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 Tarentine cult of Zeus Kataibdtes 3 1

identified with the bronze double-axes of 'Minoan' worship1. If
this identification be well founded, it furnishes an important clue
to the nature of the deity represented by the Cretan axes. The
deity in question was, at least in Hellenic Tarentum, regarded as
Zeus Kataibdtes, the god that fell from heaven in the form of a
thunderbolt-.

Tarentum, we gather, was originally an Iapygian settlement
later Hellenised by a Lacedaemonian colony3. It is therefore of
interest to recall the fact that from Thalamai {Kotitiphari) in south-
western Lakonike, where the oracle of Pasiphaa4 bespeaks the
influence of Crete, came the fifth-century inscription recording the
apparently chthonian ritual of Zeus Kabdtas5.

In view of H. Usener's6 contention that teras (' borer' ?) meant
the lightning, and that Zeus Terdstios of Gythion7 was a lightning-
god, it seems possible8 that Tdras the eponymous hero of Tarentum

1 Sir A. J- Evans in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1900—1901 vii. 52 If. fig. 15, id. ib.
1901 —1902 viii. 101 ff. figs. 57 ff.

Another point of comparison might be found in the fact that the Messapians, like the
' Minoans,' were great dancers. According to Nikandros ap. Ant. Lib. 31, it was said in
the country of the Messapians that the nymphs known as Epimelides were seen dancing
by the so-called Holy Rocks, that the sons of the Messapians left their flocks and challenged
them to a contest of dancing, that the nymphs won, that the lads were changed into trees
beside the sanctuary of the nymphs, and that a sound as of mourning is still heard by
night from the wood of the 1 Nymphs and Lads.'

2 See further infra § 3 (c) i (j").

3 Ltibker Rea/iex.8 p. 1012, M. Besnier Lexique de geographic ancienne Paris 1914
P* 739• See further R. Lorentz Disquisitio de civitate veternm Tarentihorum Numburgi
1833 p. 35, S. F. W. Hoffmann Griechen/atid und die Griechen im Alterthum Leipzig
1841 ii. 1930, Doehle Geschichte Tarents bis auf seine Unterwerfung unter Rom Strassburg
1877 p. 19 f., J. Geffcken 'Die Grundung von Tarent' in the Jahrb. f. Philol. 11 Pddag.
1893 cxlvii. 177—192.

4 Supra i. 52 1 f.

5 Supra p. 17 f.

6 H. Usener ' Keraunos ' in the Rhein. Mus. 1905 lx. 12 f. ( = id. Kleine Schriften
Leipzig-Berlin 1913 iv. 481).

7 A. Skias in the 'E<£. 'Apx- 1892 p. 57, Wide Lakon. Kulte p. 370, R. Meister in
Collitz—Bechtel Gr. Dial.-Inschr. iii. 2. 60 no. 4563, Michel Recneil d'Inscr.gr. no. 760,
Inscr. Gr. Arc. Lac. Mess, i no. n 54 (incised on the wall of a rocky niche at a place
called HeXeKrjTOP beneath the hill Larysion) fj-oipa | Atos TepacrTio, ' the portion of Zeus
Terdstios.' The niche is figured in Lebas—Reinach Voyage Arch. p. 32 pi. 25 (plan ib.
p. 32 f pi. 26) and described in detail by R. Weil in the Ath. Mitth. 1876 i. 151 ff. Cp.
Loukian. Tim. 41 u> ZeO repdarie ko.1 <pt\ot Kopvfiavres ko.1 Kp/x?) /cepStpe, irodev toctoutov
Xpvaiov ; Aristeid. or. 4;. 65 (ii. 86 Dindorf) elirk irpbs Atos Tepaariov, tl XPV Tepi tovtcov
rpj-as vopl^eiv ; Theod. Prodr. Rhod. ct Dos. 7. 518 repdarte Zed, Scholl—Studemund anecd.
i. 265 'E7ri#eTa Atos no. 96 TepacrLov, 267 'ETrt^era Atos no. 89 Tepaariov.

8 The fact that Taras appears as a t^«.M-Poseidon (see e.g. Buslepp in Roscher Lex.
Myth. v. 93 ff.) is not fatal to this hypothesis, if Poseidon was originally but a specialised
form of Zeus (i. 717 n. 2, infra § 3 (c) i (??)) and his trident a thunder-weapon {infra § 3 (c)
iv (7)).