THE DIVINITY OF THE MYCENAEAN KING 1
by PETER W ALCOT
In a brief but important paper published in I95I Marinatos argues that the divine ancestry of the legendary kings of Crete and Greece implies that their subjects regarded these monarchs as being more than ordinary mortals 2. Unfortunately, the Greek scholar is somewhat vague in his terminology, and one is left wondering exactly what he means when, for example, he claims that 'many and perhaps all Minoan-Mycenaean kings received heroic honour and worship' (p. I32). Is any special significance to be atta~hed to the word , heroic " and does the inclusion of this adjective signify that the Minoan-My cenaean king had to be content with something less extravagant than full di vine honours? It is crucial, furthermore, that a distinction be drawn between a society in which a king is worshipped as a god during his own lifetime and one whose ruler must wait until after his death before he is deified. As Mari natos, having made the claim quoted above, goes on to refer to the temple tomb at Knossos, are we to understand that the worship of the Minoan-My cenaean king was delayed until after he had died? The use of Egyptian ma terial elsewhere in the article certainly suggests that Marinatos thinks of the king as being worshipped as a god throughout the period of his life and not only following his death. Marinatos relies in the main on the evidence offered by the Homeric poems and Greek mythology. Only a couple of years later the decipherment of Linear B provided a new source of evidence, since the tablets revealed the existence in Mycenaean society of the wanax, to whom a temenas was allot-
1 An early version of this article was read at a colloquium of the University of Wales classics departments held in May, 1965. I gratefully acknowledge the comments made by my colleagues and by a guest, E. L. BENNETT, on that occasion. I also thank T. B. L. WEBSTER for helpful suggestions. 2 S. N. MARINATos, Studies presented to David M. Robinson, I, St. Louis, Miss., 195 1 , pp. 126-34· . 54 Peter Walcot ted. The character of the wanax has been investigated by Palmer, who first called this official a hereditary' priest-king', but soon substituted the term , god-king' 3. Most recently Palmer has described the wanax as a sacral king, affirming that ' a sacral king stood at the head of Pylian society closely linked with a goddess Potnia' 4. Palmer also believes it likely that wanax was the title of the Young God, whom, he states, the king would have represented in cult (p. 92). Presumably by 'represent' Palmer means that the wanax dressed up as and pl?-yed the part of the Young God in ritual, but I should feel happier if this term had not been used, at least not without it having been defined, for the more cautious Guthrie, who can see no conclusive evi dence either in the Linear B tablets or from excavation that the wanax was deified before his death, prefers to make the wanax the earthly representative of god 5. It is my belief that the Linear B tablets, the Homeric poems, ar chaeology, and Greek mythology all strongly suggest that the Mycenaean king was thought to be a living god, and it is in this sense that I would call the wanax a sacral king. In this article I propose to follow the lead of Mari natos and to consider just a part of the total evidence, that offered by Greek mythology, and, even more narrowly, that offered by one myth, the story of the conception of the hero Heracles. A study of the origin and the deve lopment of this myth has convinced me of two things, first that the Myce naean king did in fact rank as a god in his own lifetime, and secondly that such a concept of monarchy was adopted by the Mycenaean Greeks from the royal ideology of contemporary Egypt. That the Mycenaeans were heavily influenced by Egyptian culture may, I think, be called communis opinio today, whether one believes with Marinatos that those responsible for the Shaft Grave Circle A culture at Mycenae were Greek mercenaries who fought on the Egyptian side against the Hyksos, or, like others, that they were Hyksos themselves, who, having been expelled from Egypt, acquired a new kingdom in the Argolid shortly after 1600 B. C.6. The pharaoh of Egypt is the classic example of a sacral king: 'from the earliest historic times', according to Fairman, 'the dominant element in the Egyptian conception of kingship was that the king was a god - not merely godlike, but very god' '. The divine origin of the pharaoh could be
