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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

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14698#0235

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The Arrhephoroi

179

Perhaps we can go a step further. O. Gruppe1 has conjectured
with much probability that the Arrhephoria was performed on the
night of the Diipolieia, that is, on the occasion of the last full moon
in the Attic year. He recalls the Greek belief—a belief based upon
accurate observation2—that the dew lies thickest on the night of
a full moon3, and Alkman's statement that Herse the 'Dew' was

Ta-rpiav r)V, aweTi\e<rev Si Kai tt>v Tiic | KaXa/i£"W dwiav k.t.X.). This accounts for Hesych.
XXoia (Meursius cj. XXoeia, A. Meineke cj. XXoeia) • eoprr\ airb tuv KaK-wav (Meursius and
Meineke cjj. Kapirdv). Again, the sacrificial calendar from Kottkounari {supra p. 115)
notes among the trieteric rites of Marathon that in Anthesterion a pregnant sow is
sacrificed to 'EXetwiWa and another to XX617 Trapa to Mei5i)Xoi/, i.e. XXor; 'next door to
Meidylos' (J. de Prott Leges Graecorum sacrae Lipsiae 1896 Fasti sacri p. 46 ff. no. 26 B,
48 ff. 'Av6e<m)pUivos4 'EXeveiviai 5s KvoCaa AA, | icpiiffiva \-\. XXdiji irapa ro MeiSt/Xoi/ 5s
fw[cra] I AA, le/xiawa h a\<phuv (kt^vs ||||, 01x0 x[5s..]). In Mykonos a calendar of
c- 200 B.C. fixes Poseideon 12 as the mid-winter day when a fine white ram must be sacrificed
to Poseidon Te/xenT-qs, a white male lamb to Poseidon *tkios, and two fine sows, one of
them pregnant, to Demeter XXdij (J. de Prott Leges Graecorum sacrae Lipsiae 1896 Fasti
sacri p. I3 ff. no 4i ff. = Michel Recueil d'Inscr. gr. no. 714, 11 ff. = F. Bechtel in
Collitz—Bechtel Gr. Dial.-Inschr. iii. 2. 577 ff. no. 5416, 11 ff. = Dittenberger Syll. inscr.
Gr? no. 1024, 'i ff. rfji aMf. y/j.ipu Afff XXdr/i Bes | 56o KaXXio-retWcu, 7; ercpa
<b"^M[<o><-] vwroy Kdn-rerafi] | rrjs iyKiifiovos. Tas 5s /3[ouX]rj n[pivi]r[w] p.a[yi]put ipxovres \
SiSiivTuj/ &<r<j>bv icl kojXtJj/ Trjs 5os Tijs eWprjs, a\<pfrw[v] \ 5vo xoiciras, olvov rpels KOTi)X[a]s).

But the real interest of Demeter XXdr; lies, not so much in the details of her cult, as in
the fact that her very name identifies the goddess with the verdure. Farnell Cults of Gk.
States iii. 33 says of her worship : ' Its chief claim on our attention is that it seems to
reveal a glimpse of the pre-anthropomorphic period when the natural object itself might
he conceived as animate and divine, and the personal deity had not yet clearly emerged;
thus such religious perceptions as "Demeter the Verdure" or "Zeus the Thunder" on the
°»e hand, and Demeter the Verdure-giver or Zeus the Thunderer on the other, may be the
Products of widely different strata of religion.' The second stage is attested partly by the
cult of Demeter EexXoos at Kolonos (Soph. O. C. 1600 f. ri> S' Evxkoov A-qwrpos eis
""POffo>iov I ^oXoOo-o, with schol. ad toe. cited supra. On the topography of the site

see Sir R. c. Jebb's ed. p. xxxi with map and Svoronos Alh. Nationalmus. pp. 389 f.,
392, 402, 405 pis. 124 (photographs) and 125 (plan). The broken base of Pentelic marble
oelieved by the uncritical K. S. Pittakis to lecord a dedication to Demeter EuxXdrj (Corp.
lnscr. Att. iii. Y n0. ,9,) ;s now kn0Wn to contain no such record (U. Kohler in Corp.
''iscr. Att. ii. 3 no. 1415). Her name should be struck out in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc.
23+7' V'' 88^' partly by the Poetic usa2e of such ePithets X^oiKapiros (Orph. A. Dem.
j ■ 4°- 5 xXooKapTre, cp. Orph. //. Ge 26. 7 Tjivrvooii xaiP°"<Ta X^"**)'
^ Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 34.
X. Landerer 'Zur Meteorologie Griechenlands' in the Zeitschrift fur allgemeine
rdkunde N. F. 1857 »• 163 observes: 'DerThau nach Sonnenuntergang ist so bedeutend,
ass man sich nur einige Augenblicke im Freien aufzuhalten braucht, urn die Kleider und
andere hygroskopische Gegenstande durch und durch feucht oder nass zu sehen.'
• Neumann—J. Partsch Physikalische Geographie von Griechenland mil besonderer
"ckstcht aufdas Alterlhum Breslau 1885 p. 64 adds: 'In klaren, mondhellen Nachten,
Und • Whrmeausstrahlung der Erdoberflache besonders kraftig sich vollzieht, der Boden
seine Pflanzendecke recht stark erkalten, ist der Thaufall am reichlichsten.' Cp. Aisch.
\»< 335 f-, 560 f.

Plout. symp. 3. io. 3, quaestt. nat. 24, Macrob. Sat. 7. 16. 31. Cp. Theophr. decaus.
R v. 4 !-4' 3' Plin- "at- hist- l8- 202' Macrob. 7. 16. 21 and 24. See further W. H.
v°e ei Uber Selene und Vertvandtcs Leipzig 1890 p. 49 n. 198, Nachtrdge iiber Selene und
er^a„dtes Leipzig 1895 p. 24 f., and in the Lex. Myth. ii. 3147 ff-
 
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