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)

24 Death by lightning as euthanasia

subsequently apotheosised1. Erechtheus, slain by Zeus with a
thunderbolt at the request of Poseidon2, was venerated as a god in
the Erechtheion at Athens. Romulus likewise was caught up to
heaven in a thunderstorm, and afterwards appeared to Proculus
Iulius in more than mortal beauty and announced that he had be-
come the god Quirinus3. And sundry kings, who posed as Zeus or
Iupiter during their life-time, are said to have met their death by a
thunderbolt launched from the hands of the offended deity4—a
moralising statement which has probably obscured the real signifi-
cance of their fate5.

Semele too was blasted by lightning (pi. i and figs. 10—12)6.

Fig. 10.

1 See Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. ii. 1654. Note especially Min. Fel. Oct. 22. 7
Aesculapius ut in deum surgat fulminatur.

2 Hyg./a£. 46. See infra § 3 (c) iv (7).

3 Liv. 1. 16. 1 ff., Ov. fast. 2.475 ff-> -flout, v. Rom. 27 f., Dion. Hal. ant. Rom. 2.
56, alib.

4 So Salmoneus (infra Append. M), Periphas (infra Append. M), Romulus Silvius
(Ov. met. 14. 6 r 7 f., cp. Dionys. ant. Rom. 1. 71).

5 Infra Append. M.

6 Vase-paintings that portray Zeus, brandishing a thunderbolt, in pursuit of a terrified