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Greek Mythology >> Greek Gods >> Sky Gods >> Astrape & Bronte

ASTRAPE & BRONTE

Greek Name

Αστραπη

Βροντη

Transliteration

Astrapê

Brontê

Latin Spelling

Astrape

Bronte

Translation

Lightning

Thunder

Astrape | Apulian red-figure loutrophoros C4th B.C. | The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu
Astrape, Apulian red-figure loutrophoros C4th B.C., The J. Paul Getty Museum

ASTRAPE and BRONTE were the goddesses of lightning and thunder, ministers of the weather-god Zeus.

The pair were late classical inventions. In early Greek myth the elder Kyklopes Brontes and Steropes personified the same phenomena.

In the Apulian vase painting right, 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.

PARENTS

Nowhere stated

CLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES

Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 1. 14 (trans. Fairbanks) (Greek rhetorician C3rd A.D.) :
[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 (Cadmus) 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."

SOURCES

GREEK

OTHER SOURCES

Other references not currently quoted here: Pliny, Natural History 25.96 (Bronte, Astrape & Ceraunobolia).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A complete bibliography of the translations quoted on this page.