DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14696#0049
2 Zeus lightens, thunders, rains, etc.
snows,'or'He lightens,''He thunders1,'but—if pressed for an ex-
planation—would ascribe these actions to Zeus2.
It was, therefore, a shock to old-fashioned piety, when philo-
sophers and sophists insisted that such phaenomena were brought
about by purely physical causes. A certain memorable scene in
The Clouds of Aristophanes3 represents Strepsiades, a member of
the old school, as being instructed in the new learning by Sokrates:
Str. What! d'you mean that Zeus is not god, Zeus in heaven, on whom we
call ?
Socr. Zeus, d'you say ? now don't talk drivel ; Zeus does not exist at all.
Str. What ! Who makes the rain then? tell me that, and I shall be content.
Socr. Why the Clouds : I'll prove it to you by convincing argument.
Have you ever seen rain falling, when the clouds weren't passing by?.
If it's Zeus who rains, he ought to do it from a cloudless sky.
Str. That's a clever point, I grant you, neatly used to back your case.
Yet I thought once Zeus passed water through a sieve, when rain took
place.
But who is it then that thunders, when I cower and hide my face ?
Socr. Why, the rolling clouds make thunder.
Str. What d'you mean ? that's blasphemy.
Socr. When they're teeming full of water and are forced across the sky,
Bigr with rain and bulging downwards, moving at a fearful rate,
Charging each against the next, they burst and crash with all their weight.
Str. But who is it drives them onwards? do you think it's Zeus, or not ?
Socr. No, the atmospheric vortex.
Str. Vortex ! yes, I quite forgot :
Zeus does not exist, but Vortex rules instead of him to-day.
Philosophers and would-be philosophers left the man in the
street pretty much as they found him. His simple creed might be,
and was, exploded scores of times ; but he continued to believe in
it, just because his father and his grandfather and his great-grand-
father had done the same before him. He never took kindly to
Vortex4, and still talked in his unreasoning way of Zeus. If we
1 Examples are given infra p. 3 n. ij.
2 Apollon. Dysk. de constr. or. p. 101, 16 ff. a, propos of aoTpaivTei and the like says
rj ToiavTn) evepyeia Tip Ad avairefxirerai, cp. et. mag. p. 211, 57 ff. ovde yap /3pe%w eyu>,
ovSe /3p^xets av, a\\a /3pe%et Kai %ioWfei (cat acfrpawreL 6 8e6s... orav Se epwT7fp.aTi.Kus diry
/3pexet > fipovTq.; Star: ov TrpoaTidriffi Kal to eiraybnevov ; 8l6tl els eaTiv 6 Tavra ttoiQv,
tovt^gtiv 6 6ebs.
3 Aristoph. nub. 366 ff. I quote the excellent rendering by A. D. Godley and
C. Bailey (Oxford 1905), supplementing it by the addition of line 373.
4 Mr F. M. Cornford, however, points out to me that the vortex-theory of the philo-
sophers had at least some foundation in popular belief—witness the ancient and very
remarkable tablet from Tarragona {infra Append. G). Aristophanes' words (m<b. 380 f.
SO. rjiaoT , a\\' cuWpios divos. 2T. AiVos; tovti pi' e\e\r)dei, | 6 Zei)s ovk uiv, d\\' clvt'
avTov AtVos vvvl fiaaiKevuv) are meant to suggest not only Siviq or dlvrjois, cosmic rotation,
but also the name of Zeus (schol. ad loc. eyyvdev eXafiev airb tou Aibs to 6vop.o.), with a sly
hit at divos, a round-bellied bowl (cp. nnb. 1468 ff. ST. val val KaTaideadrjTi iraTpipov
1 : .
snows,'or'He lightens,''He thunders1,'but—if pressed for an ex-
planation—would ascribe these actions to Zeus2.
It was, therefore, a shock to old-fashioned piety, when philo-
sophers and sophists insisted that such phaenomena were brought
about by purely physical causes. A certain memorable scene in
The Clouds of Aristophanes3 represents Strepsiades, a member of
the old school, as being instructed in the new learning by Sokrates:
Str. What! d'you mean that Zeus is not god, Zeus in heaven, on whom we
call ?
Socr. Zeus, d'you say ? now don't talk drivel ; Zeus does not exist at all.
Str. What ! Who makes the rain then? tell me that, and I shall be content.
Socr. Why the Clouds : I'll prove it to you by convincing argument.
Have you ever seen rain falling, when the clouds weren't passing by?.
If it's Zeus who rains, he ought to do it from a cloudless sky.
Str. That's a clever point, I grant you, neatly used to back your case.
Yet I thought once Zeus passed water through a sieve, when rain took
place.
But who is it then that thunders, when I cower and hide my face ?
Socr. Why, the rolling clouds make thunder.
Str. What d'you mean ? that's blasphemy.
Socr. When they're teeming full of water and are forced across the sky,
Bigr with rain and bulging downwards, moving at a fearful rate,
Charging each against the next, they burst and crash with all their weight.
Str. But who is it drives them onwards? do you think it's Zeus, or not ?
Socr. No, the atmospheric vortex.
Str. Vortex ! yes, I quite forgot :
Zeus does not exist, but Vortex rules instead of him to-day.
Philosophers and would-be philosophers left the man in the
street pretty much as they found him. His simple creed might be,
and was, exploded scores of times ; but he continued to believe in
it, just because his father and his grandfather and his great-grand-
father had done the same before him. He never took kindly to
Vortex4, and still talked in his unreasoning way of Zeus. If we
1 Examples are given infra p. 3 n. ij.
2 Apollon. Dysk. de constr. or. p. 101, 16 ff. a, propos of aoTpaivTei and the like says
rj ToiavTn) evepyeia Tip Ad avairefxirerai, cp. et. mag. p. 211, 57 ff. ovde yap /3pe%w eyu>,
ovSe /3p^xets av, a\\a /3pe%et Kai %ioWfei (cat acfrpawreL 6 8e6s... orav Se epwT7fp.aTi.Kus diry
/3pexet > fipovTq.; Star: ov TrpoaTidriffi Kal to eiraybnevov ; 8l6tl els eaTiv 6 Tavra ttoiQv,
tovt^gtiv 6 6ebs.
3 Aristoph. nub. 366 ff. I quote the excellent rendering by A. D. Godley and
C. Bailey (Oxford 1905), supplementing it by the addition of line 373.
4 Mr F. M. Cornford, however, points out to me that the vortex-theory of the philo-
sophers had at least some foundation in popular belief—witness the ancient and very
remarkable tablet from Tarragona {infra Append. G). Aristophanes' words (m<b. 380 f.
SO. rjiaoT , a\\' cuWpios divos. 2T. AiVos; tovti pi' e\e\r)dei, | 6 Zei)s ovk uiv, d\\' clvt'
avTov AtVos vvvl fiaaiKevuv) are meant to suggest not only Siviq or dlvrjois, cosmic rotation,
but also the name of Zeus (schol. ad loc. eyyvdev eXafiev airb tou Aibs to 6vop.o.), with a sly
hit at divos, a round-bellied bowl (cp. nnb. 1468 ff. ST. val val KaTaideadrjTi iraTpipov
1 : .