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This paper compares Theseus in Bacchylides 17 to Indo- Iranian Apám Napát, a 'descendant of the waters' figure, using methodologies from Classics and Religious Studies. This account provides clear pathways from the Proto-Indo- European figure to Apám Napát and Theseus, arguing for a descent into Greece through Ionian Greek narratives about Theseus. The author proposes two separate Proto-Indo- European divinities, *nebh-tu-h^sub 1/3^no-s, a god of waters, and *nebh-tu-h^sub 1/3^no-[GEN.SG.] nepots, the male descendant of the god of waters.
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In two publications, Georges Dumézil (1963: 50-61; 1973: 21-89) outlined a series of three myths involving the Iranian Apoem Napát,1 Irish Nechtan,2 and Roman Neptúnus.3 He argued that the three myths could be safely compared, and more than that, they represented an original Proto-Indo-European myth about a 'descendant of the waters' figure. Dumézil's comparisons were well received and soon became included in the Indo-European mythology handbooks (Puhvel 1987: 277-283; Mallory and Adams 1997: 203-204; Mallory and Adams 2006: 409-410, 438). I'd like to revisit Dumézil's claims, and subsequently those of Bruce Louden (1999: 57-78), and ascertain if their methodologies and their results hold up when the problem is approached from the disciplines of Classics and Religious Studies.
Puhvel gives a good summary of Dumézil's position and his proto-myth (Puhvel 1973: 380):
A deity hoards a fiery and effulgent power immersed in a body of water; his trust is challenged by one who is both inherently unqualified to possess this treasure and may in addition have truck with falsehood (in either a religious or a veridical sense). Three rounds of approach by the usurper result in three countermeasures, either retreats or counterattacks; in either instance, whether fleeing or pursuing, the advancing waters with their inherent fiery power create a water-course or courses which after a world-wide circulation revert to their mythical source.
Dumézil reconstructed his proto-myth from the following evidence. For the Iranian myth of Apoem Napát (< *h2epóm nepots 'descendant of the waters'), Yast 19 describes the luminous xvarenah 'kingly glory', which Dumézil derived from the root *swel- 'sun, solar matter'.4 The xvarenah represented the sovereignty of the Iranian kings (Yast 19.31-38) and in the midst of a struggle between Atar, the son of Ahura Mazda, who created the xvarenah,...