she has put on the robe, the world is complete, the
creation is accomplished. The allegory requires no further metamorphoses,
and we postulate them at our peril.
I Eisler, pp. 592, 594, figs. 70-71; cf. detail in R. D. Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs
Hdl1ne Danthine, Le palmier-dattier et les (not dated, appeared in 1959), pl. 114-
arbres sacris dans l'iconographie de I'Asie occi- 3 R. D. Barnett and M. Falkner, The
dentale ancienne (i1937) ii, figs. 333, 363, 429-33, Sculptures of Tiglath-Pileser III (London, 1962),
etc.
pl. LIII and p. 13; differently interpreted on
2 Eisler, p. 595, fig. 73; but see rather the and in the caption to the plate.
p. xxiii
The alternative is to cut the knot: to reject Clement's ir'

based on a misunderstanding. The robe is not on the
Chthonie and stays on her, representing the world. If the
the world, as still remains likely, it is an alternative allego
clothed goddess, and had no place in the wedding narr
a way in which it may have been introduced. There is at le
that appears to come from a description of the world, or
the world, as it now is: fr. 5 Diels KElvrJS 8S JOPS EVE~/Jp

ipotpa- qvAduaovat 8' at'r)v OvyarE'pE BopE'w, 1Ap-TvLal TE
EK9cLAAEcL GEW 7av 7 -r tvfEptr?., There are other fragm
easily accounted for by the assumption that this descripti
nether regions of the universe, but embraced the whole o
to reconstruct it.
'Below that division is the division of Tartarus.' What is 'that division'
likely to be ? The most probable hypothesis is that it corresponds to Hades
According to a famous Homeric line (II. 8. 16), Tartarus lies -rdo'ov EvEpO
A'lSEw, oaov o0pavos da-r' irn yatrl. We know that Pherecydes spoke of the soul
of the dead: Cic. Tusc. I. 38 Pherecydes Syrius primus dixit animos esse hominum
sempiternos. We also know that he described in some detail the place wher
they dwell: Porph. Antr. Nymph. 31 70o Evplov JPEpEKV80V tLUXO'V Kat fdo'pouv
Ka v7pa Kt apv-rp K 7TVas EyOVTOS Kat 8td ro7tWy aV tV770OU 7E'v 7WV
bvx~iv yEVE'UELS Kat royvE7UE&t. He probably distinguished the abode o
sinners from that of good men, and seems to have agreed with Pythagora
(who is said to have been his pupil) in regarding all bloodshed as sinful.
Cf. Themist. Or. 2 p. 38 ab oGrcw 8E apa faortA'ws 7TpofrlOEL-rTa r&L 8atidVLov
KaOapas- q VAccLt KclL &LKalov 0vov -alS XELdPaLcL-AAov 7 PEpEKV'SOV Klt 17Hvayopov
(not in Diels-Kranz). It is here that we must put the EKpo7) attested for Phere
cydes by [Galen] ad Gaurum p. 34 Kalbfleisch (A.P.A. W., 1895). The writer is
discussing the question, at what point life enters an embryo. Kat 7roA yE 7r
drraTlOavov EEL K~alL rr7TaaXua-8Es TroL$o a vEtvat (sc. d Ka7ps-) dvopqaOp,, Tto o/LV or7ay
Ka-aflrlA707) T- "-TET'l, T6V K atpv-oV UToP ai7T0&VTS, oS- r Vo 1gl7%V o"Lov E v OVTS
ETop?~Lzaos K8EXEpVOtLOa 8 O7V rrao IpTOV, etc. In the case of Plato's
must be based on the circumstance that the souls approach the river and drink
from it (in other words are united with it) and are thereupon reincarnated.
The Styx in Hesiod (Th. 793 ff.) has the power of depriving a god who falsely
swears upon it of breath and speech for a year, and of the company and board
of the gods for nine years more; a similar doctrine is attested for 'Orpheus'
(fr. 295). This banishment must have been interpreted as condemnation to
a term of life in a mortal body, as in Empedocles fr. I a5. Both in Hesiod and
in Plat (in othere appeared to be an association between the approach of souls
to a certain stream and their incarnation in a mortal body,z and the stream was
I Cited by Origen, c. Cels. 6. 42, from for a change of Zas into Zeus. The same
Celsus. The manuscripts give ptolpas, EVEp~Ev modernization has taken place in part of the
(cf. Kiihner-Blass i. 294-5), BopEov, ZEVO. tradition of Diogenes at fr. I.
This ZE'; is not to be taken as evidence 2 Compare also the spring flowing from
17o M. L. WEST
accordingly interpreted as the s

