Prayer to Zeus

A modern LABRYS text (see greek-agathodaimon-001) for the new moon, and it shows well what Greek household worship was made of.

Zeus is given two titles at once, and both are genuine and domestic. Ktesios, "of property", lived in the storeroom, and lived there materially: his vessel was a two-handled jar bound with wool and filled with water, oil and all kinds of fruits mixed together. The prescription for fitting it out survives. Herkeios, "of the enclosure", stood as an altar in the courtyard, and having such an altar was proof of Athenian citizenship: a candidate for office was asked where his Zeus Herkeios was.

Together they are the house in two senses: the stores and the legal standing. The larder and the title deed. The Romans divided the same thing the same way — the Penates over the provisions, the Lar over the place (lares-002).

"Together with the Agathos Daimon" — correct: the Good Spirit kept to the same stores, and this corpus has his card (greek-agathodaimon-001).

The opening, meanwhile, comes from an entirely different order: Zeus who judges whether men's dealings are lawful or crooked and punishes the arrogant is the Zeus of Hesiod's Works and Days, dispenser of justice over the whole earth.

Six lines join the highest justice of the universe to a pot in a pantry. That is the whole of Greek household piety: the god who weighs the fate of nations is also answerable for the oil not running out.