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THE BIRTH OF ATHENA

Ev Cochrane

There are also stars that suddenly come to birth in the heaven
itself�The Greeks call them comets. 1.

By all accounts the birth of Athena from the head of her father was a
tumultuous occasion. "Athena sprang from the skull of Zeus with an
earth-shattering battle-cry, so that the heavens shook and the mother
earth." 2. The account in the Homeric Hymn of Athena is of a comparable
nature:

And before Zeus the aegis-holder she sprang swiftly from his immortal
head, brandishing a sharp-pointed spear. Great Olympus quaked dreadfully
under the might of the gray-eyed goddess, as the earth all about
resounded awesomely, and the sea moved and heaved with purple waves. 3.

The spectacular nature of Athena's birth has long intrigued
scholars&emdash;and with good reason. Not only are the physiological
details of the goddess' birth patently absurd, the cataclysmic imagery
attending her epiphany is difficult to imagine under any but the most
abnormal conditions. Yet as Walter Burkert observes, the birth of Athena
continues to exert a strange fascination upon modern readers in spite of
these incongruities: "This birth myth is as popular as it is puzzling." 4.

There have been numerous attempts to explain the bizarre circumstances
attending Athena's birth. Indeed there are as many explanations of this
particular myth as there are of myth itself, ranging from sociocultural
to meteorological to psychoanalytic. Jane Harrison, for example,
dismissed the myth as a patriarchal fiction: "The outrageous myth of the
birth of Athena from the head of Zeus is but the religious
representation, the emphasis, and over emphasis, of a patrilinear
structure." 5. Harrison's interpretation was subsequently adopted by
Robert Graves, the most popular modern writer on Greek mythology. 6.

In the past century it was common for scholars to interpret Athena's
birth in terms of a nature-allegory. Roscher, for example, compared the
epiphany of Athena to a thunderstorm, seeing in the goddess a
personification of the lightning. 7. F. M. Muller sought an explanation
of Athena's birth in the circumstances attending the daily birth of the
sun, identifying Athena with the Vedic goddess Ahana (the Dawn):

That Athena or Athana was originally a representative of the light of
the morning, then of light and wisdom in general, born from the head of
Dyaus [the sky], and that her name is the same as the Vedic Ahana, is as
certain as anything can be in comparative mythology. 8.

More recent scholars have been reluctant to accept a "naturist"
interpretation of Athena's birth. 9. Farnell's criticism is typical of
the modern position on this matter:

Whether Athena is regarded as the thunder or the lightning, the aether
or the dawn, she can leap from the head of Zeus with equal
appropriateness. But let any one take whichever he pleases of these
various hypotheses and then work it out rigorously through point to
point of the myth, and he will stumble on hopeless inconsistencies. 10.

The truth is, however, that neither Farnell nor any other scholar has
been able to improve upon the various "naturist" theories of the past
century, much less to provide a satisfactory explanation of the
circumstances attending Athena's birth. Not only is there widespread
disagreement over the original significance of Athena's birth, the
numerous explanations which have been offered are all addressed to
isolated elements of the myth and thus little attempt has been made to
account for it as a whole. The various explanations which have been
proposed, moreover, are mutually exclusive and seldom amenable to
further analysis and/or verification.

That there remains no satisfactory explanation of Athena's
birth-arguably the single greatest mythical image bequeathed to us by
the ancient Greeks-is a telltale sign of just how far we are from
achieving a real understanding of Greek mythology.

VELIKOVSKY'S ATHENA

Perhaps the most novel explanation of Athena's birth was that offered by
Immanuel Velikovsky, who saw in the myth an ancient cataclysm associated
with the planet Jupiter (Zeus), one in which the planet Venus (Athena)
was born from the giant planet in comet-like form. Velikovsky's thesis,
presented in 1950 in the book Worlds in Collision, inspired an extensive
and often vitriolic debate, one which shows little sign of abating. 11.

At first sight Velikovsky's hypothesis hardly inspires confidence, nor
would it appear to represent an improvement upon those offered by
classical scholars. Upon closer examination, however, it can be seen
that it possesses several decided advantages&emdash;at least from a
theoretical standpoint. A singular advantage of Velikovsky's hypothesis
is that it conforms to Occam's law inasmuch at it accounts at once for
the identities of Athena and Zeus (Venus and Jupiter respectively), and
traces the cataclysmic circumstances of the goddess' epiphany and
warlike behavior to disturbances occasioned by the appearance of a great
comet.

An additional advantage of Velikovsky's thesis is the fact that it is
subject to rejection upon a score of tests. For example, if Velikovsky's
scenario is valid one would expect to find evidence in the ancient
sources that Venus recently bore a comet-like appearance or moved in a
different orbit than its present one; evidence that planets figured
prominently in ancient systems of religion; and physical evidence of
recent upheavals involving the planets Venus and Jupiter (in the case of
Venus, for example, one might expect to find internal sources of heat, a
volatile geology, an unstable and perhaps still escaping atmosphere, etc.).

Should Velikovsky's thesis fail any of these decisive tests it should
rightfully be rejected.

A good deal of evidence has already been adduced with regards to the
first two propositions, with much of it being favorable towards
Velikovsky's hypothesis. 12. With regard to the physical evidence
bearing on this issue; particularly that which has been gathered by
astronomers and the various space probes&emdash;the picture is far from
clear. Perhaps it is fair to say, in lieu of further revelations, that a
decisive verdict is not yet available. 13.

Equally important, and eminently more amenable to analysis at the
present time, is the question as to whether Velikovsky's hypothesis of a
comet-like Athena/Venus is supported by ancient mythology. Until
recently this question had scarcely been addressed. 14. It goes without
saying, however, that if Velikovsky's reconstruction of the events
surrounding the birth of Athena is valid other cultures can hardly have
failed to witness the same celestial events and thus one might expect to
find confirmation of Venus' "infancy" and cometary past in the mythology
of other peoples, particularly in the traditions surrounding the great
goddesses. Despite repeated claims to the contrary, there is mounting
evidence that Velikovsky may have been on the right track after all. 15.

We seek at the outset of our investigation some indication that Athena
was associated with cometary imagery. We begin with a consideration of
several epithets of the great goddess, it being well known that such
epithets frequently retain archaic elements of cult which have otherwise
been lost or obscured with the passage of time.

(Skeptics see accompanying article: Chiron and QB Objects)

PALLAS ATHENA

One of the most popular epithets of Athena was Pallas. Indeed the
greatest of all Greek goddesses could sometimes be invoked under this
name alone, a fact which prompted Guthrie to remark:

Pallas Athene is so familiar a title of the goddess from Homer onwards
that this second name seems to acquire more than the quality of an
epithet. The one is as much her name as the other. 16.

Pallas is generally referred to an ancient Greek word meaning "maiden"
or "youth." 17. The Latin word pellex and the Hebrew word
pallesh/pillegesh, both meaning "young girl or concubine," would appear
to trace to the same root. 18.

Any discussion of Pallas Athena must take into consideration the
peculiar traditions surrounding the palladium. According to the
unanimous testimony of the Greeks themselves, the palladium was an image
of the goddess as warrior (the word palladium is the diminutive of
Pallas) said to have fallen from heaven as a meteor-like object. 19.
Palladia formed sacred objects in various ancient cities, their presence
allegedly vouchsafing the security of the city, as in the famous legend
surrounding Troy. Of the palladium Nilsson observed:

It is hidden in a secret place in the interior of the citadel or palace
and is the pledge of the welfare and existence of the town, which cannot
be conquered, so long as the palladium is not carried away. 20.

If the palladium symbolized Pallas Athena, how then are we to understand
the report that the image/goddess fell to earth as a meteor-like object?
That this is no incidental element of Athena's cult is obvious. All of
the various palladia mentioned by Greek writers were said to have fallen
from heaven, as was the sacred image of Athena Polias. 21. Indeed, a
tradition as old as Pherekydes (c. 5th century BCE) explained the
palladia as palta, "things hurled or cast down from heaven." 22.

Could it be that these archaic traditions hint that Pallas Athena was
once believed to have fallen from heaven as a falling star of some sort?
Was Velikovsky right after all? Velikovsky himself observed that
heaven-hurled images were conspicuous in the worship of the great
goddesses. Stones said to have fallen from heaven formed prominent
objects in the sacred shrines of the Cyprian Aphrodite, Tyrian Astarte,
Phrygian Cybele, Ephesian Artemis, and Taurian Diana. 23.

Meteor-like objects are also present in ancient rituals associated with
the great goddesses. The following is one scholar's description of a
Phoenician rite commemorating Astarte's celebrated fall from heaven:

It was believed that once a year the goddess descended into the pool as
a fiery falling star, or that on solemn feast days, when people
assembled in the shrine, a fire-globe was lit in the vicinity of the
temple and probably rolled down into the pool. 24.

What is implicit in the Greek legend of the fall of the sacred image of
Athena is here made explicit: it is the goddess herself who falls from
the sky as a comet-like object. Nor is Astarte the only goddess about
whom such traditions are preserved. On the other side of the Atlantic
the Iroquois reported that the goddess Nokomis&emdash;the famed
grandmother of Hiawatha&emdash;likewise fell from heaven as a comet. 25.

The fall of the goddess from heaven, in fact, is a widespread
mythological motive. 26. In Mesoamerica, for example, it was reported
that Xochiquetzal-the Aztec Aphrodite-was expelled from heaven and fell
to earth in demon-like form. 27. The Phrygians, similarly, related the
fall of Semele. 28. In India it was the fall of Durga/Kali that occurred
under cataclysmic circumstances. 29.

Noteworthy here is the fact that numerous epithets and attributes of the
great goddesses-hitherto mysterious and unexplained-receive immediate
clarification if indeed the cataclysmic fall of the great goddess
occurred in the form of a comet-like object. An epithet of Semele,
tanuetheira-"with the stretched out hair"-has an obvious significance if
a comet was the source of reference. 30.

