e.

The weapon of Poseidon, the so-called "Trident of Neptune," is
"sometimes crowned with a trilobate lotus flower, or with three lotus
buds; in other cases it is depicted in a shape that may well represent a
fishing spear" (Blinkenberg, _op. cit._, pp. 53 and 54).

"Even if Jacobsthal's interpretation of the flower as a common Greek
symbol for fire be not accepted, the conventionalization of the trident
as a lotus blossom is quite analogous to the change, on Greek soil, of
the Assyrian thunderweapon to two flowers pointing in opposite
directions" (p. 54).

But the conception of a flower as a symbol of fire cannot thus summarily
be dismissed. For Sir Arthur Evans has collected all the stages in the
transformation of Egyptian palmette pillars into the rayed pillars of
Cyprus, in which the leaflets of the palmette become converted (in the
Cypro-Mycenaean derivatives) into the rays which he calls "the natural
concomitant of divinities of light".[218]

The underlying motive which makes such a transference easy is the
Egyptian conception of Hathor as a sacred lotus from which the sun-god
Horus is born. The god of light is identified with the water-plant,
whether lotus, iris or lily; and the lotus form of Horus can be
correlated with its Hellenic surrogate, Apollo Hyakinthos. "The
fleur-de-lys type now takes its place beside the sacred lotus" (_op.
cit._, p. 50). The trident and the fleur-de-lys are thunderweapons
because they represent forms of Horus or his mother.

The classical keraunos is still preserved in Tibet as the _dorje_, which
is identified with Indra's thunderbolt, the _vajra_.[219] This word is
also applied to the diamond, the "king of stones," which in turn
acquired many of the attributes of the pearl, another of the Great
Mother's surrogates, which is reputed to have fallen from heaven like
the thunderbolt.[220]

The Tibetan _dorje_, like its Greek original, is obviously a
conventionalized flower, the leaf-design about the base of the corona
being quite clearly defined.

The influence of the Winged-Disk Saga is clearly revealed in such Greek
myths as that relating to Ixion. "Euripides is represented by
Aristophanes as declaring that _Aither_ at the creation devised

The eye to mimic the wheel of the sun."[221]

When we read of Zeus in anger binding Ixion to a winged wheel made of
fire, and sending him spinning through the air, we are merely dealing
with a Greek variant of the Egyptian myth in whi