Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/293

 The European Sky-god. 269

in Arcadia was rain-maker for the district.-^ The official title of Zeus at Dodona was Zeus Nato?, i.e., " the stream- god." ^° And an Attic relief shows Zeus MetXt^^io? seated on the head of the river-god Acheloiis.^^ Finally, the rivers emptied into the sea, which may have been one reason why Zeus was sometimes regarded as a sea-god. " Aeschylus, son of Euphorion," says Pausanias,^^ " applies the name of Zeus also to the god who dwells in the sea." So did another Greek poet cited in the Etymologicum Magnum.'^^ Oppian^'* calls dolphins " the servants of Zeus who thunders in the brine " (dXtySovTroLo). An Orphic hymn ^^ speaks of "Zeus of the deep brine" {ttovtio^; elvdXto'?). Proclus^^ too mentions a Zeus ivaXio'; ; and Hesychius ^^ states that Zeus was worshipped at Sidon under the title (da\d(Tcno<i. Other evidence bearing on the point could be got together ; ^^ but enough has been said to show that the Greeks passed by easy transitions from the recognition of Zeus as a sky- god to the recognition of Zeus as a water-god.

On the other hand, a " bright " sky-god must have stood in some relation to the sun. That luminary appears under various transparent disguises in Greek mythology. Some- times it is a rayed disk or swastika ox: triskeles ; sometimes,

» Paus., 8. 38. 4.

^ The word is in all probability connected with Nata (a spring in Laconia : Paus., 3. 25. 4), NaYaj, vaw, vaiia., &c. Lye, Alex., 79 f. describes the flood, or' I'lfiddvvs TTuaav oy-fipiiaaQ ydova | YjTjvoq Ka)(KaZ,o)v vaajioQ., and Orph. hymn. 19. 4 addresses Zeus the thunderer as vafiaai iravvstptKoiQ artponriv (pKeyiQovaav dvaiOwv. See further Class. Rev., xvii., 178, 185.

3' Roscher, Lex., ii., 2559.

^ Paus., 2. 24. 4.

S3 Etyvi. Magn., 409, 7 f.

3' 0pp., hal., 5. 422 f., TrpoTToXoKJi | 'Li]vhQ oKiylovwoto.

^ Orph. hymji. 63. 16, Tola Oea /.ly'iTjjp Kcii ttovtioq eivaXioQ XevQ.

^^ Procl. in Plat. Crat., p. 88 Boiss.

^ Hesych., ".v. OaXdacnog Zevg.

^ See the passages collected by Farnell, i, 149, to prove that Zeus was worshipped as a maritime god under the titles ^ ATro^aTi]piog, BvOiog,

Aipf-VOffKOTTOg, '2lllT7]p,