3 L. R. PALMER, Transactions of the Philological Society, 1954, pp. 35-37, and Achaeans and Indo-Europeans, Oxford, 1955, pp. 9-10. 4 The Interpretation of Mycenaean Greek Texts, Oxford, 1963, pp. 83 ff. o W. K. C. GUTHRIE, Bull. of Inst. of Class. Studies, VI, 1959, p. 42. I In addition to the article by MARINATOS already cited, see this scholar's con tribution to Festschrift Bernhard Schweitzer, Stuttgart, 1954, pp. 11-18, and, for the alternative theory, F. H. STUBBINGS, The Rise of Mycenaean Civilization, Cam. Anc. Hist. fasc. XVIII, 1963, pp. II-I4. 7 H. W. FAIRMAN in S. H. HOOKE (ed.), Myth, Ritual, and Kingship, Oxford, 1958, p. 75· The divinity of the Mycenaean King 55 stressed in a number of ways, and one of these' devices was the fiction of a theogamy in which the high-god, disguising himself as the reigning king, visits the queen and sleeps with her so that the successor to the throne is the offspring of a divine father and a mortal mother. Such a tradition is known from a series of pictures which tells the story of the divinely inspired concep tion of two of the pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty, Hatshepsut (1503-1482 B. C.) and Amenophis III (1417-1379 B. C.), the pictures decorating temples at Deir el-Bahri and Luxor respectively 8. The revealing picture for us in both series is the fourth, which at Deir el-Bahri shows the god Amun sitting opposite Queen Ahmose, the wife of Thutmose 1. An inscription which accom panies the picture is more informative than the scene itself: He made his form like that of this her husband, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Thutmose 1. He found her as she slept in the innermost part of her palace. She awoke at the fragrance of the god, she smiled at the arrival of his ma jesty. He went to her immediately, he was inflamed with love for her, he gave his heart to her, he allowed her to see him in his divine form, when he had come before her, so that she rejoiced at the sight of his perfection; his love, it passed into her body. Divine fragrance flooded the palace, and all his odours were as those from Punt 9. It would appear from this inscription that fragrance was as much a token of divinity among the Egyptians as it was among the Greeks 10. Much more striking, however, is the parallel between the story of ·the conception of Hatshepsut and that of the conception of Herac1es: according to both tra ditions, the king of the gods disguises himself as the husband of a mortal woman so that he may enjoy her favours. Indeed the parallel is noted by Marinatos, whose comments, however, need considerable expansion. Thus Marinatos remarks, 'In Egypt of the time of the Theban New Kingdom, which is the time at which the Minoan-Mycenaeans became acquainted with Egypt, the pharaoh was considered a god in actuality and not merely in title. That is, it was believed that on certain nights Ammon would come in person to the queen in the form of her husband. Thus the new pharaoh was considered a real son of Ammon' (pp. 130-31). Later he adds, 'We may now note that Zeus does not visit beautiful women of any social standing, but, in absolute
8 The tradition has now been discussed by H. BRUNNER, Die Geburt des Gottko nigs, Aegyptologische Abhandlungen X, Wiesbaden, 1964, which includes illustrations of the Luxor birth scenes. The reliefs from Deir el-Bahri are described and illustrated by E. NAVILLE, The Temple of Deir el Bahari, London, Part Il, 1897, pp. 12-18 and plates 46-55, and Part Ill, 1898, pp. 1-9 and plates 56-64. Cf. also Hdt., I, 182. I J. H. BREASTED, Ancient Records of Egypt, Il, Chicago, 1906, p . 80, and BRUN NER, op. cit., pp. 42-43. 10 See the references collected by T. W. ALLEN, W . R. HALLIDAY, and E. E. S1- KES, The Homeric Hymns, Oxford", 1936, in their note on verse 277 of the Hymn to Demeter. Peter Walcot preference, only the daughters of kings and princes; and this is a very cha racteristic detail that will help us understand the original significance of his legendary relations. Sometimes he assumes the form of an animal or bird. Here we may be dealing with the Minoan-Mycenaean idea of the divine epi phany especially when we find the God assuming the form of a bird, as was the case in the story of Leda. In the case of Danae, gold, an inanimate ar ticle, assumes the important role. In the case of Alcmene the Theban-Egyp tian form of the myth is preserved in its original form, because in that case Zeus assumes the form of the absent Amphitryon ' (p. I33). It seems to me that, when due consideration is paid to the uniqueness of the Heracles birth story - does Zeus go to the trouble on any other occasion of disguising him self as the husband of a woman whom he wants? - and to the Mycenaean origin of the Heracles myth, something plausibly argued by Nilsso~ 11, the closeness of the two traditions, one Egyptian and the other Greek, must lead to the conclusion that the Mycenaean king was no less a sacral king than the pharaoh of Egypt undoubtedly was. The feature of essential importance in the story of the conception of Herac1es, if a link with Egyptian kingship is to be forged, is the impersonation of Amphitryon by Zeus. The story of the birth of Heracles