Apotropaei

Apotropaei (Greek: Ἀποτρόπαιοι) were in ancient Greece certain divinities, by whose assistance the Greeks believed that they were able to avert any threatening danger or calamity—that is, figures of apotropaic magic. Their statues stood at Sicyon near the tomb of Epopeus.[1] The gods Apollo, Zeus and Athena were worshiped with the cult epithet Apotropaios (Averter) in various Greek cities.[2] The ancient Romans likewise worshipped gods of this kind, and called them dii averrunci, derived from averruncare.[3][4]

Notes
  1. Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.11.2
  2. SEG 21:541; SEG 18, 478
  3. Marcus Terentius Varro, De Lingua Latina 7.102
  4. Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 5.12

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Schmitz, Leonhard (1870). "Apotropaei". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 247.


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