Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

120 The Tritopatores or Tritopatreis

On the one hand, the Tritopatores are described as remote and
mythical ancestors. The author of the work known as the
Exegetikon, who has been plausibly identified1 with Kleidemos or
'Kleitodemos, the oldest of all writers on the local customs of
Athens2,' and would thus be referable to the middle of the fourth
century B.C.3, stated that the Tritopatores were sons of Ouranos and
Ge, named Kottos, Briareos, and Gyges4. Philochoros, the most
important of the Atthidographers, followed suit with the assertion
that the Tritopatreis were the earliest offspring of Ge and Ouranos,
and the first to begin generation5. Elsewhere he gave a slightly
divergent account. The Tritopatreis were the first of all. At that
time men believed that the earth and the sun, Ge and Apollon as
they called them, were their parents, and that the offspring of these
were Tritoi Pateres6. The meaning of these two passages is not
over-clear. But C. A. Lobeck' makes it probable that, in Philochoros'
view, the earth fructified by the sun produced the Tritopatreis, who
acting as procreators for the first time thereby became the parents
of all mortal men. Cicero, quoting from a Greek Catalogue of the
gods which seems to have been drawn up in the second or first
century B.C.8, makes Zeus, 'a very ancient king,' the father by
Persephone of the first Dioskouroi—a triad of brothers known as
Anaktes at Athens and named Tritopatreus, Eubouleus, and
Dionysos9. These varying versions agree in attributing the names
Tritopatores, Tritopatreis, Tritopatreus to prehistoric progenitors
of a more or less superhuman sort. It is possible that behind them

1 See A. Tresp Die Fragmente der griechischen Kiiltschriftstellcr Giessen 1914
p. 11 o f.

2 Paus. 10. 15. 5.

3 F. Jacoby in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. xi. 591.

4 Harpokr. s.v. Tpirowdropes = Phot, lex.' s.v. 'HpiTOTrdropes = Souid. s.v. Tpiro-
irdropes'...6 8e to '^TjyTjTiKbv iroiTio'as Ovpavov Kal Vrjs <f>i)tnv abroiis elvai, 6vb(xaTa 5£
airQp lioTTov, Bpidpeuv Kal Vvy-qv. Cp. et. mag. p. 768, 10 ff. = Favorin. lex. p. 1775, 49 ff.

5 Philochor. frag. 3 (Frag. hist. Gr. i. 384 Miiller) ap. Phot. lex. s.v. 'VpiTowaTwp-
TpiroTrarpeis...QiKdxopos 5t rous irpdirovs €K Tijs Kal Oupavod, dp^avras 5c yevioews.

s Philochor. frag. 2 [Frag. hist. Gr. i. 384 Miiller) ap. Harpokr. s.v. HpiTOTrdropes -
Phot. lex. s.v. IpiToirdropes = Souid. s.v. TpiToirdropes'.. .$i\6xopos Si rous TpiTOTrdrpeis
irdvTUV yeyovivai trpiirovs- ttjc p.iv yap yrpi Kal rbv rfKibv <py)<xiv, 6V Kal 'AttoMwcci roVe
Ka\ei", yoveU aiirCiv eiriuTavTo oi t6tc &v6pair01, rous 5' e/c tovtwv rplrovi iraT^pas. Cp-
et. mag. p. 768, 1 ff. (Selene substituted for Ge), Favorin. lex. p. 1775, 45.

If this passage is rightly assigned by C. Miiller to the Atthls, it may be surmised in
view of the inscription from Epakria (supra p. 115) that the other passage (supra n. 5)
occurred in Philochoros' treatise on the Attic Tetrapolis [Frag. hist. Gr. i. 410 f. Miiller).

7 Lobeck Aglaophanms i. 761 f.

8 Supra ii. 1135 n. 4.

9 Cic. de nat. dear. 3. 53 cited supra ii. 1135 n. 4.