The myth of the goddess' fall from heaven-like most great myths-becomes
subject to rationalization at the hands of poets and chroniclers. The
setting is localized and the goddess humanized to the point where the
celestial source of the imagery is scarcely recognizable. The tragic
leap of Aphrodite in the wake of the death of Adonis is an example of
this development. 31. A similar tale is associated with Aglauros, an
alter-ego of Athena, who is said to have gone mad and leapt to her death
amidst the mysterious circumstances attending the birth of the divine
child Erichthonius. 32.

Attempts to rationalize the fall of the goddess notwithstanding, it is
still possible to find evidence of the goddess' original celestial
nature amongst these later accounts as well. Consider Hyginus' account
of Electra, where the cometary nature of the falling goddess is stated
in unambiguous terms:

But after the conquest of Troy and the annihilation of its descendants,
overwhelmed by pain she separated from her sisters and settled in the
circle named arctic, and over long periods she would be seen lamenting,
her hair streaming. That brought her the name of comet. 33.

It is Electra's intimate relation to the Trojan palladium, however, that
warrants our attention. Some chroniclers make the palladium her gift;
others state that during the fall of Troy Electra clung to the
celebrated image. 34. Yet another tradition has Electra cast down to
earth from Olympus together with the palladium. 35. Such traditions, in
all likelihood, reflect an attempt-only minimally successful-to
distinguish between Electra and the comet-like palladium. In the
original myth the goddess and the comet-like palladium were one and the
same.

At this point the question arises: Granted that the Greeks chose a
meteoric stone-the palladium&emdash;to symbolize Athena, why is it that
the palladium was said to represent the goddess as a warrior?

ATHENA: WARRIOR-GODDESS

It was Hesiod who described Athena as "dread rouser of battle-strife,
unwearied leader of the host, a mistress who delights in the clamorous
cry of war and battle and slaughter." 36. Far from being an isolated
element, Athena's unusual proclivity for war is fundamental to the numen
of the goddess. Homer likewise depicts Athena as a great warrior. Indeed
on more than one occasion within the Iliad she even bests Ares in
battle, and after one such encounter Homer makes the humbled war-god
refer to Athena by the epithet of Aphron, "crazed, frantic". 37.

Vital to the proper interpretation of the myth of Athena's birth is the
datum that she assumed a warlike form immediately upon expulsion from
Zeus' head. Kerenyi emphasized this point in his essay on Athena: "It
was precisely at her epiphany from the head of the father that her
quality as a Goddess of war came to the fore." 38.

According to the scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, it was Stesichorus who
first reported that Athena was born dressed with the full panoply of
war. 39. While this account has unfortunately been lost, the Homeric
Hymn to Athena presents the same general picture: "And before Zeus the
aegis-holder she sprang swiftly from his immortal head, brandishing a
sharp-pointed spear." 40. Athena's bellicose inception is also apparent
in Pindar: "Athena sprang from the skull of Zeus with an
earth-shattering battle-cry, so that the heavens shook and the mother
earth." 41.

That incongruities abound with every aspect of this scenario is obvious
and thus it is understandable that some commentators have been
disinclined to attempt an explanation of the imagery, opting instead to
dismiss it as poetic metaphor. 42. Athena's manner of birth is quite
impossible from an anatomical standpoint, of course, a fact which would
be readily apparent to any culture, however primitive. Why then would
one of the most civilized of cultures preserve such a preposterous tale
about their greatest god and goddess? 43. Nor are females of much use as
warriors, particularly so newborn babes. One can only be dismayed as to
why a people as proficient at war as the Greeks would relate such a
ludicrous tale about their favorite goddess.

It is probable that the Greeks were trying to describe via the medium of
myth what was for them an ineffable reality, a fundamental cosmological
truth. It is, after all, the very essence of religion that sacred
"truths" take precedence over day to day reality and common sense. It is
the Sumerologist Thorkild Jacobsen, perhaps, who has written most
eloquently upon this aspect of ancient religion:

Basic to all religion�is we believe, a unique confrontation with a power
not of this world. Rudolf Otto called this confrontation 'Numinous' and
analyzed it as the experience of a mysterium tremendum et fascinasum, a
confrontation with a 'Wholly Other' outside of normal experience and
indescribable in its terms; terrifying, ranging from sheer demonic dread
through awe to sublime majesty; and fascinating, with irresistible
attraction, demanding unconditional allegiance. It is the positive human
response to this experience in thought (myth and theology) and action
(cult and worship) that constitutes religion. 44.

It is while searching for a clue to the numinous nature of Athena's
epiphany that Velikovsky's thesis of a comet-like Athena becomes of the
utmost relevance, for it is undeniable that the appearance of a comet
has an unusually powerful effect upon the human mind, unrivalled,
perhaps, by that of any other natural phenomenon. Jacobsen's criteria of
fascination, terror, and dread are all equally appropriate as
descriptions of the behavior which may be occasioned by the appearance
of a brilliant comet. To take but one well-known example, as recently as
1528 a learned doctor could report of the appearance of a comet: "The
comet was so horrible and vulgar that some died of fear and others fell
sick." 45.

Athena's appearance as a comet-like body, moreover, is inherent in the
imagery of the goddess as warrior. Consider Athena's debut epiphany in
the Iliad:

Like a blazing star which the lord of heaven shoots forth, bright and
scattering sparks all around, to be a portent for sailors or for some
great army of men, so Pallas Athena shot down to earth and leapt into
the throng. 46.

Note further that the appearance of Athena's fiery star, according to
Homer, is said to portend war, a superstition specifically associated
with the appearance of a comet by peoples throughout the ancient world.

Is it possible that the occasion commemorated in the myth of the birth
of Athena was the spectacular "birth" of a great "comet", and that the
peculiar imagery of the Greek myth-the shaking of heaven and earth,
etc.-preserved a literal account of man's confrontation with a "power
not of this world"? A comparative analysis of the myth of the
war-goddess suggests that such was indeed the case.

INANNA, ISHTAR, AND ASTARTE

Athena's appearance as a warring goddess, bizarre and wholly unnatural
as it is, conforms to a universal archetype. This fact has rarely been
appreciated by scholars despite the fact that nearly every ancient
goddess of comparable stature to Athena was described in like manner.
47. In Greece alone Hera, Hekate, and Aphrodite were represented as
armed warriors. 48.

The ancient Near East provides a wealth of goddesses distinguished by
their propensity for war. Kapelrud offered the following summary in his
study of the war-goddess:

Both the Amarna letters and the Ras Shamra texts, together with numerous
material of different kinds, show that a great, violent goddess, who was
at the same time goddess of war and battle and goddess of sexual love,
was a dominating figure in worship all over the Middle East, from
Anatolia in the North to Egypt in the South, from Mesopotamia in the
East to Phoenicia in the West. In the East this goddess was Ishtar, who
represented both the Sumerian Inanna and the Semitic Ishtar. She was
also found in other parts of the territory, but in the West, and
especially in the North-West, Anat was dominating. In addition came
Ashtart, while Asherah was more similar to the ancient Sumerian Inanna.
This is only a rough sketch of the situation; in details the picture was
much richer and more varied. 49.

The Sumerian Inanna, as we have documented elsewhere, offers an
especially vivid portrait of the warring goddess. Witness the following
description from an early hymn:

Loud Thundering Storm�You make the heavens tremble and the earth quake.
Great Priestess, who can soothe your troubled heart? You flash like
lightning over the highlands; you throw your firebrands across the
earth. Your deafening command splits apart great mountains. 50.

As this passage illustrates, a recurring motive finds the rampage of the
warring goddess to be accompanied by widespread destruction. Such is the
case in The Exaltation to Inanna for example:

Devastatrix of the lands, you are lent wings by the storm�you fly about
the nation. At the sound of you the lands bow down. Propelled on your
own wings you peck away at the land. With a roaring storm you roar; with
Thunder you continually thunder. 51.

Sumerologists have documented that Inanna's warlike nature is present in
the oldest examples of her cult, as is her identification with the
planet Venus. 52. No attempt to connect the warrior-aspect of the
goddess with the celestial body has yet been made however. 53.

Inanna finds a close analogue in the Semitic goddess Ishtar, an early
epithet of whom was sa melultasa tuquptu, she "whose delight is battle."
54. An Akkadian hymn attests to the fear inspired by this formidable
goddess:

Ruler of weapons, arbiter of the battle! Framer of all decrees, wearer
of the crown of dominion! O lady, majestic is thy rank, over all the
gods is it exalted! Thou art the cause of lamentation, thou sowest
hostility among brethren who are at peace!�Thou art strong, O lady of
victory, thou canst violently attain my desire. O Gutira, who art girt
with battle, who art clothed with terror! Terrible in the fight, one who
cannot be opposed, strong in the battle! O whirlwind, that roarest
against the foe and cuttest off the mighty. 55.

A Babylonian hymn to Ishtar invokes her as the torch of heaven: "O
brilliant one, torch of heaven and earth, light the battle, O firebrand
which is kindled against the enemy, which brings about the destruction
of the furious, O gleaming one, Ishtar, assembler of the host." 56.
Explicit here in the guise of the torch of heaven is Ishtar as a
personification of the planet Venus. 57. The description of Ishtar as
assembler of the host, moreover, recalls Hesiod's description of Athena
as "unwearied leader of the host, a mistress who delights in the
clamorous cry of war and battle and slaughter." 58.

Generally considered to be a Canaanite counterpart to Ishtar, the
far-reaching cult of Astarte is best known, perhaps, by scattered
references in the Old Testament. 59. Of her warlike nature there can be
no doubt, Astarte being represented as a warrior in Egyptian and
Ugaritic iconography alike. 60. Astarte's bellicose nature is also
discernible in Ugaritic myth, wherein the battle between Baal and Yam-it
is she (Ashtart) who is associated with the splitting of Yam's skull. 61.

