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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#0557

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Rain of stones

483

UP by earthquakes of the type termed brdstai1. The latter2 held
that they were a sort of beach resulting from the solidification of a
Previous lake. But Aischylos3 in his Prometheus Unbound had
§lven a mythical explanation of the scene, which concerns us more
closely. Prometheus, telling Herakles of the route from the Kau-
kasos to the Hesperides, had said:

Then shalt thou come to the undaunted host

O' the Ligyes, where, fighter as thou art,

Thou shalt have fights enow. For here Fate bids

Thine arrows fail thee; nor shalt thou avail

To get a stone from the ground—the ground is soft.

Howbeit Zeus, in pity for thy plight,

Will send a cloud to cover the whole land

With rounded stones, thick as the snowflakes fall.

These hurling, thou shalt thread that Ligyan host.

The incident appealed to certain astromythologists of the

"enistic age as providing a plausible account of that much-

^lsPuted constellation Engonasin or Ingeniculus4. In the northern

etTllsphere, midway between Lyra and Corona, Draco and Ophiu-

s> appears a male figure on bended knee. The Babylonians had

e<J him Uu kamu, 'the fettered god,' and had regarded him as
One nf +u

UI the seven astral powers called da--ik AN.KI, 'Breakers of
ea\en and Earth5.' It is tempting to suppose that some trans-
jjj Memory of Mesopotamian lore led to the identification of
fa§t Wlth Prometheus chained to the Kaukasos, or again with Ixion
ened to his wheel6. The neighbouring constellation Corona

Aristnr -7

3 Ai h mund° 4- 396 a2 f. - Poseidon, ap. Strab. 182.
*6\eMo/^-/''a,r- 199 Nauc'k2a/. Strab. 183. Cp. Dion. Hal. ant. Rom. 1.

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^Voi^ei( " (rTPa-Teiai>J nal di] KaX Trepl rod AiyvffTiKov 7ro\^uou, ws 01) ppSios 6 ayCiv Herat

On the L'T<1 ^ lroi^fiaTa ^e ^X" k.t.X.
ltl "*e Rev ^unans m general see now the critical survey of A. Berthelot ' Les Ligures'
C^ents j ' *t'f^' '933 ii- 72—120 ('La Ligurie historique'), ib. 245—261 ('Les ante-
a'"b>-e ef jj, 'Sures' including 'A. L'hypothese nordique. Mythologie: Les Ligures,
J^I^303 I'i^ an^ 'B. L'hypothese panitalique. Les Ligures en Italic eentrale'),

4 A. Rei^S.COnjectures toponymiques').

■pls c°nsteliat^ m ?au'5'—Wissowa Real-Enc. v. 2563—2565 devotes a succinct article to
' -^oll Sp/ia^°n' lnc'uding its various names, identifications, descriptions, etc. See also

in I}' A' IeremkL«PZ'S '9°3 PP' IOO~I04 and Index P- 555-

i °Scher .£e ■™ana'l»<ch iter altorientalisc/ien Geisteskultur Leipzig 1913 p. 128, id.
" SritishC']JIyth' iV' 1+88 f'' citinS Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, &>c,
vi 6 ^yg-po'et USeum London 1910 xxvii pi. 45, 22 ff. (K. 4129) omens from births.
M *Un°ni v \ "Str' 2' 6 nunc etiam nonnulli Ixiona brachiis vinctis esse dixerunt, quod
Hols°xi>n adferre; alii Promethea in monte Caucaso vinctum, schol. Arat.
P°l")8ia ~Myovi?iv...Tii>is di 'I^oca airbv \iyovaiv elvai.
 
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