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 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" and "Zeus of the Lightning" 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.