Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/325

 The European Sky -god. 301

impiously claimed to love each other more fondly than Zeus and Hera. Again, Agamemnon king of Mycense was called Zeus in Laconia."^^ So was Amphiaraiis son of Oicles at Oropus.^^ So was Trophonius son of Erginus at Lebadea/^'^ where Zeus also bore the significant title, Bao-iX,ei;9, " the King." ^^^ According to Panodorus, Zeus reigned as a king in Egypt for twenty years ; according to Manetho, for eighty.--^^ The tale that Zeus visited Alcmena in the form of Amphitryon perhaps had a similar found- ation-^'' ; and this may have been the case with several other " Liebesverbindungen " of Zeus.^'^'^ Conversely, the re- lations of Ixion to Hera,-^'^ of Tantalus to Dione,-^^ &c., point in the same direction.

Even in historical times it was no unheard of thing for a man to be regarded as a god. Empedocles in the fifth century B.C. addresses his fellow-townsmen of Agrigentum thus ^^° : " Friends .... all hail ! Lo, as an im- mortal god, no longer a mortal, I make my way honoured of

^' Lye. Alex., 1 124, Zivq 'ETrapTiaTiuc al/xiXoig ic\r]9i](Tsrai, 1369 f., TrpuiroQ fiiv i'j^ei Z)]v\ T] tv Tpefwinv lapov.

^^ C. MuUer, Fragmenta historicorum Grcccorum, ii., 531, E. A. Wallis Budge, Hist, of Egypt, i., 165.

^^ Class. Rev., xvii., 409. Just as Heracles was the seed of Zeus, but Iphicles of Amphitryon, so in another myth Dardanus and lasius were the sons of Electra, "sed Dardanus de love, lasius de Corytho procreatus est" (Serv. in Verg. Aen., 3. 167).

^^ On these see Overbeck, Kimstmythologie Zeus, i., 398 ff.

-'^ Class. Rev., xvii., 420.

=5^ nyg. fab., 9, 82, 83.

-*" Emped. frag., 112 Diels, w (p'iKoi .... ;(a(p£r' * tyw ^' I'/uv Qeoq

dfl^pOTOQ, OVKSTl OvrjTOQ K.T.X.