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)

122 The Tritopatores or Tritopatreis

verse1. Others went on to compare them with Aiolos Hippotades2,
and in so doing all but reached the only satisfactory solution of the
whole problem.

For, if the Tritopatores on the one hand are ancestral spirits and
on the other hand are winds, that is but another proof of our con-
tention that to naive Greek thinking winds are souls and souls are
winds3. The Tritopatores, the 'Great-grandfathers,' were naturally
invoked 'for the procreation of children4.' It was they who gave
life to each succeeding generation in the form of wind or breath5.
Nay more, it was they who were the life of each generation. Every
infant lived just because there had entered into its body the breath
or wind that was the soul of some long-buried ancestor6. That—I
take it—was the original function of the Tritopatores, dimly
remembered in fifth-century Athens, but still lingering in the back-
ground of popular belief, and strong enough to assert itself here and
there, in a suburb like the Kerameikos, in a country-town like
Marathon, in a distant island like Delos.

Kal 0i!Xa/cas oVras tSiv avip.wv. Cp. et. mag. p. 768, 6 ff. = Favorin. lex. p. 1775, 47 ff. i"
de roh 'Optpeus C'wikois tovs rpfrovs waripas 'AfiaXKelSrjv, HpwroKXelav, Kal XlpuiroKpiovra,
Ovpuipous Kal (ptiXaKas bvras t&v avtp.wi'. Other forms of the names: 'Ap.aXKeid'qf
cj. S. Eitrem, 'A/ta/cXeiSTjc Tzetz. in Lyk. Al. 7^8=schol. Od. 10. 2, 'A/j-aKXeid-qv (?)
noted by Lobeck Aglaophamus i. 773 (' Hamaclides'),' AvaKXd<3i]v cj. A. Fick, 'AXaXKetdrii'
cj. L. Radermacher. HpwroKXr/ Tzetz. in Lyk. Al. 738 = schol. Od. 10. 2. HpwKpiovra (sic)
schol. P. Od. 10. 2.

1 E.g. avifioiv Sc Svpuipois Kal (pvXaKeaaiv \ < eii^aB' > 'AfiaXKdSy, HpuroKXet, HpwTO-
KpeovTi.

2 Tzetz. in Lyk. Al. 738 = schol. Od. 10. 2 Kal tovtov ?ce/ca ifivdevcravTo airbv (sc.
AibXov rbv 'linrbTou) deo'irbrrji' elVcu avepiwv. bp.olcos d£ Kal rbv 'AptaKXeldyv Kal HpUTOKXi) Kal
UpuTOKptovra, ws (pTjau/ 'Opcpetis.

3 Supra ii. 1039, iii. 109. 4 Supra p. 113.

5 Rohde Psyche* i. 248 n. 1 'Entschlagen wir uns aller Speculation, so erkemien wir
in den Tritopatoren Ahnenseelen, die zu Windgeistern geworden sind und mit anderen
^vxai (die ja auch vom Windhauche benannt sind) im Winde fahren, von denen, als
von wahren -n-voial ^ipo-ybvoi [see Lobeck Ag/aopkamus i. 760], ihre Nachkommen
Hilfe erhoffen, wenn es sich um Lebendigwerden einer neuen \pvxv handelt. Seelen als
Windgeister sind sehr wohl verstandlich; bei den Griechen ist diese Vorstellung raw
vereinzelt erhalten und ebendarum werden solche vereinzelt im Glauben lebendiggebliebene
Windseelen zu besonderen Damonen, die Tritopatoren nicht anders als die Harpyien
(s. Rhein. Mus. 50, 3 ff.).' Cp. B. Schweitzer Herakles Tubingen 1922 p. 72 ff. (sum-
marised by E. Fehrle in Roscher Lex. Myth. v. 1209 f.), who takes the Tritopatores
to be ancestral spirits conceived as winds (p. 75 f.' Bei der Begattung tritt sie [sc. irvcvp-a}
aus dem Munde der Eltern aus und vermischt sich mit der wachsenden Frucht...Der Name
bedeutet dasselbe wie irpbiraTnros It. tritavus = " Drittvater ".. .also einfach Ahne, dpxvy^Trls
des Geschlechts, der "rechte Vorfahr"').

0 On the reincarnation of ancestors in their descendants see E. B. Tylor Primitive
Culture* London 1891 ii. 3—5, Frazer Golden Bough*: Taboo pp. 365—372. Evidence
drawn from Greek and Roman burial customs, Greek nomenclature, etc. is collected by
F. B. Jevons 'Greek Law and Folk Lore' in the Class. Rev. 1895 ix. 248 f., J. E. King
'Infant Burial' ib. 1903 xvii. 83 f. (supra ii. 1059), Frazer Totemism and Exogamy i"-
298 f.