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)

944 General Conclusions with regard to

kokkygiax. The Winds too were not unconnected with Zeus2. Their
guardian Aiolos was one with Aiolos forefather of the Aeolians,
and perhaps began life as a tribal chieftain believed to embody the
sky-god3. Zeus' titles Otirios, tkmeuos, Eudnemos, Boreios afford
more definite proof of his power over the Winds4. A further group
of his epithets—Errhus, Ersaios, Ikmaios, and the like—associates
him with the Dew5. The Errhephoroi were 'Dew-bearers' who
carried dew, conceived as the very seed of the sky-father, down into
the womb of the earth-mother6, while the dew-sisters Aglauros,
Pandrosos, and Herse are best explained as successive names of the
earth-mother herself7. More obvious and constant is the relation of
Zeus to Rain8. Rain-magic is found at several of his cult-centres,
in Arkadia, in Thessaly, on the Akropolis at Athens9. Moreover,
the belief was rife that Zeus descended in rain to fertilise the earth—■
witness the poets in general10 and the myth of Danae in particular11-
His appellatives Ombrios12, Hyetios13, Efyesu, Chaldzios15 speak for
themselves. Lastly, Zeus on occasion let fall a meteorite, a fragment
of the solid sky, or even himself fell in meteoric form16. In which
context we can cite, not only the Syrian Zeus Betylos11 and the
Arabian Zeus Dousdres1*, but also the Laconian Zeus Kappotas
and the stone devoured by Kronos20.

Such in rough outline were the physical foundations of the cult
of Zeus. I have used them throughout as providing a convenient
framework for a somewhat discursive investigation of his worship'
But the more nearly we study these aspects of it, the more clearly
we perceive that they were after all just the ground-plan or lowef
storey of a greater and grander whole. Resting upon them afl°
rising all the time, here a little and there a little, was a structure °^
fresh religious concepts, whose height and breadth—pinnacles 0
individual aspiration and prospects of interracial understanding-"""
were quite without parallel in the pagan world. The fact is that
always and everywhere the cult of a Sky-god21 has proved to be afl

1 Supra iii. 44 ft. 2 Supra iii. 103 ff. 3 Supra iii. 106 ff-

4 Supra iii. 140 ff. 6 Supra iii. 261 ff. 0 Supra iii. 165 ff>

7 Supra iii. 237, 241 ff., 603. 8 Supra iii. 284 ft. 8 ■Supra iii. 314 ff-

10 Supra iii. 451 ff. 11 Supra iii. 455 ff. 12 Supra iii. 525 ff-

13 Supra iii. 561 ff. 14 Supra iii. 873 f. 15 Supra iii. 875 ff-

16 Supra iii. 881 ff. 17 Supra iii. 890 f. 18 Supra iii. 912.

19 Supra iii. 939 ff. 20 Supra iii. 927 ff. ■ s

21 G. Foucart 'Sky and Sky-gods' in J. Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and&, ^
Edinburgh 1920x1. 58ob—$85b, R- Pettazzoni Dio: formazione e sviluppo del moiioW
nella storia delle religioni i VEssere celeste nelle credenze dei popoli primitivi Roma '9^
pp. 1—397 (to be followed by ii // Dio supremo nelle religioni politcisliche and ii> A