is related by the mythographers Hy ginus and Apollodorus. According to the former 12, while Amphitryon was away from home attempting to seize Oechalia, Alcmene, believing Zeus to be her husband, welcomed the god into her bed. Afterwards when the true Amphitryon arrived, he was astonished to find his wife so unconcerned for his safety. But Alcmene pointed out that they had already been long reu nited (iam pridem uenisti et mecum concubuisti) , and Amphitryon, recogni zing some form of divine intervention, from that day on refrained from in tercourse with his wife, who, having been mastered by Zeus, gave birth to Heracles. Better attested is the tradition that Alcmene produced two sons, Heracles by Zeus and Iphic1es by Amphitryon, and such is the version re corded by Apollodorus. Dare I suggest that it may be the combination of the pharaoh and his ka in the Egyptian tradition which lies behind the twin brothers, Heracles and Iphicles? Apollodorus' account of events gives full details of the background of the myth, beginning with the dispute between Electryon, the father of Alcmene, and the sons of Pterelaus 13. Exiled to Thebes following his accidental slaying of Electryon, Amphitryon mounted an expedition against the Teleboans in order to avenge the brothers of Alc-
11 M. P. NILSSON, The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology, Berkeley, 1932, pp. 187 H. NILSSON draws attention to the fact that the story of Heracles' birth is asso ciated with the Greek city of Thebes, a site whose importance as a Mycenaean centre and whose overseas contacts are emphasized by current excavations. 11 Fab. XXIX. 13 Apollodorus II, 4, 6. The divinity of the Mycenaean King 57 mene and so win the girl's hand in marriage. Although the campaign pro ved a success, Zeus anticipated Amphitryon's return to Thebes by one night; making that night three times its normal length and disguising himself as Amphitryon, the god slept with Alcmene. This time it is the prophet Tei resias who tells the disappointed husband how Alcmene's lover of the pre vious night had been Zeus. Alcmene bore two sons, Heracles being the elder by one night. .The story of the conception of Heracles can of course be traced back to a much earlier date. Thus fifth-century tragedy whether it was the Alc mene of Euripides, a play by Sophocles or a combination of both, must be the ultimate source of Plautus' Amphitruo 14. Apollodorus also related the story of the snakes and the infant hero; here he refers to Pherecydes as the source of a tradition which made Amphitryon himself responsible for intro ducing the snakes into the children's bed 16. We know from other references to this fifth-century author that Pherecydes stated that Zeus impersonated Amphitryon but that both Zeus and Amphitryon made love to Alcmene on one and the same night 16. If the action is compressed into the space of a single night, it is possible to avoid Amphitryon's discovery of the truth. Pherecydes' Amphitryon, however, must have been aware of the divine presence, since Pherecydes had Zeus present Alcmene with a cup as a souvenir of his visit 17. The influence of this version of the myth can also be detected in Herodotus' story of the Spartan king Demaratus, whose mother, when asked by her son who exactly his father had been, answered that she had slept with and received garlands from a person whom she took to be her husband Ariston 18. But when Ariston presently arrived, he denied having made any such gift to his wife. The fact that the garlands came from the nextdoor shrine of the hero Astrabacus revealed the identity of the earlier visitor and left open the question as to who in fact was the parent of Demaratus. Demaratus was bothered because his had apparently been a premature birth, his mother, who had only just married Ariston, having carried him for only seven months. This detail helps us to appreciate why the story of Heracles' birth chanced to in fluence that of Demaratus, for the birth of a child carried for only seven months, namely Eurystheus, especially as Eurystheus was king of Argos, may have prompted the association of the two stories 19. The best evidence, however, for a knowledge of the myth of Heracles ' birth in the fifth century B. C. is
