The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

meat) or as a sacred animal per se: 723 it must have had already
military significance in this early period and hence
have been used for riding724 (note in this connection that
the outcome of the sacred marriage between Poseidon and
Demeter in horse shape at Thelpusa, the divine horse
Areion, is reported to have been mounted by Adrastos, i.e.
a king with a Phrygian name whose antecedents hence may
likewise go back to Middle Helladic times, in the mythical
war of the seven heroes from the Argolid against
Thebes). 725
The ultimately Pelasgian origins of Poseidon can be
further underlined by other literary evidence. First of all, it
is conspicuous that Poseidon is particularly worshipped in
the regions where we have situated the local allies of the
foreign invaders which arrived in Greece c. 1600 BC, viz.
in Pylos (Nestor is sacrificing to Poseidon when Telemakhos
visits him in the Odyssey), 726 Attica (think of the
contest between Athena and Poseidon, which the former
won because of her gift of the olive tree), 727 and Iolkos (as
mythical father of Pelias and Neleus). 728 Next, Poseidon is
directly associated in myth with Phrygians (Pelops, at
Olympia, and the nymph Mideia), 729 or Thracians (Eumolpos,
Kykhreus, the Abantes and Aones, the Eteobutades),
730 or pre-Greeks more in general (Pelasgos,
Minyas). 731
In the light of the given associations with the horse
723 Schachermeyr 1950: 53-4; 121.
724 Crouwel 1981: 46 “It is not impossible that some of the single
horses buried [among which the one at Marathon – notwithstanding
Crouwel’s second thoughts still considered Middle Helladic
in Papadimitriou 2001, be it with doubts expressed in a note] were
riding animals.” This does not collide with Drews’ recent thesis
(2004) that riding became military effective in the form of cavalry
units only after the Bronze Age. Note that this single horse burial
from the Middle Helladic period contrasts with double horse burials
as discovered at Dendra (Protonotariou-Deilaki 1990), which
cannot be dissociated from the war-chariot and hence must be assigned
to the period from c. 1600 BC onwards.
725 Pausanias, Guide to Greece 8, 25, 7-9; cf. Wiesner 1968: F.
111.
726 Homeros, Odyssey III, 1 ff.
727 Herodotos, Histories VIII, 55.
728 Schachermeyr 1950: 43.
729 Schachermeyr 1950: 22; 41.
730 Schachermeyr 1950: 36-7; 41; cf. Detschew 1976, s.v. Bouts
and Kukhris, and Woudhuizen 1989: 196.
731 Schachermeyr 1950: 41; 43.
146
and with pre-Greek population groups in Greece, the connection
of Poseidon with the chariot (Pelops at Olympia,
Onkhestos, the two horses of Peleus named Xanthos and
Balios) 732 – as we have seen in section 7, the military
weapon newly introduced by the foreign invaders c. 1600
BC – and with the ones who are responsible for its introduction
in Greece (Kadmos), 733 appears to be of secondary
nature.
Just like Demeter and Zeus, Poseidon is also attested
for Crete. Thus, in the genitive form po-se-da-o-ne he occurs
together with other deities on a Linear B tablet from
Knossos (KN V 52). 734 Furthermore, if our location of
Skheria and the Phaiakians in the western part of the Mesara
valley holds good, it is noteworthy that Poseidon had
a temple here and is considered to be the father of Nausithoös,
the founding father of the Phaiakians. 735 At any
rate, this latter evidence ties in perfectly with our indications
of Pelasgian presence in the very same region of
Crete as presented in section 12 above!
732 Schachermeyr 1950: 22; 39; 42.
733 Schachermeyr 1950: 170.
734 Ventris & Chadwick 1973: 311-2.
735 Schachermeyr 1950: 172. Note in this connection that striking
evidence for the cult of Poseidon in the region in question is provided
by the remark in the Souda, s.v. Maleos that the latter had
dedicated a stone at the entrance of the harbor of Phaistos to Poseidon,
cf. Briquel 1984: 266.