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)

506

Rain of food

which began as a serious attempt to climb up into heaven and share
the food of the gods, should end as a comic failure to carry off the
coveted ham.

iv. Pyre-extinguishing rain.

On sundry occasions Zeus by means of a timely rain extinguished
a pyre and saved the life of a victim.

A case in point is furnished by the myth of Alkmene, at least
in its later and fully developed form. The Homeric Nekyia includes
among the list of dead heroines Alkmene, the wife of Amphitryon
who became by Zeus the mother of lion-hearted Herakles1. ^n
excerpt from the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, now serving aS
proem to the Shield of Herakles2, gives further detail3. Amphitry°n
might not consort with his wife till he had avenged the death of
brothers, who had been slain by the cattle-raiding Taphians a
Teleboans. Meantime Zeus quitted Olympos, and came by wa^, g
Typhaonion (the mountain of Typhon4) and the top of Phikion I
mountain of the Sphinx5) to Thebes, where he lay with Alk*11611
The self-same night Amphitryon returned from the fighting, a^
likewise consorted with his wife. Thereafter she bore twins, Heiak^
the stronger to immortal Zeus, Iphikles the weaker to m01
Amphitryon. jjg

Thus far the myth is a typical tale of Boeotian6 twins. ^
extra birth, abnormal and hard to understand, was regarded as ,
to the action of some god7. And since Amphitryon as King ^ ^
in a special relation to Zeus8 and even bore a name suS&estlV<^,as
the lightning9, it was natural to assume that the god in cluestl0r\j.iat
Zeus, and to view the superior twin as his son, the inferior aS
of the human father.

1 Od. ii. 266 ff. „ TeTijrrf

- Hes. sc. Her. argum. A p. 101, 1 f. Rzach ttjs 'Acnrldos r\ apx*l T*^/S»##*
KttTaKdytp tpiperai fitxp1 <rrlxb>v Kai Sf.i See W. Christ Geschichte dtr P ^
Litteratur6 Miinchen 1912 i. 125, A. Rzach in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. VJU- _
3 Hes. sc. Her. 1—56. 4 Cp. Hesych. Tvtplov- °P0S ^ ^ Jl- V

5 Apollod. 3. 5. 8, Steph. Byz. s.v. Wkuop, Hesych. s.v. Qiiaov, Tzetz. »'» ^ jtfeis"1'
1465. On <t>ii|, acc. *fra (Hes. theog. 326), as the Boeotian form of S^yf see

Die griechischen Dialekte Gottingen 1882 i. 267. ;s rig'1''^

6 The Boeotian character of the Nikyia and of the Catalogue of TVo'"^'
emphasised by J. A. K. Thomson Studies in the Odyssey Oxford 1914 P- 34 g_ 5. W"'

7 J. Rendel Harris The Cult of the Heavenly Twins Cambridge 1906 p- 7> 'ga'".
land in J. Hastings Encyclopcedia of Religion and Ethics Edinburgh 1921 xl •

8 Supra ii. 1074, 1088. th-Pal''1'i

9 Supra ii. 1072. Christodoros' expression ' kfMpnpbuv 8' rjo-Tpairrev {An
is a coincidence, but no more.

10 Supra ii. 445 ff.