14 WEBSTER, Studies in later Greek Comedy, Manchester, 1953, pp. 86 ft. 15 Apollodorus Il, 4, 8. IS Pherecydes F. Gr. Hist. 3 F 13 band c. M. VAN DER VALK, REG, LXXI, 1958, pp. 117-31 and 143 ft. discusses Apollodorus' use of Pherecydes. 17 Pherecydes F. Gr. Hist. 3 F 13 a and b. 18 Hdt., VI, 69. 11 Homer, Iliad XIX, verse 117. For an example of a similar confusion see Phere cydes F. Gr. Hist. 3 F 13 c where Heracles and Iphicles are both made premature babies! Peter Walcot offered by Pindar, who mentions the episode in two passages 20 : in one the poet merely says that Zeus stood at Amphitryon's doors and paid court to his wife that he might beget Heracles; in the other Amphitryon is said to have destroyed the Teleboans and Zeus to have entered the house of Amphitryon, disguised as Amphitryon and bearing the seed of Heracles. The earliest accounts of the story of the birth of Heracles are to be found in the Hesiodic Aspis and the Iliad. The bulk of the former poem seems to date from the late seventh or early sixth century B. C.21, but we learn from one of the hypotheses attached to it that the first fifty-six verses of the Aspis were included in the fourth book of the Catalogue 22, a fact which suggests a seventh-century date for this part of the poem, and it is here that the story of Heracles' birth is narrated. Agamemnon refers to the same story in order to illustrate how even the most powerful, including Zeus, king of the gods, himself, may fall victim to the wiles of Ate 23. This passage should presumably be assigned to the second half of the eighth century B. C. This is only one of a number of references to the Heracles saga in the Iliad and Odyssey, and, although I do not see that such references prove the existence of a separate poem devoted to the exploits of the hero, there must surely have been current in the eighth century a considerable body of traditional stories which featured Heracles and his deeds, an opinion confirmed by early illustrations of Greek mythology. Indeed it has been noticed that' the first absolutely sure scenes of myth are almost entirely of Heracles' deeds' 24. Unfortunately, neither the Aspis nor the Iliad says explicitly that Zeus adopted a disguise when Heracles was conceived. In spite of this difficulty, I think it possible to show that this essential detail was known to whoever composed the opening verses of the Aspis. The poem begins by mentioning the arrival of Alcmene, the daughter of Electryon, and Amphitryon at Thebes. After an extremely flattering description of the woman's unsurpassed beauty and her devotion to her hus band (verses 4-ro), we read how Amphitryon had to leave his native land after killing Electryon and was unable to live with' reverent' (~t~o(71) Alc mene at Thebes as man and wife until her brothers were avenged and the Taphians and Teleboans laid low. Amphitryon, who displayed the same degree of respect towards the gods and their ordinances as Alcmene appears to have shown towards him, set off at the head of a force of Boeotians, Locrians,
20 Isth. VII, verses 6-7, and Nem. X, verses 15-17. 11 The latest scholar to consider the date of the Aspis is P. GUILLON, Le Bouclier d'Hlracles, Aix, 1963, pp. 13-25 . • 0 See also P. Oxy. 2355 and 2494 A. 23 Iliad XIX, verses 96 ff. o. Thus C. G. STARR, The Origins of Greek Civilization, London, 1962, p. 2g8. For further details, see F. BROMMER, Herakles, Munster/Koln, 1953. The divinity of the Mycenaean King 59 and Phocians to wage war. (The wide support commanded by Amphitryon certainly suggests the large-scale conflicts of the Mycenaean period rather than the petty wars of later Greece.) Meanwhile the father of men and gods was debating how he was to provide his immortal and mortal subjects with a bulwark against disaster (verses 27 ff.). And so, pondering guile deep in his heart and, somewhat less altruistically, fired with a desire for Alcmene, , wise' (f1.'1JT[€T~) Zeus made his way from Olympus to the peak of Phikion, on which he sat planning remarkable deeds (6ecrx€A~ gpy~). These deeds are then explained: on the same night Zeus made love with Alcmene and Amphi tryon, having returned home victoriously, lay with his wife. As a result she gave birth to twin sons, whose strength differed as did that of their respec tive fathers, the terrible and mighty Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the much inferior Iphicles, son of Amphitryon and Alcmene. It will be remarked that in this version of the story not only does Alc mene enjoy the attention of two lovers during a single night, but Amphi tryon is also said to have gone immediately to his wife, a point laboured by the inclusion of a simile (verses 42-45), whose authenticity has often been challenged; there is, furthermore, no mention of a cup or any other gift pre sented to Alcmene by Zeus. There is no reason, therefore, why it must be assumed that either Amphitryon or Alcmene realized that Zeus had visited their house. That Zeus did appear in the guise of Amphitryon is implied by the emphasis placed first on the great fidelity of Alcmene (verses 5-6 and 9-IO, and the epithet ~~ao[71 in verses 14 and 46), which does not seem to have been weakened by Amphitryon's deliberate slaughter of Electryon (verses II-12) , and secondly on the great guile of Zeus (verses 28 and 30, and the epithet f1.'1JT[€'t"~ in verse 33 and the 6ecrx€A~ gpy~ of verse 34). So much cun ning would hardly have been necessary