Astrape and Bronte
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Look up Astrape or Bronte in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Astrape and Bronte (Ancient Greek: "Αστραπη" ("Astrapē", lit. "Lightning"); & "Βροντη" ("Brontē", lit. "Thunder"), are minor twin goddessess in Greek Mythology. Astrape and Bronte are the twin goddessess of Lightning and Thunder; as members of Zeus' entourage, they were his attendants/handmaidens/shield bearers/shieldmaidens, and were given the task of carrying Zeus' thunderbolts, along with Pegasus. Astrape's Roman counterpart is Fulgora.
Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 1. 14 (trans. Fairbanks) (Greek rhetorician 3rd century AD): [From a description of an ancient Greek painting depicting the death of Semele :] |"Bronte (Thunder), stern of face, and Astrape (Lightning), flashing light from her eyes, and raging fire from heaven that has laid hold of a king’s house, suggest the following tale, if it is one you know. A cloud of fire encompassing Thebes breaks into the dwelling of Kadmos as Zeus comes wooing Semele; and Semele apparently is destroyed, but Dionysos is born, by Zeus, so I believe, in the presence of the fire."
In the Apulian vase painting below, Astrape (labelled) 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.
Bronte should not be mistaken with Brontes, one of the three Elder Cyclops who, along with his brothers', Steropes, Arges, Akmonides, Pyrakmon, Euryalos, Elatreus, Trakhios, Halimedes, forged Zeus' Thunderbolts.