in Pherecydes was interprete
are bound to infer that it too was a stream or fountain somehow connected
with the souls of the dead.' We shall be able to guess a little more about it
presently.
Above the world of the dead must be the world of the living; and above this
the home of the gods. A detail which probably belongs here is preserved by
Plutarch, De facie in orbe lunae 938 b (fr. 13a Diels-Kranz): El /p4 v-4 Ala
/fl7UofEv, coouTEp a7 Arvci (A) CAXtAE i VEK 0apS 1 TL Ka (L/p0(fas Evaa E 77)
TpoME[epv(O Tpo007v (II. 19-. 341 ff.), o'Cm -rY oTEAvvy '4I AEv yoEVrV Ka o oav
(Stoic; cf. Schwenn, R.-E. ii A. 1142) TpE'ELv 70o dv8pa- (on the moon) ttpfipo-
rvwaorav " ^ E -gimp qEE~t CO\0 0 orat ut-IrctOa) '
uav av0av aVTOS v 9LOV, W"S 'EPE
OEOVs.2 This cannot mean merely that P
brosia (Jacoby, F.G.H. i, p. 430. 18):
a recondite authority for such a com
grew, or issued forth from a spring, f
cf. Eur. Hipp. 748 ff. Kpa7vaU ' L/dtrpOaY
Moero fr. I. 5. But it may mean that Ph
on the moon, and represented the gods
there for their meals. Such a speculatio
would not be isolated. Epimenides (f
thrown down from the moon (cf. Euph
sch. A.R. I. 498). According to Orph. f
n 7To'AA' ovipE' E`Xa5OV E XEL, TO) a

Anaxagoras and Democritus taught th
own, with plains, mountains, and rav
I. 8. Io), and if we believe Diog. Laert
dwellings or settlements (oCK710ES).3
made it the home or table of the gods.4
If his book contained a systematic descr
from top to bottom, we must consider
nearest parallel is Hesiod's account of th
consists of a series of self-contained item
-Vrv 7rpoTOE in 746 (cf. 767), which see
Pherecydes' KELV77S T-77 IOp q EVEpOE
point where Tartarus comes into th
banished there. In Pherecydes likewi
likely to have been introduced at the m
and that is, when the world is brought
2 Thewhich
the Lake of Memory, from fragment was rig
the initiate
is bidden to drink when he arrives
Pherecydes of in Hades,
Syros by
in the gold plates fromSchr. Petelia
v (2), p. and
133Eleu-
n. I; le
thernae in Crete, Orph.
Jacoby fr. 32 (a) i.
(F.G.H. and (b).
429- 39),
SA very similar method of interpretation
his mind (Mnem. 1947, 6
3 But
is seen in the passage of see W.
Porphyry K. C.
cited Guth
above.
Those who think that the
Greek d~po may
Religion, have
pp. 247 f.
been an actual emission 4 I of semen,
doubt sc. thatD.L
whether
of Chronos (Kirk-Raven, p. 59, Schwabl,
'r O 0EO r1v -rp pdLTEav
R.-E. Supp. ix. I460) (fr.
can have paid belongs
12 Diels) no atten-
her
tion to the purport of the passage.
and Chthonie. The description may have concluded the b

