Dyer, Thomas Henry: Ancient Athens: Its history, topography, and remains (London, 1873)

ZEUS F'Al'ROUS.

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Boutypi (ftov&ovoi, /3ovtuttoi) ; whilst those who drove the ox were
called Centrisidse (/cevrpidSat,), and those who cut it up, Daitri (Sairpoi).1
With the license of the Attic theatre, Aristophanes sneers at the festival
as very archaic.2

Let us observe here, that the scene of these original ceremonies of
the Zeus worship is on the Acropolis, and there is not a word about the
vast and ancient sanctuary of Zeus, which a recent school of Athenian
topographers pretends to have discovered upon the Pnyx Hill, on the
site of the Ecclesia.

"Whether Zeus ever obtained among the Athenians the surname of
Patrous (7raT/3&)o?) is a disputed point. According to a scholiast on
Aristophanes,3 he got this name not as the progenitor of the Athenians,
as Apollo was sometimes considered, but because they first welcomed
the god, and were the only Hellenes who sacrificed to him according to
their phratrise, demi, and races, or families {avyyeveias). Plato, in a
passage of the' Euthydemus,' also recognizes him in these capacities, but
denies that he was called irarpmo';, but Only ep/cews and (ppdrpios.4
Hence Porson and Lobeck5 have abjudicated this surname from the
Athenian Zeus; the former confining its use to the tragic poets, and
the latter still further restricting it to those who were actually de-
scended from the deity. We must of course bow to the decision of these
great critics; but at the same time we must confess that their ex-
planations of the use of the epithet by Attic writers in other passages
seems hardly satisfactory. Plato himself uses it in a passage in his
' Laws,'6 which Porson sets aside because they are feigned laws
delivered to a fictitious republic. But the book was written for the

1 Schol. Arist. Pac. 418; ISekker, An.
Grac. p. 238 ; Porphyr/loc. cit.

2 dp\ald yf, Kal ALTTvXlajfir} Kal T€Triyo)V

dvdpeara
Kal KrjKciftov Kal fiovifioviuv.—Nub.
984. Cf. ibi schol.

3 JS'ubes, 1470.

4 ovk ZtTTiv, rjv 6' eyo), aurrj rj eirwvvpia
'\wvwv avdevi, ovO itjoi tK Ti]tjhi iroktws
antoKuxpevoi tlttip ov& ripi's, aXXa AnuWcoi'

77aT{)<aos Sta riji/ tov "\q>vos yevectv' Zevs
8' rjplv narpcoos pkv ou KaXflral, ZpKCios fie
Kal (ppdrpius, Kal 'Acfypu (pparpla.—p. 302
(ii. i. 453, Bekk.).

5 Porson, ad Eurip. Med. 1314 ; Lobeck,
Ag'aophamus, p. 770, sq.

c 6 Se pi) dpvicou dpa eVe^to'cta Aioj
opoyviov Kal irarptaov Kara vdpov.—Leg. ix.
p. 881 (iii. iii. 174, Bekk.). C't'. Karaioi-
adijri naTpwnv Am.—Aristoph. Nub. 1468.