Astrape
Astrape ( ancient Greek Ἀστραπή "lightning") is the personification of lightning in Greek mythology .
term
A myth of the astrape has not been passed down in literature, but Pliny describes a painting by the painter Apelles from the 4th century BC. On which Astrape was personified. Philostratus describes another painting in which Astrape brings Semele to death with a flash of her eyes . Pausanias reports of a cult in Trapezous in Arcadia in memory of the gigantomachy localized there by the population , in the course of which sacrifices were made to the lightning, the storm ( Thyelle ) and the thunder ( Bronte ). Astrape is depicted as a winged being on an Apulian loutrophore .
Otherwise Astrape appears as the name of one of the horses of Helios , which pull the sun chariot across the firmament, as a name that has been handed down in a different version than Sterope. The celestial appearance is also reflected in this interpretation, especially since the demon of the flashing lightning, the Kyklop Steropes or Asteropes, comes from the same name context.
literature
- Konrad Wernicke : Astrape . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 2, Stuttgart 1896, Sp. 1797.
- François Querel : Astrape . In: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). Volume II, Zurich / Munich 1984, p. 928.
Remarks
- ^ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 96.
- ^ Philostratus, maioris imagines 1, 14.
- ↑ Pausanias 8:29 , 1.
- ↑ Arthur D. Trendall : Red-figure vases from southern Italy and Sicily. A manual. Zabern, Mainz 1991, p. 101 fig. 184; Image at theoi.com .
- ↑ Scholion zu Euripides , The Phoenicians 3.
- ^ Hyginus , Fabulae 183.
- ^ Adolf Rapp : Helios . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,2, Leipzig 1890, Col. 2006 f. ( Digitized version ).
- ↑ Kreuzer, Otto Höfer : Steropes . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 4, Leipzig 1915, column 1504 ( digitized version ).