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

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Appendix M

Indignant at this, Zeus wished to consume his whole house with a thunderbolt.
But when Apollon, whom Periphas used to honour exceedingly, begged Zeus
not to destroy him utterly, Zeus granted the request. He came into the home
of Periphas and found him embracing his wife. Grasping them both in his
hands, he turned Periphas into an eagle ; his wife, who begged him to make
her too a bird to bear Periphas company, into a vulture. So upon Periphas he
bestowed honours in return for his holy life among men, making him king over
all the birds, and granting him to guard the sacred sceptre and to draw near to
his own throne ; while Periphas' wife he turned into a vulture, and suffered to
appear as a good omen to men in all their doings1.'

From what source Antoninus Liberalis, a compiler of the second century A.D.
or later2, drew this singular narrative is unknown3; nor are its incidents—apart
from a casual reference in Ovid4—cited elsewhere. Nevertheless the story as it
stands is instructive. Certain traits are late and must be suppressed. Thus the
writer, or his authority, is inclined to etymologise5 and, worse still, to moralise.
His tale belongs to a well-defined group, in which an early king (Salmoneus is
typical) poses as Zeus and is consequently punished by the real Zeus. This
implies, as I have elsewhere pointed out6, that, when the essential divinity of
the old-world king had little by little faded into oblivion, posterity treated his
claim to be Zeus as sheer impiety calling for the vengeance of the genuine god.
Yet the author of our tale, with illuminating inconsistency, makes Zeus himself
bestow upon the blasphemer altogether exceptional ' honours in return for his
holy life.' I take it, then, that Periphas was an Attic king, who in the dim past
had played the role of Zeus and made his petty thunder for some unsophisticated
folk. It may even be that his name Periphas, 'the Brilliant7,' was a recognised
epithet of Zeus8; for an Orphic hymn salutes Zeus Astrdpios, the lightning-god,
as periphantos%. Now we have repeatedly found a human Zeus of this sort
figuring among the kings of Thessaly descended from Aiolos10. It is therefore
of interest to observe that Lapithes, the eponymous king of the Thessalian
Lapithai, was either father11 or son of a Periphas, who wedded Astyagyia

1 Ant. Lib. 6.

2 G. Wentzel in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. i. 2573 ('schwerlich vor dem 2. Jhdt. n.
Chr.'), W. Christ Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur* Munchen 1898 p. 778 (' aus der
Zeit der Antonine'). See further E. Oder De Antonino Liberali Bonn 1886 pp. 1—6r.

3 H. Usener in the Rhein. Mus. 1868 xxiii. 357 ( — id. Kieine Schriften Leipzig—Berlin
1913 iv. 66) says : ' wahrscheinlich von Boios,' and O. Schneider Nicandrea Lipsiae 1856
p. 43 had reached the same conclusion before him. M. Wellmann in Hermes 1891 xxvi.
507 n. 2 thinks otherwise : ' Vermuthlich ist Nikander Quelle.'

4 Ov. met. 7. 399 f. Palladias arces: quae te, iustissima Phene, | teque, senex Peripha,
pariter videre volantes. Lact. Plac. narr. fab. 7. 20 merely echoes Ovid (M. Schanz
Geschichte der romischen Litteratur'2 Munchen 1899 ii. r. 237 f.): venisse etiam Athenas,
ubi Phineum [sic) et Peripham in aves conversos.

5 He harps on derivatives of (paiuoj, real or supposed: Hepicpas.. .<pavr)vai.. .(privyf...
(TTMpaiveadai.

6 Class. Rev. 1903 xvii. 277, Folk-Lore 1904 xv. 300.

7 Hepi<pas — Trepi(pavrjs (Gerhard Auserl. Vasenb. iii. 86), irepLrpavTos, wepupa-qs. Cp.
NoXvcpas, 'Twep(pas. For other explanations see O. Hofer in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 1971 f.

8 H. Usener in the Rhein. Mus. 1868 xxiii. 357 ( = id. Kieine Schriften Leipzig—
Berlin 1913 iv. 66 f.).

9 Orph. h. Zeus Astrapios 20. 1 ff. klk\t\(jku3 fxeyav, ayuou, epLfffxapayov, irep'Kpavrov, \
...aarpcLTTLOv Aia, TrayyeveTrjv, ^acn\rja fxeyMTTOv, | k,t.\. adduced by O. Hofer loc. cit.

10 Supra p. 1088.

11 Epaphroditos Homericafrag. 16 Luenzner ap. Steph. Byz. s.v. Aairidr).