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)

874 Zeus Hyes

accentuated Hyes1) means Zeus Ombrios, 'the Showery2.' Hesy-
chios, a trustworthy source, unfortunately omits to mention the
locality where Zeus was called Hyes. But in the preceding gloss
he states that Hye was a name given to Semele 'from the rain3.'
And Hye as a name for Semele is attested by Pherekydes as early
as the fifth century B.C.4 It is therefore tolerably certain that Hyes
and Hye5 (perhaps Hyes and Hye) were Thraco-Phrygian appel-
latives of the sky-god whom the Greeks named Zeus and of the
earth-goddess whom they named Semele. The one rained, the
other was rained upon.

But if this divine pair was really Thraco-Phrygian, we should
expect them, in accordance with Thraco-Phrygian belief6, to have
had a son bearing the same name and evincing the same nature
as his father. And that is precisely what happened. Dionysos—as
we have already had occasion to note7—was called Hyes, a name
variously explained by the ancients from Kleidemos8 (c. 350 B.C.9)
onwards, but always in allusion to rain10. When Aischines, grown
to manhood, capered through the streets, with a posse of Sabazian
revellers behind him, shouting

' Hyes Attes, Attes Hyes u,'

he was, I take it12, much like the mystics of Eleusis13, raising
old-world cry

' Rain Father14, Father Rain,'
not, as Sir James Frazer15 conjectures, calling Attis a Pig!

1 Herodian. nepl KaSo\iK7js irpo<iu>5ia,s 3 (i. 59, 20 f. Lentz) to 8e 'Ttjs irepio-rrarat lX°
to v uxrirep Kal to Qvrjs, Kvtjs i'o"ocri/\Xd/5cjs K\u>6p.eva.

2 Supra p. 525 ff.

3 Hesych. 'T17- t\ Se^Xt; airo ttjs (8)<rews. Kal he SeM (an leg. hi' aireiXrj} cp. SoMa'
he- airetXij f3pa8vv6vTwv Kal avotyvvvai Ke\ev6vTbiv. W. Dindorf in Stephanus Thes. G''
Ling. viii. 66 c doubts the connexion).

4 Pherekyd. frag. 46 {Frag. hist. Gr. i. 84 Miiller) =frag. 90 a—e (Frag. gr. ffis '
i. 84 f. Jacoby). Supra ii. 274 f.

5 H. Usener in his discussion of Sondergotter was the first to distinguish this priniit^e
pair of rain-deities as"T7;s, "Trj (Gottemamen Bonn 1896 p. 46 f.).

6 Supra ii. 287 f. 7 Supra ii. 275'

8 Kleidemos frag. 2 (Tresp Frag. gr. Kultschr. p. 42 f.) quoted supra ii. 275 n. I1,

9 F. Jacoby in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. xi. 591. 10 Supra ii. 275'

11 Dem. de cor. 260. F. Blass ed.4 (cited supra i. 392 n. 4, ii. 292 n. 3) reads vrjs &i'
aTT7]s V7js. But J. G. Baiter and H. Sauppe print u^s H.ttt)s &ttt)s 1)175 without recoi
variant. j

12 My explanation was long since anticipated by Michael Psellos (supra ii. V)'1) *.
tGjv dvo/idTuiv tG>v SikGiv p. 109 Boissonade (quoted supra i. 399 n. 3, cp. O. Jesse'1
Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. ix. 88 vis w Zed 2a/3dfte, Sis 'du mdgest regnen')

13 Supra p. 299. 14 Supra ii. 29
15 Frazer Golden Bough*: Spirits of Corn and Wild ii. 22 ' Perhaps the cry

92 f-