tion from mythical to physical cosmology at this point
for the introduction of the new physical symbol of the
envisage a transition on these lines: 'In this way, the
being. And it is like a great tree, with wings ... .' The tre
ture that is described in what follows, though the m
been maintained in detail. The division of the world-tree
world, into layers or stories is paralleled by a practic
reported by Radlov and Verbitsky (cited by Holmberg,
It involves a birch-tree, in the trunk of which nine
big enough to serve as a step. These steps represent the
journey from the earth to the dwelling of the highest go
For an actual description of the parts of a world-tree, w
the Norse poem Grimnismdl (97 ff.), where Odin, sittin
of king Geirr66, describes (among many other things) t
and the habitations that lie beneath its three roots: Hel
the home of the Frost Giants; and the home of mankin
Under this tree was the prophetic spring of Ur6 (V
brings us back to Pherecydes' EKpo~. A perennial spring
the world-tree of mythical cosmology: see Holmberg, o
fi9 ff., 94.' In many cases its water is the Water of Life;
what we have already concluded about Pherecydes'
grounds, it is difficult to avoid the inference that it co
the Orphics' Spring of Memory: that those souls which
upon a new life. This would agree admirably with th
tioned by ps.-Galen, and it would account for the c
Pherecydes with Pythagoras in the biographical tradi
We must now inquire into the significance of the win
It is remotely possible that the motif was suggested to
of Assyrian art, but even if it was, he must have given
meaning of his own. Wings would clearly be absurd on
in the earth. But the world-tree is not rooted in the ear
earth in itself. Therefore it flies or glides through spac
wings, just as sandals or chariots need wings if they are
earth's accustomed support and fly.2 A closer parallel fo
tree is Hippol. Ref. 4- 49 H EpUE3s SE EUrV 7 0V7T7dTrEpos
T70OV dAovS SLa EC9lor9S 7 [Y KLaE 'u7p'wv TOV K&fLO
respond to those with which Perseus was represente
wheel of Ixion also belongs here. Interpreters of th
identify the wheel with the sun (cf. Cook, Zeus i. 19
I In Hesiod's cosmology, where

(whichare the checking of referenc
a little
roots of earth and sea, there alsocorrected)
have are their of C. Boetticher, Baum
'springs', Th. 728, 736 ff. The
der oak of Zeus
Hellenen (1856), p. I112.
at Dodona, at the foot of which 2the
Fororacular
the addition of wings to une
spring of Zeus Naios issued forth,
things would
compare be also the winged bed
another Greek parallel if it were
conveystrue
thethat
sun round Oceanus at n
it was thought of as a type of Mimn.
the world-tree;
Io. 5 ff.; and on the popul
but the statement in Eisler, repeated
wings by
in archaic art cf. Nilsson, M
Holmberg, that its roots were said to reach
Mycenaean Religion2, pp. 507 f.; Eitre
down into Tartarus, has no ancient
vi A. 886 f. founda-
tion. It derives from a misunderstanding
172 M. L. WEST
parallel Armenian myth wh

wheel that turns the whole un
turns ceaselessly, day and nigh
remain bound until the end of
ingwheel; for when it stops
This myth is probably of Cauc
torments of several other sin
Tantalos, Otos and Ephialtes
established and apparently
(op. cit., pp. 133-290).
Pherecydes lived at a time wh
had to be faced; the infinite r
and it had been realized that
Anaximander considered that
cause there was no reason for i
but he was in advance of his t
buoyed up on the all-encomp
Pherecydes: a world-tree tha
blow about its lowest roots,
Thyella, guard the division o
I will conclude with a furth
used the term Chaos (fr. Ia);
that the world-tree flies. This
how Xdos, which in Hesiod d
(Th. 814, no doubt also 116, 1
after Pherecydes of the air
cf. Eur. fr. 448, Ar. Nub. 423,
that Pherecydes sought for a
was fathomless, and chose the
sea, but also to aWO'p in the
pap. K2. 34, h. Dem. 67, 457), w
into thinking that by Xdos
p. 3I1 30 Maass, cf. sch. Hes. T
conceivable in the sixth centu
An alternative explanation of
described the tree's progress
metaphor.
III. THALES
We have been swimming through Chaos long enough, an