Astarte's identification with the planet Venus is well-known, of course,
and is not unexpected given her relationship to the Akkadian Ishtar. 62.

ANAT

One of the most gruesome figures in Ugaritic myth is the warrior-goddess
Anat, whose cult spread throughout much of the ancient Near East as
attested by Biblical references to her cult (it was Anat who was invoked
by Jeremiah as "Queen of Heaven.") 63. In one of the Ras Shamra texts
Anat was described as follows:

Behold, Anat battles in the plain�She slaughters the people of the sea
shore. She destroys the people of the sunrise�She ties the heads around
the back [of her neck]. She binds the hands in her girdle. She wades up
to her knees in the blood of soldiers, up to her waist in the gore of
heroes. 64.

Still more repulsive is the myth in which Anat is represented as
cannibalizing her brother Baal. 65. Yet another prominent episode
depicts Anat's slaughter of Mot:

With a sword she doth cleave him. With fan she doth winnow him, with
fire she doth burn him. With hand-mill she grinds him. In the field she
doth sow him. 66.

As was the case with regard to the epiphany of Inanna, the appearance of
Anat is associated with widespread destruction. The battle-dance of the
goddess, for example, is said to have shook the foundations of the
earth: "The Maiden Anat rejoices, stamps with her foot so that the earth
quakes." 67.

Kapelrud summarized the cult of Anat as follows:

She was a goddess who ravaged in blood, who was the sign and symbol of
battle, fighting, blood and death. This is so intensely emphasized in
the passages translated above that the intention of the poet must surely
have been to give the impression that this was the dominating feature in
the goddess. And writing so he did not allow himself any poetical
freedom, he did not paint the picture of Anat according to his own will
and wish. He was in the service of the cult and belief of Ugaritic men,
and wrote only what was known by them all and common traditions and
belief. This was how they knew the goddess Anat, triumphantly laughing
when wading in blood. 68.

Kapelrud's observations on the sanctity of the traditions of the war
goddess are well taken, and might be applied with equal force to the
Greek traditions of the birth of Athena, or to Homer's comparison of the
warring Athena with a comet-like object.

Anat, significantly, was identified with Athena in Cyprian inscriptions
dating from the fifth century BCE. 69. This identification confirms that
the early Greeks recognized the close affinities pertaining between the
respective war-goddesses. That Anat has been identified with the planet
Venus by leading scholars is also relevant to the discussion at hand. 70.

KALI

The Hindu Kali offers a particularly powerful example of the
warrior-goddess. 71. Descriptions of the goddess are almost uniformly
repulsive:

Although Kali is sometimes said to be beautiful&emdash;Hindu texts
referring to the goddess are nearly unanimous in describing her as
terrible in appearance and as offensive and destructive in her habits.
Her hair is disheveled, her eyes red and fierce, she has fangs and a
long lolling tongue, her lips are often smeared with blood, her breasts
are long and pendulous, her stomach is sunken, and her figure is
generally gaunt. She is naked but for several characteristic ornaments:
a necklace of skulls or freshly cut heads, a girdle of severed arms, and
infant corpses as earrings. 72.

The name Kali, although first attested in the sixth century A. D., would
appear to be but an epithet of Devi/Parvati. 73. Being separated from
the cult of Athena by about a thousand years and from that of Inanna by
several thousand years, it is not surprising that the cult of Kali
reflects a certain degenerative specialization, her demonic aspect
almost completely displacing any positive or maternal elements. In this
respect Kali might be compared to the Greek Hekate, whom in ancient
times was a multidimensional goddess comparable to Athena, yet whom
eventually became relegated to a goddess of witches and ghouls. 74.

Archaic motives can be discovered about Kali nevertheless. Thus Eaton
points out that Kali wears a necklace of skulls and a girdle of severed
hands, reminiscent of Anat's attire in Ugaritic lore. 75. And Kali's
dance, like that of Anat, shakes the foundations of the world:

The dread Mother dances naked in the battlefield. Her lolling tongue
burns like a red flame of fire. Her dark tresses fly in the sky,
sweeping away sun and stars. Red streams of blood run from her
cloud-black limbs. And the world trembles and cracks under her tread. 76.

It is curious that no one seems to have considered the possibility that
the respective dances of Kali and Anat could have had the effects
described; i.e., that they threatened the very foundations of heaven and
earth. Can it be a coincidence that the same tumultuous effects
distinguished the epiphany of Athena? Recall again the account of
Pindar: "Athena sprang from the skull of Zeus with an earth-shattering
battle-cry, so that the heavens shook and the mother earth." 77.

That Athena's epiphany did in fact constitute a war dance is attested by
the report of ancient chroniclers who credited Athena with having
invented the pyrrhic, a much celebrated war dance. 78. Legend has it
that Athena danced this dance immediately upon her birth from Zeus. 79.

Athena's earth-shaking dance upon deliverance from the head of
Zeus-however it is to be interpreted&emdash;offers a striking analogue
to the battle dances of Kali and Anat. 80. But we need not rest content
with this observation, one which, after all, many conventional scholars
might accept. The fact is that the cataclysmic imagery associated with
the goddess' dance finds a ready explanation in the imagery of the
comet, the latter being specifically associated with earthquakes and
world-threatening disaster throughout the ancient world. 81.

Note, finally, the recurring emphasis in the Hindu texts on the
disheveled hair of the warring goddess. 82. When it is reported that
Kali's "streaming tresses hang in vast disorder," or that her tresses
blacken the skies, is it not apparent that the imagery of the comet is
once more upon us? 83. Can it be coincidence that streaming hair and a
tendency to cause eclipses were associated with the appearance of a
comet by ancient peoples the world over?

THE PRIMEVAL CONFLICT

In order to understand the myth of the warring goddess it is necessary
to answer the following question: Against whom or what is the goddess'
belligerence directed? This question, rarely asked, is directly related
to another: Was the goddess associated with war simply because she was
favored by a warlike people? Or does the goddess' bellicose character
stem from her participation in a particular war, a particular event(s)
in time? The wealth of evidence bearing on this issue supports the
latter interpretation.

A widespread motive, and one which has yet to receive sufficient
attention from comparative mythologists, is the frequency with which the
warrior-goddess' anger is directed at her father or consort, often
identified as the King of the Gods. Kali, for example, is commonly
represented as trampling upon the prostrate or "dead" body of Shiva. 84.
This motive appears in the provocative portrait of the goddess offered
by the Yogini Tantra of the 16th century:

Charming with rows of skull-necklaces, with flowing hair�with lolling
tongue, with dreadful voice, with three eyes all red�with corpses as ear
ornaments girdled with thousands of dead men's hands, with smiling face,
whose countenance is flecked with streams of blood dripping from the
corners of her mouth, whose four arms are adorned with sword, with
blood-decked body mounting upon the corpse of Shiva�having her left foot
upon the corpse. 85.

While this particular account is relatively recent, the conflict of Kali
and Shiva goes to the very foundations of Hindu religion. Ions
summarizes their primeval confrontation as follows:

Once she gave free rein to her blind lust for destruction nothing could
stop her. On one occasion Shiva himself had to mingle among the demons
whom she was slaughtering and allow himself to be trampled underfoot in
her dance of victory, as this was the only way to bring her to her
senses and save the world from collapse. She was in this sense said to
have subdued her own husband, and to this she owes her name, Kali,
'conqueror of Time.' Devi, goddess of fertility, had conquered Shiva,
who as the invincible destroyer was equated with Time. 86.

The murder of Shiva is implicit in the Tamil cult of warring-goddess as
well. 87. Shulman summarized these myths as follows: "The Tamil myths of
Mahisasura [i.e., Shiva] clearly describe a violent confrontation
between the dark goddess and her husband, in the course of which the
male is slain." 88. Indeed, according to Shulman, the myth of the
goddess' conquest of Shiva/Mahisasura constitutes "the archetypal myth
of the goddess in India." 89.

NEAR EASTERN PARALLELS

Violence also characterizes the relationship of the great goddess and
her father/consort in Near Eastern mythology. In Ugaritic lore, for
example, Anat threatens her father El&emdash;the King of the
Gods&emdash;with physical violence should he fail to comply with her
demand to punish Aqhat:

[With] the might [of my] lon[g hand, I'll verily smash] thy pate. Make
[thy gray hair] flow [with blood. The gray hair of] thy [beard] with
gore. 90.

That the same threat is directed at El in another context attests to its
formulaic character, and hence, presumably, to the antiquity of this motive:

He will listen to me, El [my father]. He will listen to me and [�] I'll
trample him like a lamb on the ground, I'll make his gray beard flow
with blood. His gray beard with gore. 91.

Sumerian tradition likewise finds the warring-goddess threatening the
King of the Gods. There Inanna is reported to have directed some form of
assault at her father An:

She was making heaven tremble, the earth shake. Inanna was destroying
the cowpens, burning the sheepfolds, crying 'Let us berate An, king of
the gods'. 92.

Notice here that Inanna's assault of An-like Kali's dance upon the
corpse of Shiva-is marked by a shaking of the foundations of heaven and
earth.

It is in the Egyptian sources-where the rampage of the war-goddess
Hathor is directed against her father Re-that this motive finds its
clearest expression. There, however, there is an interesting twist: the
warring goddess takes the form of a fire-spewing Eye of serpentine form!
Best known, perhaps, is the passage in an Egyptian tale known as the
Destruction of Mankind, where Ra dispatches Hathor to wage war upon his
enemies:

Let go forth thine Eye, let it destroy for thee those who blaspheme with
wickedness, not an eye can precede it in resistance�when it goeth forth
in the form of Hathor. Went forth then this goddess, she slew mankind on
the mountain. 93.

