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

Zeus in Astronomy and Astrology 759

the powers ascribed by astrologers to the planet U 1, i.e. the Greek
Phaethon or Zeus, the Roman Iupiter:—

' The brilliant planet that bears the name of Jupiter has received from
astrologers as many praises—and the same—as Zeus himself, "father of gods
and men," received from his worshippers. Jupiter is a star naturally benevolent
and beneficent, a pleasant contrast to the Babylonian Marduk. If his
influence alone were dominant, earth would be a paradise : Firmicus holds that
men would be actually immortal2. Ptolemy expresses this psychological
character in physical terms : he emphasises the essentially temperate nature of
the planet, which is at once hot and moist, the former to a greater degree than
the latter, and so constitutes a just mean between the frosts of Saturn and the
fires of Mars. Moreover, he attributes to Jupiter the peculiar characteristic of
arousing "winds that fertilise3." Whence came these vapours and moist blasts ?
Ptolemy does not explain ; probably he did not know. It may be that Jupiter
inherited these attributes from Marduk. In the fourth tablet of the Chaldean
cosmogony we read how Marduk, when he went to fight with Tiamat, let loose
a fearful tempest, "the four winds, the seven winds that he engenders." Further
on Marduk is called "the god of the good wind4." As god of the atmosphere,
of rain and storm, the Graeco-Latin Jupiter would be readily assimilated to
such a deity6. In the winds "that fertilise" we have the isolated relic of a once
wide-spread superstition. We shall see later that the astrologers attributed to
the three superior planets and to Venus an orientation of their own corresponding
with the four cardinal points. The north devolved upon Jupiter. And it was
the north wind, Boreas, which was credited with such procreative virtue that
female animals sometimes found themselves spontaneously impregnated by it6.

1 This symbol is usually explained as the first letter of the name Zeiis, or (with more
probability) as a form of thunderbolt (id. ib. p. xix).

2 Firmic., ii, 13, 6 Kroll. Jupiter is a solar divinity, the Egyptian 'Oa-iptdos dcrrrip
Ach. Tat., hag., 17). Astrologers assign Cancer as his vxf/cofxa, Capricornus as his
Tairebiofia, an arrangement which would suit the Sun (see, below, ch. vii).

3 Ata 5e to fxaWov elvai dep/xavTiKos, yovifMiov irvev/xdruv yiverai ttoltjtlkos (Ptol.,
Tetrab., i, 4). Heat was supposed to produce by way of reaction the northern or etesian
winds, which blew after the dog-days. At the time when he wrote his Qdcreis (ap. Wachs-
muth pp. 199—276 ed. 2), and was not as yet an astrologer, Ptolemy attributed heat to
Venus, moisture to Jupiter, and moist winds to Mercury (ibid., p. 209). He changed his
labels.

4 Jensen, Kosmologie, pp. 283 and 295.

5 The astrological Jupiter is ykvuewv vddroov x°PVybs (Anon., In Tetrab., p. 70) and
lodges in Pisces.

6 Boreas impregnating mares (Horn. Iliad., xx, 223 ff.); Zephyr fertilising Lusitanian
mares—a thing reported as res incredibilis, sed vera by Varro (R. rust., ii, 1, 19), Pliny
[nat. hist. 8. 166] and Columella [de re rust. 6. 27]; the alleged non-existence of male
vultures, the females being regularly fecundated £k rod irveiixaros (Euseb., Pr. Ev., iii,
12, 3) [see further the references collected by Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 442 n. 3 and
E. S. Hartland Primitive Paternity London 1909 pp. 22 f., 35, 149 f.] : all these claimed
to be facts so well-attested that Lactantius, with a shocking lack of taste, used them as an
argument to explain the Incarnation of Jesus Christ: Quodsi animalia quaedam vento et
aura concipere solere omnibus notum est, cur quisquam mirum puiet cum Spiritu Dei, cut
facile est quidquid velit, gravatam esse virginem dicimus? (Lactant. Inst. Div., iv, 12).

According to Proclus (in Anal. Sacr., v, 2, p. 176 Pitra), Boreas produced males, Notus