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)

Baity lot) Baitylia, and Zeus Betylos 887

(b) Baityloi, Baitylia, and Zeus Betylos.

Few terms in the nomenclature of Greek religion have been
more loosely used than the word baitylos. It is so persistently
misapplied to sacred stones in general1 that in 1903 Professor
G. F. Moore2 of Harvard felt constrained to protest against its
indiscriminate employment and quite rightly insisted that baityloi
or baitylia formed a distinct class of holy stones endowed with the
power of self-motion. Yet more than thirty years later Sir Arthur
Evans still strews broadcast his allusions to ' baetylic' pillars and
' baetylic' altars.

Sotakos3, a well-informed lapidarist of the early Hellenistic
age4, states that certain cerauniae, black and round, were sacred.
Towns and fleets could be captured by their means. And they
were called baetuli.

Sanchouniathon of Berytos in his Phoenician history5 had more
to say. Ouranos married his sister Ge and had by her four sons—
Elos called Kronos, Baitylos, Dagon that is Siton, and Atlas6.
Later we read that Ouranos invented baitylia or living stones7.

The qualities of magic potency mentioned by Sotakos and
animation recorded by Sanchouniathon both come out in Photios'
extracts from Damaskios' Life of Isidores6. The Isidores in question

1 On the litholatry of Greeks and Romans see e.g. De Visser De Gr. diis non ref.
spec. hum. pp. 22—30, 36—85, 210—215, P. Gardner in J. Hastings Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics Edinburgh 1920 xi. 86911—87ia, E. Maass 'Heilige Steine' in
the Rhein. Mus. 1929 lxxviii. 1—25, K. Latte in Paulv—Wissowa Real-Enc. iii A.
2295—2305.

2 G. F. Moore 'Baetylia' in the Am.Joum. Arch. 1903 vii. 198—208.

3 Sotakos ap. Plin. nat. hist. 37. 135.

Kind in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. iii A. 1211 ('lebte friihestens im Ausgang des
4- vorchristlichen Jhdts').

6 Supra i. 191, ii. 553, 715, 886 n. o (30), 981 n. 1, 984 11. 4, 1021, 1023, 1037 f.,
"09 n. o. See now the excellent article by Grimme in Paulv—Wissowa Real-Enc. i A.

2232—2244.

0 Philon Bybl./ra^. 2 {Frag. hist. Gr. iii. 567 Muller) ap. Euseb.praep. ev. 1. 10. 16
Tr)j> toO irarpbs (on his father 'EXiow "Ti/wros see supra ii. 886
■ 0 (3°)) &PXV" ayerai irpbs yaixov Trp> a5e\<pi]v Ti]V, Kai iroitirai i£ avrys iraiSas riauapas,
°v T0" Kal Kpbvov, Kal BaiVuW, Kai Airywe (leg. Aaywv') &s &tti Struc (supra i. 238
n- °). Kal "ArXavra.

Philon BybL frag. 2 (Frag. hist. Gr. iii. 568 Muller) ap. Euseb. praep. ev. 1. 10. 23
' <\>t\aiv, e-n-evb-qae 0e6s Oupacds j3airi5Xia, A/tfous e/j.\j/iixovs p.-qxavri&aiJ.evos.

Phot. bibl. p. 342 b 26 ff. and p. 348 a 18 fT. Bekker. The passages are discussed by
• F- Moore ' Baetylia' in the Am. Journ. Arch. 1903 vii. 200 f. and form the subject of
a" '"'cresting paper by F. C. Conybeare 'The Baetul in Damascius' in the Transactions
/ the Third International Congress for the History of Religions Oxford 1908 ii. 177—183.
^ee also T. Hopfner in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. xiii. 757 f. and P. Saintyves Corpus
" FolMore PrihUtoriqut en France et dans les Colonies Francoises Paris 1934 ii. 22 f.