DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14696#0058
Zeus Keraunos
§ 3. Zeus and the Lightning.
(a) Lightning as a flame from the Burning Sky.
At the very moment when the sky was darkest Zeus vindicated
his character as ' the Bright One.' The brilliant flash that glittered
for an instant against the lowering storm sufficiently proved his
presence and his power.
The Homeric poems use the same set of words to describe
aither, sun, moon, stars, lightning, fire. From which fact it has
been fairly inferred that in popular belief lightning was made of the
same material as aither, etc.—was, indeed, but a flame from the
flaming sky1. Here, as elsewhere, popular belief seems to have left
its impress on philosophy ; for Anaxagoras regarded lightning as
a veritable streak of aither, a fragment of the burning sky that had
fallen into the lower stratum of aer or cloudy air'2, and the physicist
Milon distinguished two species of lightning, diurnal and nocturnal,
holding that the former was due to the action of the sun, the latter
to that of the stars, upon water". Nay more, the very word astrape,
the ordinary Greek term for ' lightning,' itself bears witness to the
conviction that the electric flash was akin to all other dstra, sun,
moon, stars, or Saint Elmo's fire4.
Another name for the lightning was keraunos, the 'destroyer '.'
This is usually translated by the word ' thunderbolt,' but must not
be taken to denote a solid missile of any sort. It means nothing
more than the bright white flash in its destructive capacity.
i. Zeus Keraunos.
Now, if the lightning-flash was part and parcel of the aither or
burning sky, it was part and parcel of Zeus. For Zeus in his early
1 O. Gilbert Die meteorologischen Theorien des griechischen Altertimis Leipzig 1907
pp. 20 {., 619.
2 Id. ib. p. 622 n. 1 citing Aristot. ?>ieteor. 2. 9. 369 b 14 ff., Aet. 3. 3. 4, Senec. nat.
• quaestt. 2. 12. 3, 2. 19.
3 Stob. eel. 1. 29. 3 p. 238, 13 ff. Wachsmuth, O. Gilbert op. cit. p. 637 n. r.
4 Plat. Crat. 409 C rd 0' darpa eouce rrjs affTpcnrrjs eirwvvpiav txew k.t.X., et. mag.
p. 159, 57 ff., et. Gud. p. 86, 32 ff., Eustath. in 11. p. 786, 15 f. Modern philologists accept
the connexion: L. Meyer Handb. d. gr. Etym. i. 179 darip- and darepoTrr), 180 daTpdirreiv,
Prellwitz Etym. Worterb. d. Gr. Spr? pp. 59 f. darr\p and affrpaivq, Boisacq Diet. etym.
de la Langue Gr. p. 92 darpdwr] (sie). See further Plin. nat. hist. 2. 8-2 and 19r.
5 Kepavuos is connected with Kepat'^eiv, 'to destroy,' by L. Meyer op. cit. ii. 362,
Prellwitz op. cit. pp. 19, 217, Boisacq op. cit. pp. 435, 440. These authorities cp. Sanskrit
cdru-h, 'dart'; Gothic hairus, Old Norse hiqrr, Old Saxon hern-, 'sword'; Middle
Irish acc. pi. coire, 'swords,'—which forms presuppose an Indo-Europaean *keru-s,
' flint dagger' (?), but do not warrant the inference that the Greeks originally identified
the lightning-flash with the thunder-stone (on which see infra § 3 (c)).
§ 3. Zeus and the Lightning.
(a) Lightning as a flame from the Burning Sky.
At the very moment when the sky was darkest Zeus vindicated
his character as ' the Bright One.' The brilliant flash that glittered
for an instant against the lowering storm sufficiently proved his
presence and his power.
The Homeric poems use the same set of words to describe
aither, sun, moon, stars, lightning, fire. From which fact it has
been fairly inferred that in popular belief lightning was made of the
same material as aither, etc.—was, indeed, but a flame from the
flaming sky1. Here, as elsewhere, popular belief seems to have left
its impress on philosophy ; for Anaxagoras regarded lightning as
a veritable streak of aither, a fragment of the burning sky that had
fallen into the lower stratum of aer or cloudy air'2, and the physicist
Milon distinguished two species of lightning, diurnal and nocturnal,
holding that the former was due to the action of the sun, the latter
to that of the stars, upon water". Nay more, the very word astrape,
the ordinary Greek term for ' lightning,' itself bears witness to the
conviction that the electric flash was akin to all other dstra, sun,
moon, stars, or Saint Elmo's fire4.
Another name for the lightning was keraunos, the 'destroyer '.'
This is usually translated by the word ' thunderbolt,' but must not
be taken to denote a solid missile of any sort. It means nothing
more than the bright white flash in its destructive capacity.
i. Zeus Keraunos.
Now, if the lightning-flash was part and parcel of the aither or
burning sky, it was part and parcel of Zeus. For Zeus in his early
1 O. Gilbert Die meteorologischen Theorien des griechischen Altertimis Leipzig 1907
pp. 20 {., 619.
2 Id. ib. p. 622 n. 1 citing Aristot. ?>ieteor. 2. 9. 369 b 14 ff., Aet. 3. 3. 4, Senec. nat.
• quaestt. 2. 12. 3, 2. 19.
3 Stob. eel. 1. 29. 3 p. 238, 13 ff. Wachsmuth, O. Gilbert op. cit. p. 637 n. r.
4 Plat. Crat. 409 C rd 0' darpa eouce rrjs affTpcnrrjs eirwvvpiav txew k.t.X., et. mag.
p. 159, 57 ff., et. Gud. p. 86, 32 ff., Eustath. in 11. p. 786, 15 f. Modern philologists accept
the connexion: L. Meyer Handb. d. gr. Etym. i. 179 darip- and darepoTrr), 180 daTpdirreiv,
Prellwitz Etym. Worterb. d. Gr. Spr? pp. 59 f. darr\p and affrpaivq, Boisacq Diet. etym.
de la Langue Gr. p. 92 darpdwr] (sie). See further Plin. nat. hist. 2. 8-2 and 19r.
5 Kepavuos is connected with Kepat'^eiv, 'to destroy,' by L. Meyer op. cit. ii. 362,
Prellwitz op. cit. pp. 19, 217, Boisacq op. cit. pp. 435, 440. These authorities cp. Sanskrit
cdru-h, 'dart'; Gothic hairus, Old Norse hiqrr, Old Saxon hern-, 'sword'; Middle
Irish acc. pi. coire, 'swords,'—which forms presuppose an Indo-Europaean *keru-s,
' flint dagger' (?), but do not warrant the inference that the Greeks originally identified
the lightning-flash with the thunder-stone (on which see infra § 3 (c)).