That the goddess' wrath was also directed against the King of the Gods
is confirmed by several passages in the Coffin Texts: "What is the
Sacred Eye at the time of its wrath?�It is the right eye of Re when it
was wroth with him after he had sent it on an errand." 94. Other
passages speak of the hair raised from the Eye, a striking image if the
reference was to a comet: "I raised up the hair from the Sacred Eye at
the time of its wrath." 95.

Egyptian ritual likewise found Hathor invoked as a warring Eye, the
liturgical instructions of which offer explicit testimony that the
goddess emerged from the body of Ra: "The cobra-snake of Re�who came
forth from him�who burns the enemy of Re with her heat&emdash;The Eye of
Re&emdash;She is the flaming goddess." 96. A similar invocation is the
following: "Hathor, great lady�the Eye of Re, lady of heaven, mistress
of all the gods, the daughter of Re, who came forth from his body." 97.

Most significant, perhaps, is the tradition that the departure of the
Eye-goddess signalled disaster for the sun-god and his celestial
kingdom. This tradition is the basis for numerous passages in the
Pyramid and Coffin Texts, where the departure of the Eye constitutes a
world-threatening cataclysm: "I am the fiery Eye of Horus which went
forth terrible, Lady of slaughter, I am indeed she who shoots." 98.
Other passages recount the fire and devastation which accompanied the
Eye's rampage: "The great fire has gone forth against you from within
the Eye;" 99. "Its flame is to the sky." 100.

Anthes has commented on this curious aspect of the mythology of the Eye:
"The characteristic of the Eye appears to be that its removal from the
highest god means disturbance, while its return means pacification and
the restitution of order." 101.

The talismanic significance of the Hathorian Eye, needless to say, bears
a striking resemblance to Greek superstitions surrounding the comet-like
palladium.

THE DEATH OF ZEUS

Athena's warlike epiphany, as we have seen, exactly parallels the
destructive rampages associated with Inanna, Anat, and Kali. Inasmuch as
Athena's rampage accompanied her birth from Zeus, one would expect to
find hints that she, too, directed an assault upon the King of the
Gods&emdash;in this case her father-precipitating, perhaps, his death.
More than one scholar, in fact, has arrived at this very opinion.
Burkert, citing the tradition whereby Zeus' head was first split with an
axe to allow for the delivery of Athena, notes that this alone implies
the death of the King of Gods: "This never expressed element of
patricide in the birth myth leads back to the apocryphal Pallas myth." 102.

Here Burkert is referring to the curious tradition preserved by Clement
of Alexandria and other early chroniclers whereby Athena is said to have
murdered her father, there called by the name of Pallas. 103. Described
as a winged goatish giant, Pallas met his demise while attempting to
ravage his more famous daughter. Isolated fragments, unfortunately, are
all that remain of this intriguing myth.

Several scholars, Kerenyi among them, have expressed the opinion that
the Pallas traditions preserve archaic elements of Athena's cult. Of
such traditions he observed:

They contradict the Homeric religion and the whole classical tradition
so decisively that they cannot be rejected as groundless. They must rest
on archaic elements of the Athene religion that have been transmitted to
us only through accidental utterances. 104.

Another of these "accidental utterances" maintains that Athena stripped
Pallas of the aegis, a goat-skin with marvelous powers (such as the
ability to generate lightning) that was to become one of the standard
symbols of Athena. 105. In Homer, however, the traditional bearer of the
aegis is Zeus. 106. This fact, if nothing else, should alert us to the
possibility that Pallas was but a pseudonym for Zeus himself, and his
strange murder at the hands of his daughter merely a degenerative
version of the archetypal myth of the war-goddess which Greek
chroniclers later saw fit to censor.

ON THE BIRTH OF VENUS

Our discussion of the myth of the war-goddess has confirmed the insight
of Velikovsky that the imagery associated with the birth of Athena
referred in some manner to a celestial disturbance occasioned by the
appearance of a comet-like body. That that body was in fact the planet
Venus during a comet-like phase is deducible from Athena's resemblance
to the various war-goddesses of the ancient Near East, most of whom were
explicitly identified with that planet. This evidence alone offers
substantial support for a significant portion of Velikovsky's thesis in
Worlds in Collision.

A central theme of Worlds in Collision held that the myth of Athena's
birth commemorated the physical birth of the planet Venus from the giant
planet Jupiter, an event Velikovsky believed to be reflected in ancient
myths the world over. Until recently, however, this point was to remain
unsubstantiated, at which time it was to receive some support by the
finding that a nearly identical story existed in both Egypt and
Mesoamerica whereby the planet Venus suddenly appeared (i.e. was "born")
in the wake of cataclysmic circumstances associated with the death of
the ancient sun-god (In Egypt the dying god was Osiris, in Mexico
Quetzalcoatl, and the circumstances surrounding their tragic deaths
formed the focal point of the religions of the respective cultures).
107. The Mesoamerican scholar Nigel Davies, upon acknowledging that this
was the original significance of the myth of Quetzalcoatl's death and
transfiguration, nevertheless objected that such an interpretation is
hardly to be entertained:

"At some point in the account, history ends and legend begins, unless
one is really to believe that the planet Venus was actually formed from
his body and had not previously existed!" 108.

This was not the only puzzle to emerge from our study of the sacred
traditions of Egypt and Mexico, however. A common and seemingly
inexplicable belief of both ancient cultures identified the newborn
Venus with the "soul" or "heart-soul" of the dying god. 109. Brundage
summarized the Mexican tradition of the apotheosis of Quetzalcoatl's
heart-soul as follows: "The god's heart, like a great spark, flies up to
become a new and splendid divinity, the Morning Star." 110.

While the astrophysical details of the circumstances attending the
mythological "birth" of the planet Venus are subject to debate and
further clarification, this much is clear: (1) the birth of Venus does
indeed occupy a central position in the sacred traditions of more than
one ancient people; (2) the identification of Venus as the "heart-soul"
of the ancient sun-god forms a fundamental motive in the curious
mythology surrounding this planet. 111. It stands to reason, therefore,
that if the birth of Athena actually had to do with the "birth" (or
initial appearance) of the planet Venus, as Velikovsky maintained, a
logical question to ask at this stage of our inquiry is whether Athena's
"birth" is understandable as the departure of the "heart-soul" of Zeus?

THE KORE

That Athena was intimately associated with early Greek conceptions of
the soul is indicated by several lines of evidence. One notes, for
example, the ancient tradition that Athena had provided the soul to the
men created from clay by Prometheus. 112. Hesiod, similarly, credits
Athena with having first breathed "soul" into men. 113.

The most conclusive evidence bearing on this issue comes upon analysis
of the word kore, an archaic epithet applied to Athena. 114. The
antiquity of the word seems assured by its appearance in the names of
rivers, lakes, and other features of landscape, often in conjunction
with the worship of Athena. 115. The same conclusion is supported by the
appearance of kore in the nomenclature of Greek rituals. 116.

Numerous scholars have expressed the opinion that the numen of the
kore-however it is to be understood-is fundamental to the mystery of the
cult of the great goddess. 117. The most common meaning of kore is
"maiden" or "girl", typically understood as signifying the youthful
aspect of Athena, in contrast to her maternal aspect, apparent
elsewhere. 118. Such an interpretation is no doubt part of the story,
being in complete accordance with the image of Athena as the
warrior-maiden, the goddess elsewhere being invoked by the epithets
Parthenos and Pallas, words of similar meaning. 119. It is possible to
penetrate still further into the original significance of the epithet
Kore, however.

An important clue comes from the fact that in modern parlance the word
core connotes the "heart" or innermost part of an object, as in the core
of an apple or the core of the earth. That this meaning was inherent in
the ancient Greek conception of the goddess as kore is made probable
upon consideration of several related words. For example, a Homeric term
for "heart" is ker. 120. The root ker, in turn, is found in the Greek
word kardia, which, like the Latin word cor, means "heart". It is from
the latter word that the English word core apparently derives. 121.

That there was in fact a Greek goddess by the name of Ker would seem to
prove beyond all doubt that the goddess as a personification of the
heart was a religious reality, and renders it likely that the words
kore, ker, and cor are related. The goddess Ker, significantly, appears
as a harbinger of death and destruction, and is represented as haunting
the battlefields while dressed in blood-drenched garb, all of which
suggests that the spectre of the war-goddess is once more among us.

Now it is impossible to dissociate the concept of the goddess as the
heart from her relationship to the soul. The Greek word ker preserves
both meanings, "heart" and "soul", for example. 122. Nor is the
phenomenon whereby one word signifies both heart and soul peculiar to
the Greeks, many ancient peoples using the same word to connote the
heart as well as the soul. 123. Here Gaster reports: "In many cultures,
the heart is believed to be the seat of the 'soul' or vital essence." 124.

Also relevant here is the word kar, signifying "lock of hair." 125.
Locks of hair, as is well-known, formed a common offering in Greek cult
in general, and in funereal cults in particular. 126. Athena herself was
the recipient of such offerings at Arcadia and Crete, where she was
invoked as Koria and Koresia respectively. 127.

That kar is cognate with ker-"heart", "soul"-is obvious and is
reminiscent of the widespread belief whereby a lock of hair signified
the soul or vital powers. 128. That similar beliefs existed among the
early Greeks may be deduced from several peculiar myths which have
survived, more than one of which attributes the murder of a great king
to the removal of a lock of hair wherein resided his soul (and/or vital
powers).

