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 loi, Baity Ha ^ and Zeus Bety/os 889

a wall; for this was the means by which it gave the enquirer his desired
response, uttering a low hissing sound, which Eusebios interpreted.

After detailing these marvels and many others even more remarkable
concerning the baitylos, this empty-headed fellow continues: " I thought the
whole business of the baitylos savoured of some god ; but Isidores ascribed it
rather to a daimon. There was, he said, a daimon who moved it—not one of
the harmful nor of the over-material kind, yet not of those either that have
attained to the immaterial kind nor of those that are altogether pure." He adds
in his blasphemous way that different baityloi are dedicated to different deities—
Kronos, Zeus, Helios, etc'

At this point codex A, the Venetian manuscript of Photios1,
appends a marginal note, which is worth translating.

' I too,' says the annotator, 'have heard of a daimonion of this sort in Greece.
The people who live there told me that it appeared in the neighbourhood of
Parnassos2. They recounted other things concerning it even more singular,
which deserve to be passed over in silence and not set forth.'

From Kefr-Nebo near Aleppo came a dedication, dated 223 A.D.,
'to Seimios and Symbetylos and Leon3.' Since the Syrian god
Seimios appears to have had a consort variously spelled Seimia,
Semea, Si ma* it is possible that she is here designated by a Greek
aPpellative Symbetylos meaning ' Partner in his Baitylos*.' But the
Papyri of Elephantine in the fifth century B.C. repeatedly unite two
divine names in a compound of which the second element is Bethel,
e-g. 'Anathbethel, Ishumbethel, Herembethel*. It may be, therefore,
that we have here a late Syrian parallel to the older formation, and
that—as O. Eissfeldt7 suggests—Symbetylos actually represents
the Ishumbethel of Elephantine. In which case the first element
Sym- would stand for the Babylonian fire-god Ishum. But Professor

found near the valley of Virana a very ancient stone fallen miraculously from the sky.

was a ' ctraunio' of planispherical shape, four ounces in weight, and milky white in
Co|our. Sundry lines like little veins of cinnabar made raised letters on its surface and
Were read by the learned as D .DE . SVPER on one side of the stone and IPRIO on the
other. To this apparent inscription some magical meaning was attached.

'Codex ohm Bessarioneus, nunc inter Venetos S. Marci 450, membranaceus,' s. x.

The mention of Parnassos suggests that this curious note may contain a Byzantine
reunniscence of the stone of Kronos, which was set up 71/0X015 Oiro Uapv-rjcrolo (Hes. theog.
499) and is often called baitylos (infra p. 936 n. 4). But the whole district was, and is,
8r°ssly superstitious. For the beliefs of the peasants at Arachova beneath Parnassos see
s"pra ii. 5o5 n. 6i 993 n- 2,

Supra i. 571 n. 2. * Supra ii. 814 n. 3.

So R. Dussaud in the Rev. Arch. 1904 ii. 257, O. Hofer in Roscher Lex. Myth.
»■ 601, E. Meyer Der Papyrusfund von Elephantine- Leipzig 1912 p. 58 n. 2.
P- M. Lidzbarski Ephemeris fiir semitische Epigraphik Giessen 1908 ii. 323 f., 1915 iii.
47 ('Der Name dieser Gottin ist nicht angegeben, aber da neben ihr noch ein \iuv
genannt ist, kann es die 'Anat sein, deren Tier der Lowe ist').

^ A. Cowley Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. Oxford 1923 p. xviii f.
O. Eissfeldt 'Der Gott Bethel' in the Archivf. Rel. 1930 xxviii. 20—22.