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)

8y6

Zeus and the Hail

28. 77 Hailstorms and whirlwinds, they say, are driven off if the

monthly course be exposed to the actual lightning-flashes.

Thus the violence of the sky is averted, and storms at sea

even without the courses.
37. 124 It is said too that this stone (sc. the amethyst) averts hail,

and locusts likewise if a prayer be added, which they show

you.

More explicit are the directions given by the Geoponika1, a
farmer's handbook, which devotes two chapters to the subject:
1. 14 Concerning Hail. By Africanus2.

1. Let a woman in her courses exhibit her person to hail, and she turns it
aside. All wild animals too flee such a sight3.

2. Or take a virgin's first cloth and bury it in the midst of the place, and
neither vine nor seeds will be injured by hail4.

3. And if a strap from the skin of a seal be hung from a single conspicuous
vine, hail will do no damage, as Philostratos observes in his Heroikdsb.

4. Some say that, if you show a mirror to the impending cloud, the hail
will pass by6.

1 This collection of excerpts on agriculture, made at the bidding of the Byzantine
emperor Constantinus vii Porphyrogennetos (912—959 a.d.), was based on an older
compilation by Cassianus Bassus, a sixth-century scholar, who himself drew from two
fourth-century sources, the comparatively rational and scientific avvayayi) yeojpyiK&v
ewLTridev^dTav by Vindonius Anatolius of Berytos, and the more magical and mystical
irepl yewpylas iic\oyal by the younger Didymos of Alexandreia (see K. Krumbacher
Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur- Miinchen 1897 pp. 261—263, L. Cohn in
Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. iv. 1036, E. Oder id. vii. 1221— 1225, W. von Christ Geschichte
dergriechischen Litteratur6 Miinchen 1920 ii. r. 291 f.).

2 From the kcvtoI of Sex. Iulius Africanus (W. Kroll in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc-
x. 119), to be dated c. 200 a.d. (supra ii. 695 n. o).

3 E. Fehrle in Alemannia 1912 Dritte Folge iv. 15 cites Plm. nat. hist. 28. 77 (supra
p. 876).

4 E. Fehrle ib. cites Plout. symp. 7. 2. 2 olov t'56/cei to irepl ttjk xaXafco' eTvai tt\v viro
Xa\a^o(pv\dKojf dipLari avirdXaKos 7} paKLOts yvvatKelois d-KOTpeKop.kvy]v.

Fehrle in 2T0IXEIA iii. 7 remarks that two manuscripts, a cod. Guelferbytanus
and a cod. Palatinus in the Vatican, in place of the indecent recipes (1) and (2) substitute
the following: (1) evpihv \L80v xaXa^lrrji' (cp. Plin. nat. hist. 37. 189), l%€- Ka' ^Ta"
rr\v xaka^av, Kpovaov avrbv p.era fftdTjpov dir^vavn, Kal diroffTpa<pT]o'eTO.i. (2) Kal aeT°v
TTTepbv to Se^ibv \af3uiv p.e<rov rod xuplov x^0"' Kal otire T] &/j.ire\os ovre rd airipp-aTO,
XaAa^T/s dSiKTjdrjo-eTai.

6 E. Fehrle in Alemantiia 1912 Dritte Folge iv. 16 f. was the first to point out tba
for Qi\6o-TpaTos ef rip laropiKip codd. we must read tJ>tX6o"rparos ev rep rjpwiKip, the allusio'1
being to Philostr. her. 3. 25 (Palamedes to the peasant) ' tri> 5' iireiSri 0tXe?s irov r<t!
ap.7re\ovs, eiiri /tot, rl /xaXicrra irepl avrats de'Soinas.' 'rl d' aXXo 7',' direv, ' f) rds ^aXaf05'
v<j> wj> €KTv<p>\ovvTai re Kal prjyvvPTai;' ' IpL&vra rolvvv,' eTirev 6 liaXa^TjST/s, ' irapi
yiup rCjv ap.irt'Xtiii' kou ^efiXijaovraL al 'Xocirat.'

Pallad. 1. 35. 15 item vituli marini pellis in medio vinearum loco uni superiec a
viticulae creditur contra imminens malum (sc. grandinis) totius vineae membra vestisse-

6 Pallad. 1. 35. 15 nonnulli ubi instare malum (sc. grandinis) viderint, oblato sped1
imaginem nubis accipiunt et hoc remedio nubem (seu ut sibi obiccta displiceat, se
tanquam geminata alteri cedat) avertunt. 1