Zeus Ταλλαιόϲ is the Rising Sun: Conceptual Metaphors of Indo-European Religion and Inherited Solar Cults in Crete and Doric Greece

This paper deals with Cretan Zeus worshipped as Ταλλαιοϲ (no accent). References to this figure are attested only in epigraphic sources, namely some treaties between the city-states of Hellenistic Crete and other religious inscriptions. Using the established frameworks of dialectology and ancient lexicography, it will be argued that the epithet bears an oxytone accent Tαλλαιόϲ, rather than the usual and common transcription using the properispomenon Ταλλαῖοϲ. This new accentuation permits a different morphological interpretation, namely a compound with αἰών ‘life(time), vital force’ as second member, like the Homeric adjectives δην-αιός ‘long-lived’ and κρατ-αιός ‘strong’. The first compound member *ταλ(λ)- is argued to derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *telh₂- ‘to raise’, as shared with other religious cults attested in Laconia and Crete, and found in epigraphy, numismatics and literature. These all connect Cretan Zeus Tαλλαιόϲ with inherited Indo-European solar cults, especially those linked to the sunrise. Collocations and suggestions in support are found in Old Indo-Aryan myth and Tocharian phraseology.