Zeus

Use in the book

At 109d Alcibiades takes the request for a teacher of justice as mockery. Socrates swears by the god of friendship shared by both of them that he is serious. The oath makes the erotic and friendly relationship support the demand for an answer, even while the exchange retains its teasing tone. Later Zeus is the endpoint of competing pedigrees: Perseus, Eurysaces and Hephaestus provide different routes to the same divine ancestor. The effect is partly comic, since Socrates can match an aristocrat’s ultimate ancestry while denying that the two Athenians have the continuous royal status of their opponents. Ordinary invocations such as “by Zeus” and “for Zeus’ sake” should be distinguished from these substantial genealogical uses, and from the less specifically named god associated with Socrates’ sign.

Places to read

1. 109dSocrates swears by the shared god of friendship.
2. 120e–121aRoyal and Athenian genealogies converge on Zeus.
3. 129bAn appeal for attention invokes Zeus.

Translation in this edition

The edition renders Φίλιος by the explanatory “god of Friendship.” At 129b πρὸς Διός is an appeal, not the same construction as the oath with μά. The dialogue does not identify every occurrence of “the god” as Zeus.

Ζεύς

Attested: Δία (dia; 121a); Διὸς (dios; 120e). Zeus, the divine ancestor in the competing pedigrees; also invoked in oaths and appeals elsewhere. Lexical identification: lemma: Ζεύς. See Zeus and Zeus of Friendship.

Φίλιος

Attested: τὸν Φίλιον (ton philion; 109d). Of friendship: the epithet of the god by whom Socrates denies he is merely teasing. Lexical identification: lemma: Φίλιος. See Zeus and Zeus of Friendship.

Use in the book

The casual appeals by Zeus or for Zeus’ sake belong to the texture of conversation and should not all be treated as the substantive petition under examination. Alcibiades invokes Zeus even in asking Socrates to speak auspiciously. That setting makes the difference between formulaic religious language and informed judgement about a request especially visible.

The Odyssey quotation at 142d–142e gives Zeus’ complaint that humans blame the gods for the troubles their own recklessness brings upon them. Socrates inserts unintelligence as an alternative description. The adaptation directs the inherited accusation of human responsibility toward the dialogue’s epistemic account, without reproducing the full Homeric narrative surrounding the speech.

The prayer to King Zeus at 143a requests good things whether the speakers ask or do not ask, and protection from damaging things even when asked. Zeus is approached as able to separate the good from the defective petition. This guarded form of asking does not demand a specified office, child or possession; it acknowledges the possibility that the worshipper’s desired object is wrongly judged.

Ammon is identified as Zeus Ammon in the edition’s note. That background does not establish that the unnamed god of Alcibiades’ opening errand is Zeus. Different textual roles must be retained: conversational invocation, epic speaker, addressee of a quoted prayer and externally identified oracle-deity.

Places to read

1. 138bA conversational appeal to Zeus precedes the question about divine giving.
2. 142d–143aZeus’ Homeric complaint and the poet’s petition form complementary accounts of human error.
3. 143dAlcibiades invokes Zeus while objecting to the mention of matricide.
4. 148bThe earlier poet’s request that Zeus ward off harmful things is recalled.

Translation in this edition

Note 13 locates the speech at Odyssey 1.32–34 and identifies unintelligence as Socrates’ own addition. Notes 14 and 31 distinguish Burnet’s deila, wretched things, from the principal manuscripts’ deina and other witnesses’ lygra. The edition translates King Zeus without adding our.

Use in the book

In the root announcement, Zeus' brightness naturally invites comparison with fire and the sun. The introduction describes the familiar identification Zeus–fire, but also a modern interpretation which takes Zeus as air or aither and assigns fire elsewhere. The verse itself does not finish the argument for either. “Shining” is significant evidence, not a complete lexical equation.

B 1282 supplies a different setting. The people described there recognise Cypris as queen, with no Zeus as king among them. This is an account of divine rule and worship in a particular order of life, not an explicit denial that the root named Zeus in B 6 exists. A term can bear cosmological and cultic force without every use being mechanically interchangeable.

B 142 sets Zeus' roofed halls alongside the roof of Hades in a very damaged exclusion statement. The identity and fate of its subject cannot be fully recovered from the printed lines. The fragment consequently supports the cosmic reach of the divine contrast more securely than it supports any precise map of the roots.

Places to read

1. B 6.2Shining Zeus is the first divine name in the four-root list.
2. B 128.1–3Zeus as king is absent from the order ruled by Cypris.
3. B 142The damaged quotation contrasts the halls of Zeus and the roof of Hades.
4. Introduction V (editorial discussion)The Zeus–fire mapping and a Zeus–air/aither alternative are discussed in modern apparatus.

Translation in this edition

Keeping “Zeus” avoids deciding a disputed mapping inside the translation. The introduction's survey is not itself a fragment, and its assessment of a modern interpretation must not be presented as ancient unanimity.

Use in the book

The reports agree more closely on Zeus than on Hera and Aidoneus. Hippolytus states simply that Zeus is fire, as does Diogenes’ summary. Aëtius and the Homeric Allegories instead speak of ζέσις, boiling heat, together with aither. The English translation of Aëtius smooths this to “fire and aither,” while the parallel translation retains “boiling heat.” That lexical difference matters: a divine-name gloss can draw on a perceived quality or activity as well as on an enumerated material.

The relative agreement supports giving Zeus a distinct entry, but it should not be inflated into a complete theological identification. A332 does not preserve an explanation by Empedocles of why Zeus bears this name, nor does it authorize treating every traditional action of Zeus as a coded statement about fire. The name’s significance in the fourfold invocation is also collective: it belongs beside Hera, Aidoneus and Nestis, whose contested mapping exposes the interpretative work done by the prose witnesses.

Places to read

1. A 33 (testimony)2Aëtius I 3,20; Homeric Allegories, in Stobaeus. Glosses Zeus by boiling heat and aither, using language more specific than the English “fire” alone.
2. A 33 (testimony)2Hippolytus, Refutatio VII 29. Identifies Zeus directly with fire.
3. A 1 §§ 76–77 (testimony)Diogenes Laertius VIII 76. Pairs the abbreviated root quotation with the identification Zeus–fire.

Translation in this edition

B6 is abbreviated rather than printed in full at these places. Do not supplement the entry with unprinted epithets as though they occur in this volume’s ancient quotation.