Astrape and Bronte

In Greek mythology, Astrape () and Bronte () are personifications of lightning and thunder, respectively.

Iconographic representations

On an Apulian loutrophoros dating to around 330 BC, Astrape stands beside the throne of Zeus bearing the armaments of the sky-god. She also wields a torch and is a crowned with a shining aureole. According to Pliny the Elder, Astrape and Bronte were among the figures depicted by the 4th-century BCE painter Apelles.

The 3rd-century BCE writer Philostratus the Elder, in his Imagines, mentions that the two figures are featured in a painting of the death of Semele:

Literary references

Bronte is mentioned (as , "Thunder") among the figures listed in the proem of the Orphic Hymns, a 2nd- or 3nd-century AD collection of hymns originating from Asia Minor; in spite of this, the collection contains hymns to "Zeus the Thunderbolt" (Zeus Keraunos) and "Zeus of the Lightning" (Zeus Astrapeus) but not "Zeus of the Thunder", with both Thunderbolt and Lightning going unmentioned in the proem. Astrape is also, in a scholium on Euripides, the name of one of the horses of Helios.

Notes

References

• Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow, The Orphic Hymns, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. . Internet Archive.
• Montanari, Franco, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, edited by Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder, Leiden, Brill, 2015. .
• Philostratus the Elder, Imagines, in Philostratus the Elder, Imagines. Philostratus the Younger, Imagines. Callistratus, Descriptions, translated by Arthur Fairbanks, Loeb Classical Library No. 256, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1931. . Harvard University Press. Internet Archive (1926 edition).
• Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Band II, Halbband 2, Stuttgart, J. B. Metzler, 1896. Wikisource.
• Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Band III, Halbband 1, Stuttgart, J. B. Metzler, 1897. Wikisource.
• Ricciardelli, Gabriella, Inni Orfici, Milan, Mondadori, 2000. .

Further reading

• Castro, María Cruz Fernández, "Bronte", in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). III.1: Atherion – Eros, Zürich and Munich, Artemis Verlag, 1986. . Internet Archive.
• Queyrel, François, "Astrape", in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). II.1: Aphrodisias – Athena, Zürich and Munich, Artemis Verlag, 1984. . Internet Archive.

External links