Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

i^.
Zeus Kataibdtes
a learned treatise cited most of the evidence both Hterary and
monumental, and triumphantly demonstrated the essential connexion
of the title Kataibdtes with the lightning-cults of the ancient
worlds
The question has, however, been reopened of late by O. Gruppe,
who propounds a wholly fresh solution of the problem^ Kataibdtes—
we are to suppose—was originally the name of an ancient deity
dwelling in the depths of the earth and invoked by those who
hence he came to
desired to conjure up rainy or stormy weather :
be compared with Zeus the lightning-god, and was ultimately
regarded as himself the hurler of the thunderbolt. In other words,
a subterranean Kataibdtes preceded the celestial Zeus Kataibdtes.
In support of this suggestion, Gruppe points out that a Cilician
inscription of the second century A.D. mentions ' the god Kataibdtes
and Phersephone ' together^ ; that in Rhodes and at Athens,
according to a scholiast on Aristophanes, Hermes was not only
Chthonios but also Kataibdtes"^ ; that the same epithet is applied to
the river Acheron^ ; and that katabdsion was a word used of an
underground cavern or chasm at Eleusis", Lebadeia'', Aigialos^,
Hierapolis in Phrygian etc.^" Indeed, it cannot be denied that the
title Kataibdtes would be perfectly appropriate to any deity who
descended into the underworld. Nevertheless, it will be observed
that the only direct evidence for Kataibdtes as a separate chthonian
divinity is a Cilician inscription of Roman date, whereas the light-
ning-flash of Zeus is called kataibdtes by Aischylos as early as
467-458 B.C." Zeus Kataibdtes himself appears in Greek literature
^ The letter of E. Holthenus (Trajecti ad Rhenum pridie Id. Maj. mdcxcix) is
reprinted from the Bibliotheca novoruvi librorum 1699 P- 344 ^n the second edition of
P. Burmannus Vectigalia popuH Romani el Z€i>s Karat/SciTj;? Leidae 1734 p. 217 ff.
Holthenus had relied on Ov. tiwt. i. 211 ff., ih. 2^oL, fast. 3. 327 ff.
2 Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 148 n. 3, p. 810, p. 11 11 n. 3, p. 1677.
^ L. Deubner in the Ath. Mitth. 1902 xxvii. 263 cites an imperfectly deciphered
inscription over a rock-cut tomb in a mountain behind Anazarba (Journ. Hell. Stud. 1890
xi. 239), line 5 reading diov Karai^drov Kal ^ep(7e