Thales might seem to afford a prospect of calmer waters. Next
recorded of his cosmological doctrines, and disagreement on its
is neither wide nor bitter. The earth is supported by water;
from water. Few would dissent from this as a statement of Tha
or care to add to it.
Yet it can hardly be doubted that there was originally very much more
to it than that. Thales was a sixth-century Ionian; he was, moreover, famous
in his time and among his people for his practical and theoretical resource-
fulness. Subsequently he was renowned as the founder of the Ionian school
of philosophy. He was the older contemporary, fellow citizen and reputedly
friend and teacher ofAnaximander, whose cosmology has a

grandeur that astonishes the student and was never sur
Such was Thales; and what we are told about his cosmo
level of primitive myth. The water-cosmogony is the com
tion myth all over the world: the primeval waste of water
which a small islet appears, growing in size until it reache
the whole earth. (See H. Schwabl, R.-E. Supp. ix. 1510, w
conception of the earth floating on water had been famili
for hundred or thousands of years; and if Thales' achievem
this view to Greece, as is often supposed, what was gained
explain that was not as well or better accounted for by th
of tangled roots of earth and water, dissolving ultimately
inflammable element called chaos? If the obscure perso
is ahead of his time, the celebrated Thales appears to be
We expect from him a theory much more imaginative and
from the evidence of the senses, giving unity to the worl
point of departure for his successor.
Granted all this, it might seem useless to speculate fu
told us all he knows, and no one in antiquity seems to have
more. Thales' opinions were evidently forgotten at so early
can be no hope of reconstructing them from any ancient
possess or can ever expect to find. Yet if I am not mistake
about his lost cosmology can be recovered by simple infer
our hands, if we will only see it, a clue at once so important
to the heart of the matter, and so obvious that one can onl
not been used before.
But first it is necessary to consider Anaximander's system. He postulates as
the basic state of the universe an amorphous and undifferentiated infinity of
matter, in constant and probably random motion. In it worlds come into being
from time to time. There is no limit to their number, because the continuum
in which they are formed is infinite in extent. None of them lasts for ever;
they pass away as they came into being. Only the Infinite that encompasses
them is immortal and ageless.'
What is a world ? It is a system formed by a process of separation from the
surrounding Infinite. It consists for the most part of empty air. At the centre
is a solid body suspended in equipoise, in our world the earth. This is encircled
by a number of concentric rings of fire and mist, which all revolve in one direc-
tion but at different speeds. So if we would see the world as a whole, we should
imagine a small, probably spherical space hollowed out from the Infinite, with
the peculiarity that objects at the edges of the space tend to be carried round
in circles, while at the centre they remain stationary.
Such a system patently resembles a vortex, and the common assumption
It is far-fetched to interpret the testi- terms of universal natural processes. What-
monia as referring to worlds successive in ever process caused this world to form out
time and not coexistent, and quite in- of the Infinite would naturally be likely to
admissible to reject them altogether as Kirkform other worlds elsewhere and at different
does (C.Q. N.s. v [I955], 28-32 and Presoc.times. They are not visible to us, but their
Phil., pp. I22 f.) from inability to imagineexistence can be inferred from that of our
what empirical considerations could have led world, although they are quite unconnected
Anaximander to the idea of innumerable with it. That Anaximander reasoned like
worlds. He wished to explain the world
this in
ought not to strain our credulity.
174 M. L. WEST
that Anaximander thought of

