speakingfigure, he becomes masculine (Y. 28. 5, 29. 3, etc.). In Greek the god
of war and destruction, Ares, is a masculine related to the feminine qρ ‘ruin,
destruction’ and the neuter Eρο‘damage’. In the Iliad he is attended by two
figures representing fear and panic, Deimos and Phobos; Phobos is the
personification of a noun that is masculine already, while Deimos is
masculinized from the neuter δε4μα.
Sometimes male gods are made out of feminine nouns. The Avestan
femininemazda ̄‘wisdom’ (Y. 40. 1, = Vedic medha ̄ ́) was deified as the mascu-
line Ahura Mazda ̄, ‘Lord Wisdom’. The gods who according to Hesiod make
Zeus’ thunder and lightning, Brontes and Steropes, are masculines made from
the feminine nouns βροντ and στεροπ . Latin cupidofluctuates in gender
as a common noun, but as a god Cupido is male.
Many gods were created for specialized roles and named accordingly,
whether by the above method or by attaching a suffix to the operative word
or forming a compound with it. It has even been maintained that the
Indo-Europeans had only deities of this sort.^57 We cannot go as far as that, but
the type is certainly early, and we can recognize some pervasive patterns of
nomenclature.
Some names have the form of agent nouns built on verbal roots. In the
Veda we have Savitr
̇
, ‘Arouser, Stimulator’, a deity hard to distinguish from
the Sun; Dha ̄tr
̇
, ‘Creator’; Tvas
̇t
̇r
̇,‘Artificer’, the maker of Indra’s weapon and
other articles (= Avestan Θβo ̄rəsˇtar, Y. 29. 6); and a few other minor figures.^58
In Greece we have Alastor, probably ‘Unforgetter’, the demon that pursues
those tainted by blood-guilt, and many titles of Zeus that focus on a single
function, such as UΑγ τωρ,Α1αντ ρ,,Αστραπα ́ τα (Homeric qστεροπητ ),
,Αφκτωρ,Γενν τωρ,= Εκτωρ,Μαιμακτ ρ,Σωτ ρ.^59 Jupiter too has such titles
in plenty: Cultor, Defensor, Depulsor, Inventor, Iutor, Monitor, Pistor, Stator,
Victor, and others. There are many Roman godlets of comparable form.
When the Flamen performed the sacrum cereale for Tellus and Ceres, he
invoked Vervactor, Reparator, Imporcitor, Insitor, Obarator, Occator, Sarritor,
Subruncinator, Messor, Convector, Conditor, and Promitor, all controlling
different stages of the agricultural cycle.^60 There is no single name among all
the above that can be attributed even to a late phase of Indo-European. But
we may assume that this method of creating divine names goes back to early
times.
(^57) Usener (1896), 279; Schrader (1909), 35–7. On such ‘Sondergötter’ see Usener, 75–9
(Roman), 108–15 (Baltic), 122–77 (Greek); Oldenberg (1917), 63, 258 (Indian).
(^58) On all of them see Macdonell (1898), 115–18.
(^59) For these and others see the catalogue of Zeus’ titles in RE xA. 253–376.
(^60) Fabius Pictor fr. 6 in E. Seckel–B. Kuebler, Iurisprudentiae Anteiustinianae Reliquiae,
i.^6 (Leipzig 1908); Usener (1896), 76.
136 3. Gods and Goddesses