The best known example of this motive features the traitress Scylla, who
secures the death of Nisus by stealing the purple lock of hair upon
which his life and kingdom depended. 129. A similar deed is elsewhere
attributed to the goddess Aphrodite-here provided with the epithet
Comaetho-who is said to have brought about the demise of Pterelaus by
stealing the lock of hair which contained his soul. 130. Vestiges of
this motive are discernible in the mythus of Athena as well, witness the
Tegean tradition that Athena presented one of their ancient kings with a
lock of Medusa's hair which rendered that city impregnable (in the
original myth, according to leading scholars, Athena was the Medusa).
131. The talismanic significance here accorded the lock of hair is
identical to that accorded the comet-like palladium.

THE EYE GODDESS

An interesting use of the word kore finds it employed in the sense of
"pupil in the eye." This sense of the word conforms to a widespread
conception whereby the pupil is envisaged as a miniature being of some
sort. This idea is most familiar, perhaps, from several Biblical
passages in which the pupil is referred to as the daughter, youth, or
apple in the eye. 132.

Egyptian sources likewise compare the pupil of the eye to a maiden or
boy. The word hun-t, for example, means both "pupil of the eye" and
"maiden". 133. The same belief is apparent in a fascinating vignette
from the Rig Veda: "The maiden was born; the eyeball fell, and the
plants sprung up through the magic deed." 134.

Commentators have typically sought to explain such conceptions by
assuming that ancient peoples imagined a tiny girl or boy as residing
within the eye in order to account for the reflection of the pupil.
Mercer, for example, offered the following opinion with regard to the
Egyptian symbolism:

'The damsel who is in the eye of Horus' is an example of an almost
universal idea of associating the pupil of the human eye with a human
being, preferably a young woman, a maiden, a damsel (cf. Latin pupilla,
'damsel'), for when one stands in the presence of another he sees
himself reflected in the pupil of the eyes of the person before whom he
stands. It was merely a step farther to identify the pupil as a damsel. 135.

It is our opinion that Mercer's interpretation only scratches the
surface of the symbolism of the kore/maiden as pupil of the eye. There
is abundant evidence, for example, that the pupil was associated with
ancient conceptions of the soul: "Widespread also is the belief that the
soul resides in the pupil of the eye." 136. So wrote Theodore Gaster.

Jan Bremmer speculated that the word kore may have meant at once
"maiden" and "soul":

A number of peoples have thought the free soul resided in the eye in the
form of a homunculus. This idea could have existed in early Greece, but
we have only two testimonies for psyche departing from the eye and they
both date from the later Roman empire. However, the double meaning of
kore as 'girl' and 'pupil of the eye' may be a survival of this belief. 137.

Kirby Smith was more adamant with regard to the possibility of a
relationship between the kore/maiden and soul:

Such designations of the pupil as kore, pupa, pupula, pupilla, i.e., the
little lass, the mannikin, das mannelein, though easily explained by a
different theory in the wisdom of a later age, undoubtedly go back to
the time when they were applied in a literal sense to the soul which was
seen in the man's eye. 138.

According to Smith, the custom of placing coins on the eyes of the dead
originated in the attempt to prevent the soul from escaping and haunting
the house. Smith concluded his analysis by observing that the belief
that eyes represented the windows of the soul is hardly a modern
conception, "but is repeated or implied in all languages and all
periods." 139.

The researches of Gaster, Bremmer, and Smith render it likely that there
was an intimate relationship between the goddess as Kore "maiden, pupil"
and the goddess as Ker "heart/soul", and suggest that Athena's epithet
had a significance hitherto overlooked.

ATHENA KORUPHAGENES

Hesiod-the earliest author to narrate the birth of Athena-joins Pindar
and the author of the Homeric Hymn to Athena in making the goddess
spring directly from the head of Zeus: "And out of his own head he gave
birth to the owl-eyed Triton-born." 140. Vase paintings and ancient
mythographers add the detail that some divinity-usually Hephaestus-first
split the skull of Zeus with an axe to allow for the birth of Athena. 141.

An early epithet of Athena was koruphagenes, conventionally rendered
"head-born". 142. Is it possible that this epithet bears some relation
to Athena's identification as the Kore; i.e., the soul? Certainly it is
significant to find that the early Greeks considered the head to be a
primary seat of the soul. Onians provides abundant documentation of this
belief in Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, where, upon analysis of
ancient Greek conceptions of the soul, it was observed: "The head was
believed to contain the life-soul, the divinity in each man, his
genius." 143.

Closely related to this conception, according to Onians, is the
widespread custom among ancient peoples of splitting or perforating the
skull to release the soul. 144. This practice, needless to say, offers a
certain parallel to the splitting of Zeus' skull to release Athena.

Significantly, Onians goes on to document a relation between ancient
ideas of the soul and comets. The most famous example of this belief
occurs in the Metamorphoses of Ovid where the great poet makes the soul
of Julius Caesar fly off as a comet:

Belief that the genius, the divine soul that survives, thus manifested
itself in fire in the head would make easier the belief of the common
people at Rome that the 'star with hair' (stella crinita, cometes),
which appeared during the games celebrated soon after the death of
Julius, was the soul of the latter; That the departed soul or 'head' of
the emperor was believed thus to ascend to the heavens fitted the belief
that the genius manifested itself in flame and the Stoic belief that
souls passed at death as fire to the heavens. 145.

The Latins were not alone in comparing comets to souls of great kings.
The fact is that ancient peoples from around the world compared comets
to souls. 146. American Indians, for example, compared comets to the
souls of the stars. 147. Among the Polynesian Islanders a comet
signified the flight of the soul, in addition to the death of a king.
148. Frazer, in his extensive researches into ancient beliefs, found that:

"A widespread superstition�associates meteors or falling stars with the
souls of the dead. Often they are believed to be the spirits of the
departed on their way to the other world." 149.

EXCURSUS ON VENUS

If it is admitted that cometary imagery has a part to play in the
earliest cult of Athena, how is it possible to reconcile this evidence
with the ancient appearance of the planet Venus, if indeed Athena's cult
traces to that planet? In order to answer this question&emdash;and
achieve thereby a satisfactory synthesis of the various motives
discussed thus far-it is necessary to refer briefly to a theory outlined
in previous monographs in this journal. There evidence was presented
that Venus only recently assumed its present orbit. Prior to that, the
Cytherean planet occupied a prominent position within an unusual
celestial configuration associated with the planet Saturn. 150.

During the period in question Venus was locked in axial alignment
together with Saturn and the Earth, at some point between the two
planets. From the vantage point of the terrestrial skywatcher, Venus
would have appeared to rest squarely in the middle of the massive planet
Saturn. It was this axial location of Venus, in our opinion, that led it
to be envisaged as the innermost portion of the body of Saturn (the
ancient sun-god), the smaller planet being alternatively interpreted as
the sun-god's "heart", "soul", or Cyclopean eye. It is by reference to
Venus' position within the configuration associated with Saturn that we
would understand the original significance of Athena as the Kore: the
maiden-goddess formed at once the "heart-soul" and central eye or
"pupil" of Zeus (Saturn).

The birth of Athena/Venus, according to the interpretation offered here,
would involve the displacement of Venus from its axial position, at
which time it apparently first became visible as a planetary orb
distinct from Saturn/Zeus (its "parent" body). 151. For some time prior
to its ultimate displacement, however, the brilliant green orb of Venus
was associated with a luminous tail or plume of celestial material,
interpreted (among other things) as a lock of hair. It was the severance
of this comet-like "lock of hair", if the ancient myths are to be
believed, which marked the ultimate departure of Venus from Saturn,
thereby signalling the "death" of the King of the Gods and ushering in a
period of instability associated with a warring goddess (Athena/Ker). 152.

The thesis outlined above, in our opinion, will explain much that is
obscure about the cult of Athena. Many of Athena's leading attributes
trace to the appearance of the planet Venus within the aforementioned
configuration, while not a few of her mythical adventures refer to the
movements of that planet upon its expulsion from the near vicinity of
Saturn. A couple of examples will serve to bolster this point.

GLAUKOPIS

Among the many hitherto obscure epithets of Athena, Glaukopis is one of
the most ancient, being already a favorite of Homer's. 153. Now
Glaukopis can signify either "owl-eyed," or, more likely, it can refer
to the sea-green color of the goddess' eyes. 154. From our vantage
point, the epithet is a patent reference to the brilliant green color
traditionally associated with the planet Venus in the ancient sources,
the same planet being compared to a celestial eye by peoples the world
over. 155.

Talbott and I have elsewhere alluded to the curious association between
the planet Venus and the color green or blue-green. 156. The Venusian
"heart-soul" of Quetzalcoatl, for example, was compared to a
turquoise-green stone. 157. An early example of this motive occurs in
The Descent of Inanna, where, upon the fall of the great goddess from
heaven, Inanna (Venus) is described as hanging upon a great wall and as
being of a putrid green color. 158.

It is worthy of note, finally, that the name of Venus became synonymous
with the color green in alchemical texts of the Middle Ages. 159. The
relationship between the planet Venus and the color green or blue-green
is also attested by certain words in various Indo-European languages.
Consider, for example, the Latin word venetus-apparently cognate with
Venus-signifying sea-green or blue. 160.

ATHENA OF THE THUNDERBOLT

As the wielder of the death-dealing thunderbolt, Zeus was feared and
revered throughout the Greek world. Aeschylus has preserved for us a
vivid portrait of this awe-inspiring figure: "And threats of flaming
thunderbolts from Zeus with burning wrath to desolate his race, if he
durst disobey." 161.

Several epithets of the great god refer to his capacity for hurling
lightning, foremost among these being keraunos. 162. Noting the
antiquity of the meteorological imagery surrounding Zeus, Burkert remarks:

The thunderbolt�is the weapon of Zeus which he alone commands; it is
irresistible, even gods tremble before it, and enemies of the gods are
utterly destroyed when it strikes; in the face of such a manifestation
of divine energy, man stands powerless, terrified and yet marvelling. 163.

