Hostname: page-component-6898cfcb55-cbk24 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-11T04:23:50.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Tablets of Zeus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Friedrich Solmsen
Affiliation:
Cornell University

Extract

Professor Fraenkel in his recent very illuminating article on ‘The Stars in the Prologue of the Rudens’ (C.Q. xxxvi. 10 ff.) has explained how a Greek poet at the end of the fourth century could describe the stars as the messengers of Zeus and as his regular and, so to speak, professional informants on the sins and evil deeds of human beings. He also comments on the idea that the sins are recorded in Heaven (eorum referimus nomina exscripta ad Iovem) and says—rightly as I hope to show—that this idea ‘though more familiar to us from Semitic sources is a genuine Hellenic belief’. Following Friedrich Marx, he quotes a fragment from Euripides' Melanippe (506 N.2).

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1944

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable