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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#0381

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Rain-magic in the cult of Zeus 315

Virgil may, of course, be drawing upon sources no longer acces-
sible to us. And presumably he was familiar with the fact that in
Arkadia the priest of Zeus Lykaios regularly made rain for his
neighbours1. Pausanias, speaking of the spring Hagno on Mount
Lykaion2, says:

If there is a long drought, and the seeds in the earth and the trees are
Withering, the priest of Lycaean Zeus looks to the water and prays ; and having
Prayed and offered the sacrifices enjoined by custom, he lets down an oak branch
to the surface of the spring, but not deep into it; and the water being stirred,
there rises a mist-like vapour, and in a little the vapour becomes a cloud, and
gathering other clouds to itself it causes rain to fall on the land of Arcadia3.'

It Would seem then that on Mount Lykaion the magical practice
Was preceded by a prayer, which—as M. H. Morgan4 has observed—

■ncertum est, habitat deus; Arcades ipsum | credunt se vidisse Iovem, cum saepe
nJgrantem | aegida concuteret dextra nimbosque cieret.' Serv. adloc. 'ipsum credunt se
lsse Iovem' in hoc scilicet nemore. sane ad illud adludit quod primi dicuntur Iovi
^. .P'a let rem divinam] fecisse—[Aeacus enim primus in Arcadia templum Iovi constituisse
Sua emm 'onSe sunt a I°ve Olympico: unde eos dicit Iovem vidisse, et quod ipsi

i;c ^P^^voi, ut [ait] Statius 'Arcades astris lunaque priores' (Stat. Theb. 4. 275):
e dicat Sallustius Cretenses primos invenisse religionem, unde apud eos natus fingitur

"Ppiter (Sail. hist. 3. 60 Dietsch, 63 Kritz. Cp. Myth. Vat. 3. 3. 9).
Siedi Fscber~"f^ur'ili m Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. vi. 842 comments: 'Arkadische
q er an der Kiiste Latiums gehoren immerhin in den Bereich der Moglichkeit,' cp.
c^Uppe Gr- Myth. Rel. pp. 196, 202 f. But H. Last in The Cambridge Ancient History
p ndKe 1928 vii. 364 f. and H. j. Rose A Handbook of Greek Mythology London 1928
Pseud' r'^'^ recognise that the whole story of Evander on Italian soil is a piece of
Lvb • "myt'1ology based on misleading etymologies (Palatinus = Pallanteion, Lupercalia -

yfcaia, etc.)

\S^Pra\.^ 76f., 87.
Wis n "le 'dentincation of this spring see Frazer Pausanias iv. 383 and Bolte in Pauly—
0r mo*1 ^eal-Enc. vii. 2210. It is now known as Kopires—a name given to small stone,
'nhabi[6 °^en W00cien, troughs, through one of which the water at present runs. The
bm that;11'3 °^ d's'r'ct declare that here there was once a regular river (vepb Trordpu),
Wool] a ft W^en tne son °f Hellenopoula was drowned in it, they dammed it up with twelve

j^' eeces and twelve caldrons, each caldron having forty handles. When in 1903
out aga^°Un'°'eS WaS d'SS'"g beside the spring, they believed that the water would burst
Pertia js*1' ^£ *°una- near by the ruins of a large ancient cistern ('E0. 'Apx- 1904 p. 162).

3 p We have here a lingering belief in the water-magic of the sacred spring.

4 m "h 8' 3§° 4 trans" s'r j- °- frazer-

a>td pr ' ^*orSan ' Greek and Roman Rain-Gods and Rain-Charms' in the Transactions

'hough off* '""^ of the American Philological Association 1901 xxxii. 95: 'The prayer,
nyniph of ^ ^y the priest of Zeus, was obviously offered not to Zeus, but to Hagno, the
°1ered t0 7* Spn"s (""P0<m'££'Mc''os is rb vSwp). The sacrifice {fiaX 0i5cras) may have been

When D-US' Pausanias Sives us "o information on this point.'
Athens fo '0tlma as P"estess of Zeus Lykaios (supra ii. 1167) postponed the plague at
Al0TW U a de°ade by means of prayer (schol. Aristeid. p. 468, 15 ff. Dindorf y hi
^"KvSiSr, P6'r ",^~>rm'e T°" At"tafou Ai6s tov ev 'ApKaSif. oSn; U, p-EWoOo-qs rijs vbaov, rjs

evi-ap-evri ItaSkWtP avrrjv eiVeXtfeii' (so cod.
deity- See"f ^S"a *Tyi^' sne must be assumed 10 have prayed to her namesake
6 Urther T- Zielinski in the Archiv f. Rel. 1906 ix. 43.
 
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