if Zeus had been content with a sim ple act of rape, and I cannot see how Zeus' trick may be referred exclusively to his desire to provide gods and men with a champion 25. Another detail is missing, as was mentioned above, from the narrative of the Aspis, a recog nition that Zeus had tampered with Alcmene. We have seen that Pherecy des makes the recognition inevitable by introducing into his story a souvenir of Zeus' visit, while Apollodorus and Hyginus prefer to extend the action over a longer period of time than just one night. Union with both a god and a mortal on the same night, however, occurred, according to the two mytho graphers 26, in the case of Poseidon, Aegeus, and Aethra, the resultant off spring being the hero Theseus. Here the story of Theseus would seem to have been modified by the patriotic Athenians so that it followed the same course as that associated with the greatest hero among the Greeks. Yet action con-
26 Cf. ]. SCHWARTZ, Pseudo-Hesiodeia, Leiden, 1960, p. 464 n. 3. 28 Apollodorus, Ill, 15, 7 _and Hyginus, Fab. XXXVII. 60 Peter Walcot fined to a single night is abandoned in the case of Heracles' birth. Why? It is because Amphitryon and Alcmene must realize that Zeus is the true father of Heracles. The significance of the recognition is made apparent by the ultimate source of the tradition, the Egyptian theogamy, which is one device by which the divine origin of the pharaoh may be demonstrated, for here a recognition of the fact that the child conceived is the son of god is essential. The fidelity of Alcmene elicits a comment from Diodorus Siculus, who claims that Zeus appeared disguised as Amphitryon because the god did not wish to use force, but at the same time appreciated that he could not hope to overcome the scruples of so chaste a wife 27. The author of the Aspis passage, since he stressed the fidelity of Alcmene, must have interpreted the need for a disguise in the same way. The two motifs, Alcmene's loyalty towards her husband and the necessity on the part of Zeus for a disguise, go closely together, and the mention of one, in my opinion, means a know ledge of the other. What in fact we have here is an attempt to explain a tra dition which originated in the Mycenaean period but was no longer intelli gible to later generations. The tradition was, therefore, given a new and characteristically a 'romantic' interpretation. Directly comparable is the story of the suitors of Helen. The princes of Greece followed Agamemnon and Menelaus to Troy, since, as erstwhile suitors of Helen, they had sworn to uphold Tyndareus' choice of a bridegroom 28. The historical reason, how ever, was more prosaic, consisting of the feudal obligations demanded from the Mycenaean nobility by its supreme overlord. With the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization this social structure disintegrated, and another reason had to be supplied in order to account for Agamemnon's ability to summon forces from all over the Greek world. In the same fashion the significance of the union between the god disguised as the reigning king and the queen was forgotten when Mycenaean monarchy vanished in the Dorian holocaust, and the theme of Alcmene's constancy was developed subsequently so that sense could be made of the disguise forced upon Zeus. Agamemnon's words in Iliad XIX show that Alcmene was the mother of Heracles and that the hero was born at Thebes (verses 98-99). Zeus is once more the true father (verse 132), but there is no reference to a disguise. Amphitryon is not even mentioned in the passage, although elsewhere in the poem Heracles is described as the son of this man 29. But the story of Heracles' birth is chosen for a particular purpose, to illustrate the devasta ting power of the goddess Ate, and there is, therefore, a concentration of attention on a classic example, the deception of Zeus by Hera, rather than
27 Diodorus Siculus, IV, 9, 3. 28 Hesiod, fro 96 (Rzach), verses 40-47 . .. Iliad, V, verse 392. The divinity of the Mycenaean King 61 on the relatively trivial deception of Alcmene by Zeus, whose consequences after all do not parallel the disasters brought upon the Greek army by the refusal of Achilles to fight. But I have always liked to believe that the poet expected his audience to recall the deception of Alcmene and to comment silently 'the biter bit!'