vortex principle explains not onl
its origin. We are told that it is
the formation and dissolution of
This motion probably consists of
From time to time they result in
slows down and disappears.
A vortex is not attested for An
he made use of this very conven
features of his predecessor's syste
motion (Simpl. Phys. 24. 26), in
-poral of celestial bodies caused
he had any new explanation of t
indeed, since his whole universe
systems as based on whirlwinds.
It is hardly an exaggeration to
cosmology, leaving aside the qu
clitus, is dominated by the conce
mander through Anaximenes, E
to Leucippus and Democritus; t
pattern. Now a vortex is a phe
traditionrepresented by these p
and Thales' cosmology, alone of
That the Blvq-concept originate
probably as soon as these facts
it is too; for it enables us at last t
name and era. With the central
to a tentative reconstruction of
the details connected with it.
It has long been inferred from his recorded belief in a floating earth that he
was indebted to Egyptian or Semitic conceptions; cf. Kirk-Raven, pp. 90go ff.
Tannery went further, and assumed that as in the near eastern cosmolo-
gies the waters lay not only below but also above and all round the earth, so
for Thales the world was a kind of bubble enclosed in water.2 This is likely
enough; Thales would have accepted the idea of an ocean enclosing the whole
world, provided that it corresponded to observation and reason. Observation
confirms that there is water beneath the earth, for it springs up through the
earth in many places; and that there is water above the earth, for it frequently
descends from the sky. Reason persuades that the upper and lower waters are
connected: the alternative would be a shelf of air extending indefinitely be-
tween them. The world, then, is a cavity somehow hollowed out in the infinite
waters. Thales was faced with the problem of how such a cavity could occur.
The answer of the Semitic peoples, that it was simply created by God, was
not the sort of answer he was looking for. He might have made something
I The fact that none of the doxographers argument (Hermes lxxxi [i953], 266) that a
speak of a vortex in connexion with Anaxi- vortex is excluded by the spontaneous, non-
mander's cosmology certainly indicates thatmechanical way in which the shell of fire
this detail was unknown to Theophrastus;at first surrounds the earth 'like the bark
but it is likely enough that Theophrastus'round a tree' (ps.-Plut. Strom. 2).
information was second-hand and incom- 2 P. Tannery, Pour l'histoire de la science
plete. I am not convinced by H61scher's hellenez (1930), P. 74-
out of the Egyptian view that the god was Shu, the air
idea--one that accounted both for the cavity and for t
motion of its outer parts. The world was a vortex, form
currents of the cosmic ocean.
He may have explained the concretion of the earth either by separation,
the heaviest elements in the water tending to congregate at the centre of the
vortex, or by condensation as in Anaximenes' air-cosmology, the water at
the centre being compressed, thickened, and eventually solidified by the action
of the SLrV. The former seems to me the more likely; Thales' successors made
much both of centripetal force (cf. Arist. De caelo 2. 13. 295a10 iff.) and of the
possibilities of analytical separation. Vapour can visibly be separated off water,
and if water contains vapour, it might be argued, it must also contain heavier
and more solid ingredients to compensate.
Thales may perhaps have reasoned, like Anaximander, that this vortex is
unlikely to persist for ever, and that there should be other similar vortices
elsewhere. But these thoughts may not have occurred to him.
The cosmology that we have attributed to him distinguishes itself from its
mythological antecedents by its adherence to physical principles and processes.
But it retains signs of its ancestry. Thales may have got his world-ocean from
the east, but one of the things that led him to it must have been his desire to
derive all things from a single physical element. In myth it is water above all
else, and the gods of water, that can change into other things; see M. Ninck,
'Die Bedeutung des Wassers im Kult und Leben der Alten' (Philologus Suppl.
xiv [1921], Heft 2), pp. 138-8o. Often in the primitive water-cosmogonies the
land that appears in the waters, or the primeval being who is to create the
land, does not simply appear as it were ex nihilo, but grows from some natural
disturbance in the water: a bubble, a patch of foam, or the like; cf. A. O.
Diihnhardt, Natursagen i (I9o7), pp. I8 f., 43, 46, 54, 56, 66 f., cited by H.
Schwabl, R.-E. Supp. ix. 1442. Thales has different aims and a different logic;
but his mind still tends to run on the same lines.' The link with myth is still
discernible; with Anaximander it is broken.
It may be asked why, if Thales' cosmology was such as we have limned,
the only details of it to be preserved were that everything comes from water
and that the earth rests on water: why the vortex itself, the central feature of
the system, was forgotten. To answer this question we must inquire into the
means by which any of Thales' views were preserved at all. He did not set
them down in a book, or if he did, it soon disappeared. It is unlikely that they
were preserved by oral tradition, which traffics in anecdotes and aphorisms,
not in cosmological systems. Tannery (op. cit., p. 92 n. I) has put forward the
only plausible hypothesis, viz. that Thales' views were known from Anaxi-
mander's contradictions of them. Anaximander is the one writer who certainly
knew what Thales thought. He lived in the same town, and was interested in
the same things; he must have heard the older man expound his cosmology.
When he came to develop his own system, and set it forth in a book, he naturally
His explanation of the annual Nile flood Der Typhonmythos, Diss. Greifswald 1939, p.
(Aet. 4. i. I, cf. Hdt. 2. 20) might be seen I09), Osiris in the new water. The essence of
as a translation into physical theory of the Thales' theory too was that the flood was
Egyptian myth according to which the flood delayed by wind (and so built up its strength) :
represented Osiris' victory over Seth. Seth but of course it had to be the north winds,
manifested himself in the drought and the the Etesians, that held back the northward-
hot south wind from the desert (cf. G. Seippel, flowing Nile.
176 M. L. WEST
referred to the views of his fam