Confronted with the imagery of Zeus' flaming thunderbolt, conventional
scholars imagine that it traces to ancient man's long-standing fear of
the thunderstorm and its attendant lightning. Analysis of the traditions
surrounding Zeus' thunderbolt, however, suggests a more radical conclusion.

For example, it is known that many ancient peoples, the Greeks included,
understood the phenomenon of lightning as resulting from the descent of
a stone from heaven. Blinkenberg, in his classic study of ancient
conceptions of lightning, observed: "The lightning, then, is produced by
a stone which shoots down from heaven to earth." 164. Meteors, in
accordance with this belief, were identified with thunderstones
throughout the ancient world. 165.

This primitive conception of lightning as a thunderstone or "falling
star" forms a striking parallel to the Greek traditions surrounding the
palladia, a point often noted by scholars. Worner, for example, in his
detailed analysis of the mythology associated with palladia, suggested
that the tradition of their being thrown from heaven as meteor-like
objects was best interpreted as the fall of thunderstones. 166.
Harrison, also impressed by the resemblance between palladia and
thunderstones, and fully cognizant of the intimate relation of Athena to
palladia, sought to identify that goddess with the heaven-flung weapon
of Zeus:

The palladia have always one characteristic, they are sky-fallen
(diopeteis). They are palta, things hurled, cast down; the lightning is
the hurled fire (palton pyr). Pallas then is but another form of
Keraunos, the thunderbolt hurled. 167.

The analyses of Worner and Harrison are most persuasive, and indeed
there is much to be said for the identification of Pallas Athena with
the thunderbolt of Zeus. Certainly there is no denying that Athena was
very much connected with her father's weapon. Early Greek coins, for
example, showed Athena (as well as Zeus) brandishing thunderbolts. 168.
Note also the report of Aeschylus that only Athena knew where Zeus'
bolts were hidden. 169.

Additional support for Harrison's identification of Athena with the
thunderbolt of Zeus comes from the archaic tradition that Zeus could
produce lightning from his eye. This belief is apparent in the following
passage of Aeschylus: "The jealous eye of God hurls the lightning down."
170. The same conception is implicit in the Bacchae of Euripedes:
"Unveil the Lightning's eye." 171. That the thunderbolt of Zeus
proceeded from that god's Cyclopian-eye is also the explanation, it
would seem, of Hesiod's report that Zeus' weapon was forged by the
Kyklopes, the latter being conspicuous for their central eye. 172. Such
traditions are most significant in light of Athena's intimate
relationship to the eye, reflected in the epithets Kore, Glaukopis,
Opthalmitis, Gorgopis, and others.

Numerous scholars have observed that the image of Zeus casting lightning
from his eye corresponds to a widespread belief. 173. In Hindu
tradition, for example, Shiva was said to have been capable of throwing
lightning from his third eye, located in the center of his head. It is
the intimate relationship of Shiva's eye to Devi/Kali, however, which
strikes our attention: It is said to have been a gift of the great
goddess. 174.

A similar tradition was met with earlier in the mythology surrounding
the Egyptian Ra. There the god's weapon-like Eye was specifically
identified with the warrior goddess Hathor, and analysis of the various
traditions surrounding the fire-spewing Eye supports the conclusion that
a comet was the source of its peculiar imagery. 175. In short, the
correspondence between the respective weapons of Zeus and Ra would seem
to be complete. Each is identifiable with a comet-like body which, in
turn, is identifiable with a warring goddess.

It is the fundamental identification of Athena/Venus as the eye
(Kore)-but also as the "heart-soul" of the ancient god (Ker)-that allows
for the resolution of the mystery of Zeus' fiery thunderbolt. It was the
god's comet-like soul which was hurled across the skies as a weapon.
Hence the apparent relationship between the words ker and keraunos.

End of Part One.

1. Pliny 2: 22: 89

2. Pindar, Olympia 7: 36

3. A. Athanassaki, The Homeric Hymns (Baltimore, 1976), p. 66.

4. W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, 1985), p. 142.

5. J. Harrison, Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and Themis
(New York, 1962), p. 500.

6. R. Graves, The Greek Myths (New York, 1980), Vol. I, p. 46.

7. L. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States Vol. I (New Rochelle,
1977), p. 263.

8. Quoted in R. Brown, Semitic Influence in Hellenic Mythology (Clifton,
1966), p. 37.

9. H. Rose, A Handbook of Greek Mythology (New York, 1959), p. 108,
dismisses the naturist explanation as an aberration. A similar opinion
was voiced by Burkert, op cit., p. 142.

10. Farnell, op cit., p. 280.

11. For differing opinions on the Velikovsky debate see S. Talbott, ed.
Velikovsky Reconsidered (New York, 1976); D. Goldsmith, ed. Scientists
Confront Velikovsky (New York, 1977); and, most recently, H. Bauer,
Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy
(Champaign-Urbana, 1984). For an account of the controversy from
Velikovsky himself see Stargazers and Gravediggers (New York, 1983). See
also the various articles in KRONOS, SIS Workshop, and AEON.

12. D. Talbott & E. Cochrane, "The Origin of Velikovsky's Comet," KRONOS
X:I (Fall 1984); "On the Nature of Cometary Symbolism," KRONOS XI:I
(Fall 1985); "When Venus was a Comet," KRONOS XII:I (Winter 1987). See
also J. Sammer, "An Ancient Name for Venus," KRONOS VI: 2 (Winter, 1981).

13. For conflicting opinions on this issue see Bauer, op cit.; and S.
Talbott, op cit. See also the valuable little pamphlet by Shane Mage
entitled Velikovsky and his Critics (Grand Haven, 1978).

14. The first scholar to address the mythological basis of Velikovsky's
theory in any depth appears to have been Dwardu Cardona, with his "Child
of Saturn" series, which appeared in serialized form in KRONOS beginning
in 1981. See also B. Newgrosh, "The Case for Catastrophe in Historical
Times," KRONOS XI: 1 (Fall, 1985); A. Isenberg, "Devi and Venus," KRONOS
II: 1 (1976), pp. 89-103.

15. In "On the Nature of Cometary Symbolism," op cit., for example,
Talbott and I were able to document that the ancient traditions
surrounding Venus and comets overlap to a considerable extent. For
example, whatever terminology the ancient skywatchers employed with
reference to comets' "hair-star", "torch-star", "beard-star",
"dragon-star", "smoking-star", etc.&emdash;the same terminology was
employed for Venus. This evidence alone, we suggested, offers
significant support for Velikovsky's thesis in Worlds in Collision.

16. W. Guthrie, The Greeks and Their Gods (Boston, 1966), p. 108.

17. H. Liddell & R. Scott, Greek-English Lexikon (New York, 1897), p.
1114. See also Guthrie, op cit., p. 108. Other early writers, Plato
among them, relate the name Pallas to the root pallo, signifying "to
brandish". That there may be something to this interpretation of the
epithet is suggested by the report of the author of the Homeric Hymn to
Athena, who speaks of the goddess as "brandishing a sharp-pointed spear"
immediately upon her birth from the head of Zeus. See also Burkert's
observation: "The word Pallas remains obscure; it was interpreted
sometimes as Maiden, and sometimes as the weapon-brandishing, but it
might equally have had a non-Greek origin." op cit., p. 139.

18. F. Brown & S. Driver & C. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexikon
(Oxford,1951), p. 811.

19. See the discussion in Worner, "Palladion," W. Roscher's
Ausfuhrliches Lexikon der griechische und romischen Mythologie
(Hildesheim, 1965), pp. 3413-3450.

20. M. Nilsson, Minoan-Mycenean Religion (New York, 1971), p. 500.

21. Worner, op cit., p. 3448; Pausanias I: 26: 6

22. L. Ziehen, "Palladion," RE (Stuttgart, 1893-1940), p. 188. It is
intriguing to speculate, in lieu of the alteration of an initial p and b
in certain languages, about a relationship between the Greek words
pallo, the supposed root of the name Pallas, and ballo, signifying "to
throw, cast, hurl," from whence comes the word bolis, a name often
applied to meteors, as in the modern word bolide. Other meanings
inherent in the word pallo are "to poise or sway a missile before it is
thrown," "to cast lots," or "to toss children." The common denominator
here&emdash;as revealed also by the related words palos, "the lot cast
from a helmet;" paltos, "brandished, hurled;" and paltako, "to throw a
dart"&emdash;seems to be an emphasis on something held, swung, or thrown.

23. For the various traditions surrounding these ancient shrines see H.
Newton, "The Worship of Meteorites," in Amer. Jour. of Science, 3: 13
(January, 1897), pp. 1-14. See also the discussion in I. Velikovsky,
Worlds in Collision (New York, 1973), pp. 293-295.

24. M. Astour, Hellenosemitica (Leiden, 1967), pp. 115-116.

25. H. Longfellow, Favorite Poems of Henry Longfellow (Garden City,
1947), p. 165. "From the sky a star is falling." It is interesting to
note that immediately prior to her celebrated fall Nokomis had been
swinging from a long vine. Compare this report with the widespread
motive of the hanging or swinging goddess, discussed at some length in
E. Cochrane, "Oedipus," AEON I:6 (1988), pp. 34-36.

26. For numerous examples from the New World see C. Levi-Strauss, The
Jealous Potter (New York, 1988), pp. 133-134.

27. B. Brundage, The Phoenix of the Western World (Norman, 1981), p. 40.

28. Astour, op cit., p. 170.

29. V. Ions, Indian Mythology (London, 1968), p. 92.

30. J. Ruskin, The Queen of the Air (New York, 1887), p. 34. See also
Liddell & Scott, op cit., p. 1525.

31. Farnell, op cit., p. 650. Here the falling goddess becomes
indistinguishable from the mourning or lamenting goddess, to be explored
at greater length in a future monograph in this series.

