Indo-European Poetry and Myth

assume, who laid down these prescriptions and counted as the supreme
authority in matters of ritual.
Various other Indo-Iranian words denoting priests of one sort or another
have apparent European cognates or analogues:

Vedic hótar-= Avestan zaotar-, ‘pourer’ of libations (gˆhéw-tor-); cf. the Thracian
proper name Seuthes; possibly the Messapic name Hazzavoa, -voas.^33
Avestan frabərətar-, ‘bringer’ of offerings (*pro-bher-tor-); Umbrian arsfertur (ars=
‘to’); Messapic tabaras, fem. tabara.^34
Vedic pathikr ́
̇
t- ‘path-maker’ (for communication with the gods), a title applied to
priests; Latin pontifex.^35

Compare also Vedic kaví- and its cognates (Chapter 1, p. 28). These con-
cordances suggest for Mature Indo-European an organized priesthood with
different functions assigned to different ministers.
The wearing of white garments was an ancient and widespread mark of the
sacerdotal office, attested at least for Italic, Celtic, and Germanic priests.^36

The king’s qualities

The king, as we saw, was by etymology a ‘rector’, one who made things go
straight. Sometimes he was described in metaphorical terms as a charioteer or
as the helmsman of a ship, that is, as one who guides a moving conveyance on
the right course. The charioteer image is commonplace in the Rigveda, and
occurs also in the Old Irish gnomic text Audacht Morainn (22), where the
king is advised to be like the driver of an old chariot who uses his expertise
to ensure that the vehicle runs true. The idea of the ruler as a helmsman
(κυβερνητρ) is familiar in Greek; our word ‘govern’ comes from Latin
gubernare, ‘steer’ (a ship), ‘control’, which was a borrowing from the Greek
κυβερν|ν. The same image is expressed in different language when Eteocles
in Aeschylus (Sept. 2 f., cf. 62) speaks of a monarch as ‘plying the tiller at
the city’s stern’,$ν πρ3μνηι πο ́ λεω οAακα νωμ;ν. It appears also in the
Ra ̄ma ̄yan
̇

a: ‘this royal majesty, founded on righteousness, belonged to him,
the great and righteous king. And now it is adrift like a ship on the water
without a helmsman’ (2. 75. 6, cf. 82. 19). Ships and chariots, it will be

(^33) So Ciro Santoro, Nuovi Studi Messapici: Primo Supplemento (Galatina 1984), 172 f.;
id., Archivio storico Pugliese 41 (1988), 96–8. But the etymology of this name is very insecure.
(^34) G. Redard in Studia Indoeuropejskie. Mélanges Jan Safarewicz (Cracow 1974), 191–5;
C. Santoro, Nuovi Studi Messapici, ii (Galatina 1983), 182–6; id., Archivio storico Pugliese 41
(1988), 90 f.; Sergent (1995), 377 f.
(^35) Cf. Campanile (1990b), 121–4.
(^36) Grimm (1883–8), 1315 f.
420 11. King and Hero