354 On the Early Kings of Attica, repeated; the devouring of the shoulder, which it is to be observed was the act of Ceres, has arisen from a misinterpre- tation of the mystical co/uiocpayia, the restoration by Rhea connects the whole story with the worship of this Asiatic goddess. These fictions are not only absurd, but absolutely unaccountable, if we consider Pelops as the real son of a Lydian or Phrygian prince, leading an army into Greece and establishing a monarchy at Mycenae ; but they are easily explicable, if considered as resulting from an attempt to give an historical air to the misunderstood traces of a nearly obliterated mythus. The names Qvearfj^s/^ AiyicrOo^^ * Aepoirrjy seem to be all connected with the same religious system. QvecTTfj^^ in whose story the cutting up and partial devour- ing of Pelops is reproduced, is like Thyotes, the priest of the Samothracian mysteries (Val. Place. Arg. 2. 437) a sacri-^ fcer; AiyLaOo^, (alyi^etv. ^lacnrav Bekk. Anecd. 357. 29) one who tears to pieces ; Aepoirrj (depLos) the dark ; and though I am aware how hazardous au etymology must be, which assumes the existence of a root no longer found in the Greek, I am much inclined to believe that *Arp€vs is syno- nymous with neo>// and that its root is the Latin ater^^. I ^3 BfjoTea^ whom one account (Pans. 3. 22) made the son of Tantalus, another his father (Paus. 2. 22) is a name allusive to the bloody (/Sporos) sacrifice. Miiller calls Niobe " ein dunkles Wesen," and both her nature and the etymology of the name are obscure. I think it most probable that she represented the cultivated earth, and that the name is connected with veTov (Od. e. 127) as ^opcovev's with cpepojy (popd. The mourning of Earth for her children is a natural and beautiful expression either of the desolation of winter, an event variously typified in the Asiatic religions, or of some sudden calamity, such as an earthquake. The name and mythus of Tan- talus seem to describe the nature of the country around Sipylus, which was volcanic, and subject to earthquakes in remote ages as well as in that of Tiberius, from whom the Magnetes a Sipylo^ as having suffered more than others, received a larger measure of relief. Tac. Ann. 2. 47. It was in the reign of Tantalus (Strabo 86. Oxf.) that Sipylus was destroyed by an earthquake. TayTaXi^co, TavQaXvX^ta are the same word as Tovdopvldi (Valck. ad Ammon. 2. 10. Phil. M. 2. 114 not. 10) signifying to agitate with a loud sound. Comp. Hesych. eTavi-aXixdn, eo-etVS?;. The trees of Tantalus, the fruit of which vanishes in the moment of its bemg grasped resemble those of the shores of the Dead Sea which " sive herba tenus aut Hore seu solitam in speciem adolevere, atra et inania velut in cinerem vanescunt." Tac. Hist. 5. 7. Jos. B. J. 4. 8. And what can be a livelier image of a land, whose inhabitants live in perpetual apprehension of volcanic earthquakes, than a man over whose head a mass of glowing rock is suspended, ever ready to fall and crush him ; which was probably the original punishment of Tan- talus ? Schol. Pind. Ol. 1. 91. Pors. ad Eur. Or. 5. The " fugientia flumina" belong also to the phaenomena of earthquakes, by which rivers are suddenly engulfed. It is
