Chapter XLIII: Appendix: I

In many legends death by _lightning_ makes the victim holy and raises him to godlike (everlasting) life. We need only remember the story of Semele who now ~zô/ei en Olumpi/ois apothanoi=sa bro/mô| keraunou=~ (Pi., _O._ ii, 27), or that of Herakles and his vanishing from the pyre of wood lighted by Zeus' flash of lightning (see partic. D.S. 4, 38, 4-5), or the parallel accounts of the translation or death by lightning of Erechtheus (above, chap. iii, n. 39). The primitive, popular belief finds unusually clear expression in the words of Charax ap. Anon. _de Incred._ xvi, p. 325, 5 ff. West., who says of Semele, ~keraunou= kataskê/psantos êphani/sthê; ekei/nên me\n ou=n, _hopoi=a epi\ toi=s dioblê/tois le/getai, thei/as moi/ras lachei=n ô|ê/thêsan_~. (In this account Semele is _immediately_ raised to heaven by the flash of lightning--a version of the story frequently given by later authors: ~Zeu\s tê\n Seme/lên ek tê=s gê=s eis to\n O/lumpon komi/zei dia\ puro/s~, Aristid. 1, p. 47 Dind. [_O._ 41, 3 K.]. Cf. Philostr., _Imag._ i, 14; Nonnus, _D._ viii, 409 ff. The passage of Pindar quoted above would also admit of a similar interpretation.) Generally speaking, ~ho keraunôthei\s hôs theo\s tima=tai~ (Artem. 2, 9, p. 94, 26) as one ~hupo\ Dio\s tetimême/nos~ (ib. 93, 24). The belief in such elevation of a mortal through the disruption and purification of his body by the sacred fire of lightning (a ~pu=r katha/rsion~ of the highest kind--see chap. i, n. 41) need not be of late origin simply because it so happens that only late authorities speak of it in unmistakable terms (as Wilamowitz thinks, _Ind. Schol. Götting. hib._ 1895, pp. 12-13). Such lofty conceptions were by this time no longer the product of popular imagination. Besides, it is quite clearly referred to in the above-mentioned story of Semele (see esp. D.S. 5, 52, 2) and in those of Herakles, Erechtheus, Asklepios. In the same way lightning struck the tomb of Lykourgos (as afterwards that of Euripides) as ~theophile/statos kai\ hosiô/tatos~ (Plu., _Lyc._ 31). When the statues of the Olympic victor Euthymos at Locri and Olympia are struck by lightning it shows that he has become a Hero: Pliny, _NH._ vii, 152. The body of the person struck by lightning remains uncorruptible: dogs and birds of prey dare not touch it: Plu., _Smp._ 4, 2, 3, p. 665 B; it must be buried in the place where the lightning struck it (Artem., p. 95, 6; cf. Fest., p. 178b, 21 ff.; Plin., _NH._ ii, 145). Every detail shows plainly that the ~dio/blêtos~ was regarded as holy. This, however, does not prevent death by lightning from being regarded on other occasions as the punishment of crime--as in the cases of Salmoneus, Kapaneus, etc.; though in some even of these cases the idea is occasionally present that the lightning's victim is raised to a higher existence. This is distinctly so when Euripides in _Suppl._ makes a character call Kapaneus, who has been killed by lightning, a ~_hiero\s_ nekro/s~ (935) and his ~tu/mbos~ (_rogus_) ~hiero/s~ too (981). ~hiero/s~ never means {582} "accursed" like the Lat. _sacer_: it is invariably a title of honour. Kapaneus is here called "holy" just as Astakides, on his translation to everlasting life, is ~hiero/s~ in Kallimachos; and as Hesiod speaks of the ~hiero\n ge/nos athana/tôn~ (with ~tu/mbos hiero/s~ cf. S., _OC._ 1545, 1763). We must not fail to observe that in this passage, where a friend of Kap. is supposed to be speaking, the latter is certainly not regarded by Eurip. as an impious person (as he is generally in Tragedy, and by Eurip. himself in _Phoen._, and even in _Suppl._ the enemy so regards him (496 ff.), though acc. to this speaker Amphiaraos too is snatched away in atonement for his crime). Euripides in fact makes him highly praised by Adrastos (861 ff.) as the very opposite of a ~hubristê/s~; and it is obvious that Euadne's sacrifice of her life which immediately follows is not intended to be offered for the benefit of a criminal and enemy of the gods. For these reasons Euripides ennobles the character of Kapaneus and, consequently, the death of the Hero by lightning can no longer stand for his punishment, but is on the contrary a distinction. He becomes a ~_hiero\s_ nekro/s~. This, however, could not have been done by Eurip. unless the view that such a death might in certain circumstances bring honour on the victim and elevate him to a higher plane of being, had been at that time widespread and generally recognized. Eurip. therefore provides the most distinct evidence for the existence of such a belief in his time. (As one of the exalted dead Kapaneus is to be separated from the rest of the dead and burnt ~par' oi/kous tou/sde~: 935, 936, 1009--i.e. before the ~ana/ktoron~ of the Goddesses at Eleusis: 88, 290.)--Finally Asklepios, in all the stories that are told of his death by lightning (and already in Hes. _fr._ 109 Rz.), is never regarded as entirely removed from this life: he lives on as Hero or god for all time, dispensing blessings. Zeus allows him to live on for ever immortal (Luc., _DD._ 13), and acc. to later versions of the story, in the constellation Ophiuchus (Eratosth. ~katast.~ 6; Hygin., _Astron_, ii, 14); the real and primitive conception evidently being that he was transported to everlasting life by Zeus' lightning-flash. So Min. Fel. 22, 7, says quite rightly: Aesculapius, ut in deum surgat, fulminatur.