32. K. Kerenyi, Athene: Virgin and Mother (Zurich, 1978), p. 126. For
the Greek references see B. Powell, Athenian Mythology: Erichthonius and
the Three Daughters of Cecrops (Chicago, 1976), pp. 7-9.

33. De Astronomia. Some accounts make Electra's fall occur in the wake
of her violation by Zeus. See Graves, op cit., Vol. 2, p. 261.

34. Scholiast to Euripedes' Phoenissae 1136. See also A. Furtwangler,
"Electra," in RML (Hildesheim, 1965), op cit., p. 1235; Graves, op cit.,
p. 262.

35. Ibid., p. 261.

36. Theogony 924

37. Iliad V:875

38. Kerenyi, op cit., p. 22.

39. Farnell, op cit., p. 281

40. Athanassakis, op cit., p. 66.

41. Pindar, Olympia 7:36

42. This is the approach of Farnell, for example: "It is more natural to
say that, as the Greek imagination dwelt on the great epiphany of
Athena, the poets tended to embellish it with the richest phraseology,
to represent it as a great cosmic incident in which the powers of heaven
and earth were concerned." op cit., p. 283.

43. This paradox in Attic thought has often received the attention of
scholars. Price, for example, has stated: "As a logical paradox Attica
and its heart, Athens, the city of the goddess of wisdom and of the
radical philosophers and orators, is one of the districts richest in
irrational beliefs and practices." T. Price, Kourotrophos (Leiden,
1978), p. 101.

44. T. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness (New Haven, 1976), p. 3.

45. Ambroise Pare, quoted in D. Fisher, "Halley Though History," in
Halley's Comet (New York, 1986), p. 47.

46. Iliad 4: 73-79. While this passage has been subject to varying
translations&emdash;the above is W. Rouse's translation, The Iliad (New
York,1938), p. 49&emdash;several distinguished scholars have pointed to
a comet as the source of Homer's imagery. See the discussion in W.
Gundel, "Kometen," RE, op cit., p. 1145. See also the discussion of this
passage in B. Dietrich, "Divine Epiphanies in Homer," Numen 30: 1 (July
1983), p. 56 who translates as follows: "Like a comet which the son of
Kronos, crooked in counsel, sends in a shower of sparks as a shining
portent to sailors and the widespread army of peoples." Velikovsky, op
cit, p. 178, and I. Fuhr, "On Comets, Comet-like Luminous Apparitions
and Meteors," KRONOS VII: 4 (Summer 1982), p. 54, likewise compared
Athena's descent to a cometary apparition. It was apparently Dio Cassius
78:30:1 who first compared Athena's epiphany to a comet.

47. As an example of the general ignorance pertaining to the prominence
of the warrior-goddess in comparative mythology witness the statement of
M. Nilsson, one of the greatest classical scholars: "The real war god to
whom the Greek states and soldiers prayed and sacrificed is Athena.
Other peoples have usually assigned this function to a god, and this
seems most natural. Even if a war-goddess may be found among other
peoples&emdash;she exists but rarely&emdash;we need an explanation of
the fact that the Greeks chose a goddess as their leader for war." op
cit., pp. 498-499.

48. On the armed Aphrodite see Farnell, op cit., p. 653.

49. A. Kapelrud, The Violent Goddess Anat in the Ras Shamra Texts (Oslo,
1969), p. 25.

50. D. Wolkstein & S. Kramer, Inanna (New York, 1983), p. 95.

51. W. Hallo & J. van Dyk, Exaltation of Inanna (New Haven, 1968), pp.
17-19.

52. W. Heimpel, "Catalog of Near Eastern Venus Deities,"
Syro-Mesopotamian Studies 4:2 (1982), p. 12; E. Ebeling & B. Meissner,
Reallexikon der Assyriologie (New York, 1976-1980), Vol. 5, p. 85.

53. That is, of course, aside from the analysis offered by Velikovsky.
See also the articles by Newgrosh, Cochrane and Talbott, cited earlier.

54. K. Tallquist, Akkadische Gotterepitheta (Helsingforsiae, 1938), pp.
209, 337.

55. A. Eaton, The Goddess Anat: The History of Her Cult, Her Mythology
and Her Iconography (Ann Arbor, 1969), p. 72.

56. A. Kapelrud, op cit., p. 18.

57. As several scholars have observed, it is probable that an epithet of
Ishtar, elletu&emdash;"shining"&emdash;appears in the nomenclature of
Athena as Hellotis. Significantly, Athena Hellotis was associated with
sacred torch dances. See Astour, op cit., p. 139.

58. Theogony 924

59. Judges 2:13, 10:6, I Samuel 31:10, I Kings 11:5, 33; II Kings 33:13.

60. See Kapelrud, op cit., p. 15. See also Heimpel, op cit., pp. 20-21.

61. Gaster, op cit., p. 154.

62. W. Heimpel, op cit., p. 22.

63. Jeremiah 7: 18 Both Astarte and Anat enjoyed a celebrated status in
Egyptian cult during the 18th and 19th dynasties. The Egyptians, not
surprisingly, identified Anat with Hathor. See Kapelrud, op cit., p.15.
See also Heimpel, op cit., pp. 20-21.

64. Eaton, op cit., p. 56.

65. W. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (New York, 1968), p. 132.

66. J. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East (Princeton, 1958), p. 113.

67. Pritchard, op cit., p. 103.

68. Kapelrud, op cit., pp. 52-53.

69. Eaton, op cit., pp. 16, 45.

70. Astour, op cit., p. 261. There Astour states: "Anath, the Queen of
Heaven, was identified with Venus (Kaukabta) and, under the name of
Uzza, 'the strong one', was worshipped by the Sinaitic Saracenes as the
Morning Star."

71. Citing an unpublished manuscript of M. Pope, Albright notes the
striking parallels between Kali and Anat: "In fact, the respective
figures are in some ways so similar that coincidence can scarcely be the
only explanation. It may be that major common traits spring from a
substratum extending from the Mediterranean to India before the
intrusion of the Sumerians (no later than the fourth millenium b.c.) and
that minor resemblances are the result of secondary pseudomorphism." op
cit., p. 131.

72. D. Kinsley, "Blood and Death Out of Place: Reflections on the
Goddess Kali," in The Divine Consort, ed. by J. Hawley and D. Wulff
(Berkeley,1982), pp. 144-145.

73. A similar assessment was offered by Kinsley, op cit., p. 119. See
also the conclusions of C. Mackenzie Brown, "Kali the Mad Mother," in
The Book of the Goddess, ed. by C. Olson (New York, 1983), p. 111.

74. E. Rohde, Psyche (New York, 1966), Vol. 1, p. 297. See also the
discussion of Hekate's cult in E. Cochrane, "Venus in Ancient Myth and
Language: Part Two," AEON I:3 (1988), pp. 103-105.

75. Eaton, op cit., p. 78.

76. Ibid., p. 77.

77. Kerenyi, op cit., p. 22.

78. Farnell, op cit., pp. 298, 310.

79. Lucian, for example, reported that upon her birth the goddess "leaps
and dances a war-dance and shakes her shield, and brandishes her spear."
Dialogues on the Gods, 8.

80. A. Isenberg, "Devi and Venus," KRONOS II: 1 (1976), pp. 89-103,
offered a similar opinion.

81. On the association of comets and earthquakes see Gundel, op cit., p.
1146.

82. An epithet of the goddess&emdash;Muktakesi&emdash;commemorates her
disheveled hair. See J. Dowson, A Classical Dictionary of Hindu
Mythology and Religion (London, 1961), p. 87.

83. Kinsley, op cit., p. 120.

84. Ibid., p. 147.

85. Eaton, op cit., p. 78.

86. V. Ions, Indian Mythology (London, 1968), p. 94.

87. The Tamil name for Devi/Kali was Vintai. See D. Shulman, Tamil
Temple Myths (Princeton, 1980), p. 179. That this name is cognate with
Venus is most probable.

88. Ibid., p. 184.

89. Ibid., p. 177.

90. Eaton, op cit., p. 67.

91. Ibid., p. 59.

92. T. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness (New Haven, 1976), p. 137.

93. E. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (New York, 1969), Vol. I, p. 392.

94. R. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (Warminster,
1973-1978), Vol. I, p. 263.

95. Ibid., p. 260. In the Papyrus of Ani, similarly, it is written: "I
raise up the hair at the time of storms in the sky�It is the right Eye
of Ra in its raging against him after he hath made it to depart." See E.
Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead (London, 1901), pp. 36-37.

96. J. Bourghouts, "The Evil Eye of Apopis," J. of Egyptian Archaeology
59 (1973), p. 131.

97. Ibid., p. 130.

98. R. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (Warminster,
1973-1978), Vol. I, p. 238.

99. Ibid., p. 85.

100. Ibid., p. 193.

101. Anthes, "Mythology in Ancient Egypt," Mythologies of the Ancient
World (Garden City, 1961), p. 58. In this same essay Anthes identifies
the Eye of Ra with the planet Venus.

102. Burkert, op cit., pp. 142-143.

103. Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus, II, p. 24P; see also Kerenyi,
op cit., p. 86.

104. Ibid., p. 63.

105. Iliad I:202 See also R. Graves, op cit., p. 45.

106. The fact that the aegis was said to grace the falling palladium,
and that it was elsewhere reported to have spit fire, suggests the
conclusion that it too is inexplicable apart from the imagery of the
comet-like Venus.

107. For a more extensive discussion of these traditions see E.
Cochrane, "On Comets and Kings," AEON II:1 (1989), pp. 63-75. See also
D. Talbott, "Mother Goddess and Warrior Hero," AEON I:5 (1989). Here
too, of course, both Talbott and I were following the theoretical lead
of Velikovsky, although it must be said that our evidence was not his,
and his evidence, according to our interpretation of the ancient
sources, rarely supported the conclusions drawn by him.