. Instead we read of Zeus announcing to the gods that the man of his stock born on a particular day would rule over the sur rounding peoples (verses 100-5) and of Hera persuading her husband to confirm his prophecy by an oath (verses 106-13). Thereupon Hera rushed from Olympus to Argos, hastened the birth of Sthenelus ' son, and checked Alcmene's labour, so that Eurystheus and not Heracles qualified under the terms of the oath to be king of Argos (verses 114-24). Unable to withdraw his words, Zeus was left to vent his indignation on Ate, whom he threw out of heaven (verses 125-33). The poet's attention is focused on the prophecy, confirmed by an oath, and Hera's clever exploitation of it in favour of Eur ystheus, and it is this prophecy which will lead us in a moment back to Egypt. The prophecy is mentioned by Apollodorus 30, and it also appears in Pindar and in Theocritus 31, although in these two instances it is put in the mouth of Teiresias. Diodorus makes much of the motif: first we learn that the fact that Zeus lengthened the night of his son's conception threefold and put so much effort into his love-making was a prediction of Heracles' mighty prowess; then Zeus makes his announcement before all the gods; finally Zeus, still determined to safeguard the interests of his son, enters into an agreement with Hera whereby he guarantees the eventual immortality of Heracles 32. The influence of the royal ideology of Egypt on the peoples of Canaan has been studied by Widengren, who argues that a characteristic of the Deir el-Bahri tradition is the 'birth-oracle' with three distinguishing features, communication concerning the conception, order concerning the child's name, and prediction concerning the coming deeds of the child 33. The birth-oracle is to be seen in one of the inscriptions accompanying the picture of Amun with Queen Ahmose at Deir el-Bahri: Utterance of Amun, lord of Karnak, before her: Khnemet-Amun-Hatshepsut is thus the name of this thy daugh ter, whom I have placed in thy body ... She will exercise this beneficent kingship in this whole land. My soul (ba) is hers, my might is hers, my author ity is hers, my crown is hers; she is one who will rule the two lands 34. The
30 Apollodorus, Il, 4, 5. 31 Nem. I, verses 61 H. and Id. XXIV, verses 73-85. 3. Diodorus Siculus, IX, 4, 2-5. 33 G. WIDENGREN in Myth, Ritual, and Kingship, pp. 183-89.
3( BREASTED, op. cit., pp. 80-81, BRUNNER, op. cit., pp. 43-44, and WIDENGREN, op. cit., pp. 188-89. Peter Walcot
same type of birth-oracle, according to Widengren, occurs in Genesis and the Ugaritic Aqhat and Keret poems, and it is its occurrence outside Egypt which allows this scholar to detect the spread of Egyptian influence north wards into Palestine and Syria 35. But such an argument is equally applic able to the Greek evidence, in other words, the story of Heracles' birth in the Iliad, where again we have an account of a divinely inspired conception, including a birth-oracle. One feature of the birth-oracle in its standard form, however, is missing, the grant of a name to the child to be born. Yet it is not difficult to see why this element should have been suppressed, for the name Heracles (the glory of Hera), as it was understood by the Greeks, appeared to conflict with the story of the hero's birth and adventures, during which he was relentlessly pursued by the hostility of the goddess 36. It would have been an embarrassment if it had been quoted in Iliad XIX, as Hera there is responsible for robbing the son of Zeus of his lawful birth-right. Marinatos points out that Zeus, in addition to impersonating Amphi tryon, assumes the form of a bird and, in the case of his visit to Danae, gold, an inanimate object, plays an important role. He offers no explanation of the latter epiphany, which one always associates with the story of the con ception of Perseus, the father of Electryon and thus the great-grandfather of Heracles. But Pindar says that when Zeus presented himself at Amphi tryon's doors the god appeared at midnight in a shower of golden snow 37. Is it really credible that the golden shower symbolizes the fertilizing rain and that Alcmene is a form of the Mother Goddess? That this detail also reflects what is ultimately the Egyptian concept of the sacral king is strongly sug gested by the significance of gold in Egyptian thought 38. Gold was thought to form the flesh of the gods so that it may be said of Re that 'his bones were of silver, his flesh of gold, and his hair of genuine lapis lazuli '39. The shower of gold, therefore, in both the Perseus and the Heracles story is another reason why I believe that the Mycenaean king was regarded as a living god and that the Mycenaeans owed such an idea to the influence of Egypt.
University College, Cardiff.
3. For new evidence relating to the divinity of the kings of Ugarit, see C. VIROL- LEAUD, eRA I, 1962, p. 95. 38 Cf. Diodorus' attempt to interpret the name (IV, 10, I). 37 Isth. VII, verse 5. 38 See J. G. GRIFFITHS, jouYn. Hist. Ideas, XVII, 1956, p. II9, and, for greater detail. F. DAuMAs, RHR, CXLIX, 1956. pp. 1-17. 3. I quote the translation by J. A. WILSON of the Egyptian text known as ' Deli verance of Mankind from Destruction " which is to be found in J. B . PRITCHARD (ed.). Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament, Princeton', 1955, pp. IO-I!.