InGreek mythology,Astrape (Ancient Greek:Ἀστραπή,lit. 'lightning, gleam, flash')^[1] andBronte (Ancient Greek:Βροντή,lit. 'thunder')^[2] are personifications oflightning andthunder, respectively.^[3]

On anApulianloutrophoros 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.^[4] According toPliny the Elder, Astrape and Bronte were among the figures depicted by the 4th-century BCE painterApelles.^[5]

The 3rd-century BCE writerPhilostratus the Elder, in hisImagines, mentions that the two figures are featured in a painting of the death ofSemele:^[6]

Brontè stern of face, and Astrapè flashing light from her eyes, and raging fire from heaven that has laid hold of a king’s house, suggest the following tale, if it is one you know. A cloud of fire encompassingThebes breaks into the dwelling of Cadmus as Zeus comes wooing Semele; and Semele apparently is destroyed, butDionysus is born, by Zeus, so I believe, in the presence of the fire.

Bronte is mentioned (asΒρονταί, "Thunder") among the figures listed in the proem of theOrphic Hymns, a 2nd- or 3nd-century AD collection of hymns originating fromAsia Minor;^[7] in spite of this, the collection contains hymns to "Zeus the Thunderbolt" (Zeus Keraunos) and "Zeus of the Lightning" (Zeus Astrapeus) but not "Zeus of the Thunder", with both Thunderbolt and Lightning going unmentioned in the proem.^[8] Astrape is also, in ascholium onEuripides, the name of one of the horses ofHelios.^[9]

• Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow,The Orphic Hymns, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.ISBN 9781421408828.Internet Archive.
• Montanari, Franco,The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, edited by Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder, Leiden, Brill, 2015.ISBN 978-90-04-19318-5.
• Philostratus the Elder,Imagines, inPhilostratus the Elder, Imagines. Philostratus the Younger, Imagines. Callistratus, Descriptions, translated byArthur Fairbanks,Loeb Classical Library No. 256, Cambridge, Massachusetts,Harvard University Press, 1931.ISBN 978-06-749-9282-5.Harvard University Press.Internet Archive (1926 edition).
• Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Band II, Halbband 2, Stuttgart, J. B. Metzler, 1896.Wikisource.
• Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Band III, Halbband 1, Stuttgart, J. B. Metzler, 1897.Wikisource.
• Ricciardelli, Gabriella,Inni Orfici, Milan, Mondadori, 2000.ISBN 8804476613.

• Castro, María Cruz Fernández,"Bronte", inLexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). III.1: Atherion – Eros, Zürich and Munich, Artemis Verlag, 1986.ISBN 3760887511.Internet Archive.
• Queyrel, François,"Astrape", inLexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). II.1: Aphrodisias – Athena, Zürich and Munich, Artemis Verlag, 1984.ISBN 3760887511.Internet Archive.

Look upAstrape orBronte in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Greek goddesses
• Thunder goddesses
• Sky and weather goddesses
• Personifications of weather
• Personifications in Greek mythology

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• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text