108. N. Davies, The Toltecs (Norman, 1977), p. 395.

109. E. Cochrane, "Venus in Ancient Myth and Language," Aeon I: 1
(1988), pp. 40-43.

110. Brundage, op cit., p. 173.

111. The same basic idea is apparent in Akkadian tradition, whereby the
word istaru signifies the external manifestation of the "soul," this
word being an obvious cognate of Istar/Venus. See the discussion in A.
Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia (Chicago, 1964), pp. 199-205.

112. Farnell, op cit., p. 314.

113. Hesiod, fragment 268

114. Plato called Athena the Kore, for example. See Laws 796b. See also
Aeschylus, Eumenides 415. Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks (London,
1982), p. 127.

115. Farnell, op cit., p. 265. Among others there is the river Koralios
at Coronea, and the lake Koresia in Crete.

116. Here Farnell observes: "Now festival names belong usually to a very
ancient period of Greek religious nomenclature; it may well be that the
name of Kore was widely known and stamped upon the Greek ritual and
festivals before the Dorian invasion." op cit., p. 119. In a discussion
of the cult of Demeter Kore, Farnell observes: "We have such names of
her festivals as Koreia (more properly Koraia) in Arcadia, and Syracuse,
the Koragia, the procession of the Kora-idol at Mantinea, where the
sacred house was called Koragion."

117. K. Kerenyi, Athena: Virgin and Mother (Zurich, 1978), p. 26. The
same epithet, it should be noted, forms a conspicuous element in the
cults of numerous Greek goddesses.

118. Athena was known in Elis by the epithet of meter, "mother", for
example. Pausanias 5: 3: 3 See Kerenyi, op cit., pp. 14, 19.

119. Ibid., p. 26.

120. Liddell & Scott, op cit., p. 804.

121. Although the Oxford English Dictionary lists the root of core as
uncertain, it lists the Latin cor as the leading possibility. See The
Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, 1982), Vol.1,
p. 989.

122. Liddell & Scott, op cit., p. 804.

123. This was common among American Indians, for example. See A.
Hultkrantz, Conceptions of the Soul Among North American Indians
(Stockholm, 1953), pp. 95, 101, 171.

124. T. Gaster, Thespis (New York, 1977), p. 264.

125. Liddell & Scott, op cit., p. 743.

126. See W. H. Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings (Cambridge, 1902), pp. 240-245.

127. Kerenyi, op cit., p. 35.

128. This belief is conspicuous among the Mesoamerican Indians, as Furst
relates: "Among pre-hispanic peoples the Aztecs, among others, also
regarded the top of the head as the seat of the soul, which accounts for
their custom of cutting some of the hair from the top of the head of a
corpse and preserving it in the funerary box. Similarly, to neutralize
or remove the power of an Aztec shaman or sorcerer, his top lock was cut
off." See P. Furst, "Huichol Conceptions of the Soul," Folklore Americas
27:2 (June, 1967), p. 42.

129. Graves, op cit., Vol. I, p. 309.

130. Ibid., p. 300. Talbott and I have elsewhere suggested that
Aphrodite's epithet in this myth&emdash;Comaetho, "fiery
haired"&emdash;is a patent reference to the cometary nature of
Aphrodite/Venus. Ovid's account of Scylla likewise seems to preserve a
reminiscence of the goddess' cometary nature. There the traitress is
said to have been overcome by a "wild madness" and appeared with
"flowing hair." Ovid, The Metamorphoses (New York, 1958), p. 218. Of
Scylla's end Ovid writes: "She reached the stern of Minos' Cretan ship
where like a hated spirit she held fast�She seemed to fall, then sway,
hovering in the air as if she was a feather. Scylla became a bird that
some called Ciris, a name that brings to mind clipped locks of hair."
Ibid., p. 219. Ovid's brief account thus preserves a curious memento of
the goddess as comet, soul, feather, and lock of hair.

131. Pausanias 8:47:5. See also G. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und
Religionsgeschichte (Munich, 1975), Vol. 2, p. 1201.

132. Deut. 32:10; Prov. 7:2; Psalms 17:8

133. E. Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary (New York, 1978),
Vol. I, p. 471.

134. Rig Veda 10: 40: 9. See also the discussion in M. Bloomfield,
"Contributions to the Interpretation of the Veda," American Journal of
Philology 17:4 (1896), pp. 399-408.

135. S. Mercer, The Pyramid Texts (New York, 1952), Vol. 2, p. 52.

136. In J. Frazer, The New Golden Bough (New York, 1964), p. 267.

137. J. Bremmer, The Early Greek Conceptions of the Soul (Princeton,
1983), p. 17. Note here the fact that Psyche, "soul", could also be
personified as a goddess.

138. K. F. Smith, "Pupula Duplex," in Studies in Honor of B. L.
Gildersleeve (Baltimore, 1902), p. 295.

139. Ibid., p. 295.

140. Hesiod, Theogony 924-5.

141. This tradition is found already in Pindar. See the discussion in G.
S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths (New York, 1982), p. 120.

142. H. Liddell & R. Scott, Greek-English Lexikon (New York, 1897), p. 835.

143. R. Onians, Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle: The Origins of
European Thought (New York, 1973), p. 165. See also the discussion on
pp.100-106.

144. Ibid., pp. 512-513. Witness also the prehistoric practice of
trephining; i.e., the drilling of holes in the skull.

145. Onians, op cit., pp. 163-164. Nor is it without interest to find
that Caesar's soul, according to several Latin writers, was identified
with the planet Venus. See Propertius IV:6:59. Talbott and I have
elsewhere suggested that the legend surrounding the soul of Julius
Caesar represents a degenerative version of the myth(s) surrounding the
death of Quetzalcoatl and Osiris. See E. Cochrane, "Venus in Ancient
Myth and Language," AEON I:1 (1988), pp. 40-43. Note here that the word
genius is an apparent cognate of the Arabian jinn or ginn, meaning soul.
Arabian tradition, significantly, traces the origin of the Jinn to the
Morning Star. See V. Newall, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Magic
(New York, 1974), p. 108. This tradition offers a close parallel to the
Latin tradition that Venus was the abode of blessed souls. See R. Van
Den Brock, The Myth of the Phoenix (Leiden, 1972), p. 271.

146. E. Cochrane, "On Comets and Kings," op cit., pp. 56-57.

147. P. Brown, Comets, Meteorites and Men (New York, 1973), p. 18.

148. R. Williamson, Religious and Cosmic Beliefs of Central Polynesia
(Cambridge, 1933), Vol. 1, p. 127.

149. J. Frazer, The Golden Bough: The Dying God (London, 1920), p. 64.

150. E. Cochrane, "On Comets and Kings," AEON II:1 (1989), pp. 67-68; D.
Talbott, "Mother Goddess and Warrior Hero," AEON I:5 (1988), pp. 41-52.

151. It will be recognized that the author is hereby departing from the
scenario reconstructed by Velikovsky. We intend to return to the subject
of Zeus' identity in a future essay, at which time we will also address
the fundamental thesis of Worlds in Collision at greater length. That
the planet Mars also played an integral role in this configuration has
been the subject of numerous articles by Talbott and myself.

152. The severance of the sacred lock also marked a turning point in the
career of the Martian hero. We will explore this motive in a future
monograph.

153. Iliad I:206. That the epithet belonged to the oldest conception of
the goddess was the opinion of Dummler, "Athena," RE, op cit., p. 1990.

154. K. Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks (London, 1982), p. 128. It is
significant that statues of Athena had the peculiarity that their eyes
were painted green, not unlike the figurines associated with the
Ishtar-temple at Tell Brak.

155. See the Mayan name for Venus, Nohoch Ich, "Great Eye", for example.
The same belief is apparent in the Polynesian Islands, where Venus was
known as the "Eye of Tane." See E. Cochrane & D. Talbott, "When Venus
was a Comet," op cit., pp. 14-16.

156. D. Talbott & E. Cochrane, "On the Nature of Cometary Symbolism," op
cit., p. 24. See also the discussion of this imagery in Talbott, op
cit., pp. 57-59.

157. W. Krickeberg, "Mesoamerica," in Pre-Columbian American Religions
(New York, 1969), p. 52.

158. Jacobsen, op cit., p. 57.

159. See the discussion of C. Jung in Mysterium poniunctionis
(Princeton,1977), pp. 288-289. That this association goes back to the
Latin cult of Venus is probable. See J. Puhvel, Comparative Mythology
(Baltimore,1989), p. 160, for the association of Venus and the color green.

160. F. Leverett, Lexikon of the Latin Language (Boston, 1850), p. 945.

161. Prometheus Bound 670.

162. See also the epithets Kappotas and Kataibates. Prehn, "Keraunos,"
RE, op cit., p. 270.

163. Burkert, op cit., p. 126.

164. C. Blinkenberg, The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore
(Cambridge,1911), p. 32.

165. Ibid., p. 13. For a similar opinion see the extensive researches of
G. A. Wainright: "In religion the meteorite and the thunderbolt are the
same thing." "Letopolis," J. of Egyptian Archaeology, 18 (1932), p.161.

166. Worner, op cit., pp. 3448-3449.

167. J. Harrison, Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and Themis
(New York, 1966), pp. 87-88.

168. Blinkenberg, op cit., p. 114.

169. "I only of all goddesses do know to ope the chamber where his
thunderbolts lie stored and sealed." Eumenides 827

170. Agamemnon 466.

171. G. Murray, The Collected Plays of Euripedes (London, 1954), p. 35.

172. Theogony 141

173. W. Schwartz, Indogermanischer Volksglaube (Berlin, 1885), pp. 169-179.

174. Ibid., p. 167.

175. E. Cochrane & D. Talbott, "When Venus was a Comet," KRONOS XII:1
(Winter 1987), pp. 14-16.