Thus Athena Alea is attested before the name Alea Athena disappears. Affinities of
personality encouraged the rapprochement between the two goddesses. Although the
etymology of the name Alea escapes us, it evidently evoked the notion of ‘‘refuge’’
that belonged to Athena in her role as protector by arms. In the role of principal deity
and that of epithet alike, Alea preserves the memory of an archaic deity.
Did an analogous process operate in still earlier times? The most interesting case
is that of Demeter Erinys at Thelpusa (Pausanias 8.25.4–7). The existence of a
Mycenaean deityE-ri-nu, attested twice (Rougemont forthcoming), constitutes an
important indication that an independent goddess Erinys had anciently existed in
Arcadia. Demeter Erinys’ epithet was no longer understood in the age of Pausanias:
by that time it was held to derive from an Arcadian verberinuein, ‘‘cherish one’s
anger,’’ and to refer to the emotions experienced by the goddess after being raped by
Poseidon. However, an independent Erinys is attested by a scholium to Lycophron
(onAlexandraline 1040): ‘‘Thelpusa: a city in Arcadia, where Erinys is worshiped’’
and Tzetzes (Commentary on Lycophron, Alexandraline 153) records that Demeter
had sex with Poseidon ‘‘in the form of an Erinys.’’ The figure of Erinys was therefore
initially distinct from Demeter; it is permissible to believe that the Erinys continued
the Mycenaean goddessE-ri-nuand survived as an epithet of Demeter at Thelpusa
(Jost forthcoming (a)).
The epithets with the most direct connections with the Arcadian land furnished
the greatest number of rare epithets. On the theme of weather, so important for
countrymen, Zeus Storpaos (‘‘Lightning,’’IGv.2 64), worshiped in the fifth century
at Tegea, is otherwise unknown. Zeus Keraunos (‘‘Thunderbolt,’’ IGv.2 288),
attested in the fifth century at Mantinea, is equally unique. Zeus, we should note, is
identified with the physical manifestation of the thunderbolt, as opposed to the
thunderbolt merely being his attribute. In the sphere of fertility and fecundity,
which was fundamental for Arcadia’s agricultural and pastoral economy, Demeter
Melaina at Phigalia (Pausanias 8.42.1–13), Dionysus Auxite ̄s at Heraea (Pausanias
8.26.1), Apollo Kereatas either in the territory of Megalopolis (Pausanias 8.34.5) and
Demeter Kidaria at Pheneos (Pausanias 8.15.1–3) were more authentically indigen-
ous than Artemis Agrotera (Pausanias 8.32.4) or Apollo Nomios (Cicero,On the
Nature of the Gods3.23.57), who were widely known throughout the Greek world.
In the former cases, the Arcadian occurrences are almost without parallel elsewhere.
Sometimes the names are easy to understand, such as that of Dionysus Auxite ̄s, whose
epithet conveys the fecund power of a deity who ‘‘increases’’ the gifts of nature;
sometimes they are unusual, like Apollo Kereatas, the ‘‘Horned,’’ protector of flocks,
who perhaps has a counterpart in Cyprus. We are led to recognize in Demeter
Melaina a goddess ‘‘of the dark,’’ protector of the vegetation and its cycle, by the
combination of the tale in which the goddess put on a black veil and withdrew into a
cave and the vegetable offerings made to her. Her theriomorphic statue with a horse’s
head, recalling her union with Poseidon-as-horse, demonstrates in addition her
affinities with the animal world. The epithet of Demeter Kidaria at Pheneos refers
to the name of a dance and a hairstyle; her ritual, which included a priest dressed in a
mask of the goddess whipping the inhabitants of the underworld with birches,
indicates that she was a vegetation deity (Pausanias 8.15.3; Jost 1985:320–2).
The fields of womanhood and human reproduction gave rise to two distinctive
epithets. Artemis Apanchomene (‘‘Hanged’’) is unique to Kaphyai (Pausanias
The Religious System in Arcadia 271