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)

452 Zeus identified with rain

noteworthy, because they seem to imply that Zeus was in a very
special sense connected with, perhaps even identified with, the rain
that fell from the sky.

Direct identification of Zeus with the rain is, however, a product
of philosophizing thought, and is not expressed in literature till
Roman times. Thus Varro writes: 'These same deities, sky and
earth, are Iupiter and Iuno; for, as Ennius puts it,—

There is the Iupiter for me : the Greeks
So name the air. He's wind and cloud, then rain,
From rain turns cold, then once again thin air.
Yes, the same things are Iupiter just because
He helps both mortal crowds and all the beasts1.'

Again, Arnobius makes a hypothetical opponent explain away the
pagan belief in a union between Iupiter and Ceres by saying that
'Iupiter' really means the rain and 'Ceres' the earth—an easy method
of allegorical interpretation, which he goes on to apply to other
cases also2.

ii. Zeus descends in rain to fertilise the earth.

More genuinely Greek is the conception of rain that occurs in a
beautiful passage of Virgil's Georgics. The poet is describing
spring-time:

Spring helps the leafy grove; spring helps the wood ;
Spring makes Earth swell and crave the seeds of birth.
Then the omnipotent sire, the Burning Sky,
Into the bosom of his joyous wife
With fruitful rain comes down, and mightily
Himself commingled with her mighty body
Nurtures all life that thence originates3.

et Ter'*

1 Ennius frag. 507 Bahrens ap. Varr. de ling. Lat. 5. 65 idem hi dei Caelum ^oa£S!X \
Iupiter et Iuno, quod ut ait Ennius: 'istic est is Iupiter quem dico, quern Graeci ^
aerem, qui ventus est et nubes, imber postea, ] atque ex imbre frigus, ventus Pos.' 'sUn'
(Bahrens cj. tenuis post fit aer) denuo. | haec (L. Spengel cj. haece) propter Iup.1 ojjjnjS
ista quae dico tibi, | qua mortalis atque urbes (Bahrens cj. aeque lurbas) beluasqi
iuvat.' The etymon 'Iupiter...qua...iuvat' is untranslatable. ae n°n

2 Arnob. adv. nat. 5. 32 itaque qui dicit: cum sua concubuit Iupp''er n!*vja', pr°
incestas significat aut propudiosas Veneris complexiones, seel Iovem pr° P
tellure Cererem nominat. et qui rursus perhibet lascivias eum exercuisse cum g^oO?
de foedis voluptatibus loquitur, sed pro imbris nomine ponit Iovem, in fdiae sign
sementem. ^ethef

3 Verg. georg. 1. 323 ff. With 325 f. turn pater omnipotens fecundis Itnb" plufi'1"'?
coniugis in gremium laetae descendit cp. eel. 7. 60 Iupiter et laeto descen ^s | ve
imbri. Similarly pervig. Ven. 59 ff. eras erit quom primus Aether copulavit

pater totum creavit vernis annum nubibus: | in sinum maritus imber (it- 4) ^ 0b^°llS
coniugis, | unde fetus mixtus omnis aleret magno corpore—a passage contain
echoes of Virgil.