Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 2,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (thunder and lightning): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1925)

The Diosemia or 'Zeus-sign'

5

storm1. But its scope was gradually widened to include meteoro-
logical phaenomena of all sorts'2, until in the sixth century a.d.
Ioannes Laurentius the Lydian could reckon as subdivisions of it
solar and lunar eclipses, comets, shooting stars, lightning, thunder,
thunderbolts, aerial portents, earthquakes, and conflagrations!3

The Athenians, we are told, paid special attention to Zeus-
signs4, which were expounded to them by official Interpreters5.
When a sign occurred, the public assembly at once broke up6 and the
law-courts ceased to sit7. Thus in 420 B.C. the Athenians were on the
point of making an alliance with the Argives and their confederates.
' But,' says Thoukydides, ' before the final vote was taken an earth-
quake happened, and the assembly was adjourned8.' Aristophanes
in his Women in Parliament mentions as plausible reasons for not
carrying out a decree :

An earthquake might befall,
Lightning might strike, a weasel cross the street,
And then they'ld stop at once, you dunder-head !9

The Chorus of Clouds in the play named after them take credit to
themselves for saving the Athenians from undue haste :

We who more than all immortals benefit your state and you,

We alone have no libation, ne'er receive an offering due:

Yet we save you : when to senseless expeditions you're inclined,

Then we send you rain and thunder, so that you may change your mind10.

The allusion in the last line is presumably to the postponement of
public business occasioned by a Zeus-sign. That is certainly the
case in a passage of the Acharnians, where Dikaiopolis waxes
indignant with the Thracians :

1 Aristoph. Ach. 171 [infra p. 6) with schol. ad loc. ( = Souid. s.v. Aioa^fxeia)
Aioarjp.ia 5e eanv 6 wapa KaLpbv -^ufxibv.

- The phaenomena of Aratos is followed by a sequel (lines 733 —1154), which deals
with weather-signs in general and in the later mss. is entitled ALoarifxiai or irpdyvucris.
This sequel utilised the same source as the treatise wepi o-rj/xduv wrongly attributed to
Theophrastos and was itself translated into Latin verse by Cieero under the heading
prognostica (W. Christ Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur 0 Miinchen 1911 ii. 1. 124 f. :
see further G. Knaack in Pauly-Wissowa Real-Enc. ii. 395, 397).

3 Lyd. de ostent. 4. Here, as ib. i5b, 16, i6a, C. Wachsmuth prints dioo-rjueia, but
ib. 47 dioarjpLaaia.

4 Schol. Rav. Aristoph. Ach. 171 ( = Souid. s.v. Aioarjixeia) TrapecpuKdrrovTo oi 'Adrivaiot
r&s Aiocnj/ALas, nai 5ii\vov rots iKKhrjaias Aioarj/xias yevo/j.evrjs < ? > 7) &\\o tl /xeWovres
avveiv.

5 Poll. 8. 124 avLararo 8e to. diKacrrripia, ei ytvoiTO Aiocr^^i'a • i^r]yT]Tai 5' eKaKovvro oi
ra irepi ru)v Aioa^paQi' /ecu to. tlov dXXw^ iepwv SiSdcr/coj'Tes. Similarly the Romans Kara
rets eV tois Kepavvols Aioa-qixdas tovtols (sc. the Etruscans) i^-qyr}Tixh xpuvrai (Diod. 5. 40).

6 Stipra n. 4. Cp. infra p. 6 n. 3. 7 Supra n. 5.

8 Thouk. 5. 45, cp. Plout. v. Nic. ro. 9 Aristoph. eccl. 791 ff.

10 Aristoph. nub. 577 ff.