Indo-European Poetry and Myth

Ahurahe Mazdå ... mazisˇtaheca vahisˇtaheca srae ̄sˇtaheca xraozˇdisˇtaheca
xraθβisˇtaheca hukərəptəmaheca asˇ
̇

a ̄t

̃

apano ̄təmaheca, ‘for Ahura Mazda ̄ the
greatest and best and most beautiful and firmest and wisest and best-formed
from truth and highest’. More modest aggregations appear in RV 1. 161. 1
s ́rés
̇

t

̇

hah

̇

... yávis

̇

t

̇

hah

̇

, ‘the most beautiful... the youngest’ (Agni); 2. 6. 6
yávis
̇

t

̇

ha... yájis

̇

t

̇

ha, ‘(O Agni) youngest... most reverent’;Il. 2. 412 Ζευ



κ3διστε μγιστε, ‘(O) Zeus most glorious (and) greatest’, where μγιστο
corresponds to the Avestan mazisˇta-; 19. 258 θε;ν πατο κα? Eριστο,
‘(Zeus) the highest and best of the gods’ and in the Romans’ Iuppiter Optimus
Maximus. Artemis is καλλστη (Eur. Hipp. 66, 70), and so is Aphrodite
(Eur. Hel. 1348, al.).

Relations with mankind

Although certain individual deities are charged with the supervision of
justice, contracts, and so on, in general the Indo-European gods do not have
an ethical character. The essential thing about them is their power, which they
can exercise at their pleasure. It is therefore important to have them as
friends.^35 In Hittite ritual the priest prayed ‘May the Tabarna, the king, be dear
to the gods!’^36 The Indian prayer priyó deva ̄ ́na ̄m
̇

bhu ̄ya ̄sam, ‘may I be the gods’
friend’ (AV 17. 1. 2), or priyám ma ̄ kr
̇

n

̇

u devés

̇

u, ‘make me a friend among the
gods’ (19. 62. 1), would have seemed quite normal to the Greeks. Compare
Theognis 653, ‘May I be of good fortune (ε1-δαμων) and dear to the
immortal gods’; Pindar fr. 155, ‘What can I do to be dear to you, strong-
thundering son of Kronos, and dear to the Muses?’; Euripides fr. 800. 2, ‘may
I never be anything but dear to the gods’. In the epics Hector and others
are characterized as ‘dear to the gods’; kings are ‘dear to Zeus’, warriors ‘dear
to Ares’. People were given names such as Diphilos and Herophilos, ‘dear to
Zeus’, ‘dear to Hera’. These have parallels in Germanic and Slavonic names
such as Oswini ‘God’s friend’, Serbian Bogoljub, Polish Bogumil, etc.^37 In the
Sigurðarkviða (24. 7) Sigurd is called Freys vinr, ‘Freyr’s friend’. Conversely
certain persons were held to be hated by a god or the gods, or temporarily to
be the object of their anger, and to suffer in consequence.^38

(^35) Cf. Oldenberg (1917), 292, of the Vedic picture, ‘das Bild der Götter im allgemeinen trägt
ethische Züge doch nur oberflächlich an sich. Für das religiöse Bewußtsein ist es das Wesent-
liche, daß der Gott ein starker Freund ist.’
(^36) CTH 537. 1 obv. 2 f. Near Eastern kings regularly styled themselves ‘beloved of the gods’, or
more often of a particular god: West (1997), 130 f.
(^37) Cf. Grimm (1883–8), 93, 211; Schramm (1957), 32 f., 71.
(^38) Grimm (1883–8), 18–20 and 137, collects Germanic examples; see also West (1997), 124–8.
130 3. Gods and Goddesses