Greek writers, he referred to h
very often. He took over the bas
continuum, and possibly other
it is remarkable that the two
are both features with which A
water as the continuum; and h
We may confidently assume tha
seems to have been Aristotle
gleaned his information about
in connexion with the vortex because he followed the same view himself.
Anaximander's achievement remains an impressive one, and we have
reduced it to credible proportions. It now appears that his system and those
of his successors down to the late fifth century are all modifications of the basic
pattern created by Thales. It is a pattern that could have been created by few
men and at few periods of history. But the sixth century in Ionia was such a
period. For a short time the boundaries of man's imagination receded at the
speed of thought. It was then, perhaps, that a rhapsode interpolated in Hesiod's
Theogony an estimate of the time it would take a man to fall from here to Tar-
tarus: not nine days, nor thrice nine days, but over ayear (740 ff.). It was at the
end of the century that a Greek (a Milesian) first conceived the grand project of
going and conquering the Persian Empire. It was in this century, perhaps, that
Greeks first conceived and executed mammoth epics, lasting not three hours
but at least three days; and not content with that, arranged eight complete
epics (some pre-existing, others apparently composed for the purpose; two
of them by a Milesian) into a vast continuous series covering the whole of the
Trojan War in 77 books., It was then that a man could look into an eddy of
the Maeander-and see the universe.
University College, Oxford M. L. WEST

It is sad to see scholars still treating the ancient chronograph
it could be based on civic archives of some kind.

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Three Presocratic Cosmologies

A PAPYRUS commentary on Alcman published in 1957' brings us news

TCLS. EIK 8' 4)7[

between her name and the verb G-rl0qtL is certainly right;

OEctoOGTLs, voLoOG'LS. Besides this there is another suffix -~-s,

has resisted the change to ac in the verb forms E~VI-, qar-, e

-rEKioWp is a form otherwise known only from epic for the

But we need not look beyond G

What Darkness has to do with

Professor Lloyd-Jones suggests

The occurrence of the word pap

Some nine square inches of Pherecydes' fascinating cosmic h

Diogenes Laertius I. I19 a ' 3- atUoi , vptov -d TE ~flMov 3 Uv

The book began with the thr

meaning of notijat E'K TOO Yd

the discretion with which the story is told, rather than th

d 0PEKV&S EE EtS "Epor

sequence of events in Pherecydes is first the th

Max. Tyr. 4. 4 &AAd Kal

Kal 7 oV'pOV KaL 7dV %

is not likely to have been the first to see in it the repr

E9S oLov EvpvvoP~' s Kat ' Ol'ovos eyyvO' I,/pvw.

It is hardly coincidence that Eurynome is a daughter of Oceanus in Hesiod

Ragnar6k: Vdluspd 148, 169 ff.' The s

TWL tOLEVuLv o ra o[L]Kta

&v,) rpl iv v-rafpv) )l- Ktpps

yvET7a 7rto ya/4Lt, d, E.-[

ya rE Kat KaAoV, Kal .[

have been adduced by O.

The alternative is to cut the knot: to reject Clement's ir'

the world, as it now is: fr. 5 Diels KElvrJS 8S JOPS EVE~/Jp

ETop?~Lzaos K8EXEpVOtLOa 8 O7V rrao IpTOV, etc. In the case of Plato's

accordingly interpreted as the s

n 7To'AA' ovipE' E`Xa5OV E XEL, TO) a

and Chthonie. The description may have concluded the b

I In Hesiod's cosmology, where

parallel Armenian myth wh

We have been swimming through Chaos long enough, an

friend and teacher ofAnaximander, whose cosmology has a

that Anaximander thought of

referred to the views of his fam

University College, Oxford M. L. WEST

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