Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

The Tarentine cult of Zeus Kataibdtes 3
identified with the bronze double-axes of 'Minoan' worship'. If
this identification be well founded, it furnishes an important clue
to the nature of the deity represented by the Cretan axes. The
deity in question was, at least in Hellenic Tarentum, regarded as
Zeus Kataibdtes, the god that fell from heaven in the form of a
thunderbolt-.
Tarentum, we gather, was originally an lapygian settlement
later Hellenised by a Lacedaemonian colony^ It is therefore of
interest to recall the fact that from Thalamai i^Koutiphari) in south-
western Lakonike, where the oracle of Pasiphaa'* bespeaks the
influence of Crete, came the fifth-century inscription recording the
apparently chthonian ritual of Zeus Kabdtas^.
In view of H. Usener's" contention that //rcrj- (' borer ' .-•) meant
the lightning, and that Zeus Terdstios of Gythion^ was a lightninggod,
it seems possible** that Tdras the eponymous hero of Tarentum
1 Sir A. J. Evans in the Ann. Brit. Sc/i. Ath. 1900— 1901 vii. 52 ff. fig. 15, id. ib.
1 90 1— 1902 viii. loi ff. figs. 57 ff.
Another point of comparison might be found in the fact that the Messapians, like the
' Minoans,' were great dancers. According to Nikandros ap. Ant. Lib. 31, it was said in
the country of the Messapians that the nymphs known as Epimelides were seen dancing
by the so-called Holy Rocks, that the sons of the Messapians left their flocks and challenged
them to a contest of dancing, that the nymphs won, tliat the lads were changed into trees
beside the sanctuary of the nymphs, and that a
and Lads.'
sound as of mourning is still heard by
night from the wood of the ' Nymphs
2 See further i)if)a § 3 (c) i (f).
3 Liibker Reallex.^ p. 1012, M. Besnier Lexiqne de geographic ancienne Paris 1914
p. 739. See further R. Lorentz Disquisitio de civitate veterum Tareniinoriim Numburgi
1833 p. 35, S. F. W. Hoffmann Grieehenland und die Griechen im Alterthuin Leipzig
184 1 ii. 1930, Doehle Geschichle Tarentsbis aiif seine Unter-werfung unter Rom Strassburg
1877 p. 19 f. , J. Geffcken ' Die Griindung von Tarent ' in the Jahrb. f. Philol. u Pddag.
1895 cxlvii. 177— 192.
* Supra i. 521 f.
•'' Supra
p. 17 f.
^ H. Usener ' Keraunos ' in the Rhein. Mus. 1905 Ix. 12 f. { = id. Kleine Schriften
Leijizig-Berlin 1913 iv. 481).
^ A. Skias in the 'E. 'Apx- 1892 p. 57, Wide Lakon. Kulte p. 370, R. Meister in
CoUitz—Bechtel Gr. Dial.-Insclir. iii. 2. 60 no. 4563, Michel Recueil d'Inscr. gr. no. 760,
Inscr. Gr. Arc. Lac. Mess, i no. 1154 (incised on the wall of a rocky niche at a place
called JleKeK-qTbv beneath the hill Larysion) /xolpa \
Aids
Tepaariq, ' the portion of Zeus
Terdstios.'' The niche is figured in Lebas— Reinach Voyage Arch. p. 32 pi. 25 (plan ib.
p. 32 f pi. 26) and described in detail by R. Weil in the Ath. Mitth. 1876 i. 151 ff. Cp.
Loukian. Tim. 41 cI ZeO TepdcTTie /cat 0i\oi Ko/3i;/3ai'Tes Kai EpfiTJ Kfpdi^e, wodev tocfovtov
Xpvcriov ; Aristeid. or. 4-;. 65 (ii. 86 Dindorf) iiire irpbs Atos repacriov, tL xpv
rip-ds vofxii^eiv ;
''"fp' tovtojv
Theod. Prodr. Rhod. et Dos. 7. 518 Tepdarte Zev, Scholl—Studemund anecd.
i. 265 'ETTi^era At6s no. 96 rtpaarlov, 267 'ETrt^era Atos no. 89 Tepaariov.
" The fact that Taras appears as a quasi-Foieidon (see e.g. Buslepp in Roscher Lex.
Myth. V. 93 ff.) is not fatal to this hypothesis, if Poseidon was originally but a specialised
form of Zeus (i. 717 n. 2, infra § 3 (c) i (17)) and his trident a thunder-weapon (infra § 3 (c)
iv (7)).