Nomi bestiali? Sull’Apollo Korax cirenaico

Federica Lazzari

Abstract:

In ancient Greece nonhuman animals featured in various religious frameworks, including sacrifice, divination and the epiphany and representation of deities. Thus, whether real or symbolic, animals appear to be prominently involved in the religious experience of men and women in the ancient Greek world.
Animals also figured in the divine onómata, attested both in literary and epigraphic sources. Hera Boópis «The ox-eyed», Zeus Aigophágos «The goat-eating», Dionysus Táuros «The bull» are just a few examples of onomastic attributes that mobilise animal species, identified by the corresponding zoonyms. Taking this into account, the paper aims both to provide an essential but useful classification of this group of onómata that ancient Greeks used to assign to their gods and to explore their aspects and functions by analysing the particular case-study of Kórax «The raven», an animal form of denomination attested for Apollo in Cyrene.