Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

32 Zeus identified with Aither

raiment worn by Helen1, and twice in a slightly different form of
white glistening fat2. From the same root springs the word argos,
* bright, glittering, shimmering3,'—a fact which raises the question,
In what relation did Zeus stand to the various mythical persons
named Argos*? This complicated problem, which in one shape or
another has exercised the minds of mythologists for the last
seventy years5, has been recently attacked with the utmost care
by Dr K. Wernicke" and Dr O. Jessen7. They arrive at sub-
stantially identical results, viz. (i) that the numerous personages
named Argos are, for the purposes of serious investigation, reducible
to two—the eponymous hero of the town Argos and the sleepless
watcher of Io; (2) that these two were originally one and the
same; and (3) that the ultimate Argos was a sky-god, 'a sort of
Zeus' says Dr Wernicke8, 'essentially similar to Zeus' as Dr Jessen
puts it!). If this be so, it is permissible to regard Argos 'the
Glittering' as another name of Zeus 'the Bright One10,' and we
obtain confirmation of our view that Empedokles, when he spoke
of Fire as Zeus arges, Zeus ' the Brilliant,' was utilising a popular
and originally zoistic conception of the bright sky-god.

Euripides sometimes identifies Zeus with the burning sky.
He says, for example:

But Aither is thy father, maid,
Whose name on earth is Zeus11.

Or again :

Thou seest yon boundless aither overhead
Clasping the earth in close and soft embrace?
That deem thou Zen, that reckon thou thy god12.

1 fl- 3- 4T9-

2 //. 11. 818, 21. 127.

3 Prellwitz Etym. Worterb. d. Gr. Spr? p. 49 f., Walde Lat. etym. Worterb. p. 43 f.

4 Prob. in Verg. cel. 6. 31 p. 351 Lion already connects Zeus apyrjs with "A/ryos. See
further infra ch. i § 6 (g) ix.

5 T. Panofka Argos Panoptes Berlin 1838 pp. 1—47 (extr. from the Abh. d. berl.
Akad. iSjy Phil.-hist. Classe pp. 81 —125) was the first to deal in detail with the subject.

6 In Pauly-Wissowa Real-Enc. ii. 790—798 (1896).

7 In Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 1540—1550 (1902).

8 Wernicke loc. cit. p. 798, 24 f. ' eine Art von Zeus.'

9 Jessen loc. cit. p. 1549, 42 ff- ' em Gott Argos Panoptes (Maass, Gbtting. Gel. Anz.
1889, 2, 808), dem Wesen nach nicht verschieden von Zeus Panoptes bezw. Helios
Panoptes.'

10 I called attention to this equation in the Class. Rev. 1904 xviii. 82 n. 3, cp. ib. p. 75,
and in Folk-Lore 1904 xv. 265.

11 Eur. frag, incert. 877 Nauck2 dXX' aidrjp rt'/crec (re, Kopa, | Zei>$ 6s avOpwirois
duop-d^erai.

12 ~Eur. frag, incert. 941 Nauck2 6p$s rbv v\pov topS' aireipov aiBepa \ kcu yrjp irepi^ ^xov^
vypcus ev ayK&\ais; | tovtov vopufc Ttriva, tov87 ijyod deov. Cp. Euripides' prayer to aidrjp
in Aristoph. ran. 892.