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Aleuas and Alea

Grace Harriet Macurdy

The Classical Quarterly / Volume 13 / Issue 3-4 / July 1919, pp 170 - 171 DOI: 10.1017/S0009838800013690, Published online: 11 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009838800013690

How to cite this article: Grace Harriet Macurdy (1919). Aleuas and Alea. The Classical Quarterly, 13, pp 170-171 doi:10.1017/S0009838800013690

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THE significance of the name of the goddess worshipped at Mantinea and at Tegea, Athena Alea, is correctly interpreted by M. Fougeres in B.C.H. 16 (1892), p. 573. " Alea Athena," he says, " signifie la de^sse A16a, qui ressemble a Athena. Par cette addition on a voulu marquer les rapports entre la de6sse Protectrice d'Arcadie et la deesse tutelaire d'Athenes." He calls attention to the fact that in the language* of Homer and Hesiod the Greek word akia denotes ' la protection qui eloigne le mal.' The appellation of the goddess is derived from the root seen in the verb aXev(o, ' ward off, keep far away,' seen also in the middle akeo/xai, ' avoid, shun.' The verb in the active is used several times by the poet Aeschylus, notably in Io's cry, aXeve 8a, and in Sept. 141 and in 87, lo> Oeol . . . KUKOV aXevaare. In both these passages and in the others in which the word is used the strong apotropaic force of it is apparent. The name Alea is given to Athena in Arcadia in the places mentioned, and according to Mommsen there has been a substitution of the title A lexandvos for A lea in the scholium on Pindar, Pyth. 9. 30, in which passage we are told that Adrastus became king of Sicyon, and established the shrine of Hera called Alexandros: ifiacrlXevae rfjs "Xi/cv&vos Kal T??? "Hpo? T?/? ' AketjdvSpov icaXovfievr}<; lepbv . . . i^pvffaro (see Gruppe, 5. 2. 1126). It is strange that the name of Aleuas, the prehistoric ancestor of the Thessalian Aleuadae, has not been associated with this root. I have found no attempt to interpret his name except that of Curtius (Griech. Etym. 1358, P' 433). who wrongly derives it from aXico, 'grind.' Meyer (Griech. Etym. 1294-5) distinguishes between aXeFco ' avert' and aX&ayw ' grind,' as Curtius does not. There can be no doubt, it seems to me, that the name Aleuas means the Averter, and that it is to be classed with those names so frequent in the northern parts of the Greek peninsula, Alexander, Amyntas, Amyntor. It is probable that the appellation was attached to Heracles (the ancestor of the Aleuadae according to Pind. Pyth. X.) as health-daemon, in which aspect he was worshipped in the country bordering on the Malian Gulf (see Gruppe, 5. 2. 486). Gruppe points to the connexion of Heracles with the group of divine physicians, Asclepius, Amynos, Alexanor, Alkon, Alkathoon, Alkidas, Alkaios, and to the epithets of Heracles aXegUaicos, airoTpotraio';, cioTijp. He mentions also his connexion with Auge, a birth-goddess, and Hebe, goddess of youth. Further, Heracles appears down to the very end of ALEUAS AND ALEA 171 antiquity as averter of all evil incantations (see Gruppe, op. cit. p. 453 sq.)- His activities as Idaean Dactyl (Paus. IX. 27. 8, and IX. 19. 5) point in the same direction. The myth about Aleuas, told in Aelian H.A. 8, 11, brings him into the circle of divine healers of the order of Melampus and Heracles. He is said to have been a young shepherd on Mt. Ossa, with whom a serpent fell in love, kissed his hair, licked his face, and brought him all kinds of gifts. According to Apollodorus 2. 2. 2 Melampus owed his gift of second-sight to a grateful brood of serpents, who, in return for his giving their mother the funeral rite of burning, purified his ears with their tongues, so that he understood the voices of birds and beasts. Melampus in origin is himself a Thessalian (see Wila- mowitz, Isyllos von Epidauros, 60 and 177) and was also a herdsman. I count Aleuas as a health-spirit of Thessaly, in all probability closely connected with the Thessalian worship of Heracles 'A\e^'/ca«o?, ancestor of the Aleuadae according to Pindar. GRACE HARRIET MACURDY. VASSAR COLLEGE.