Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

2

Zeus the Sky

is raised that Zeus was at first conceived, not in anthropomorphic
fashion as the bright sky-god, but simply as the bright sky itself.
True, the Greeks at the time when their literature begins had
advanced far beyond this primitive view. Zeus in the Iliad is
already the potent, if not omnipotent, ruler of the gods, the
description of whose nod is said to have inspired Pheidias' master-
piece at Olympia1:

So spake the son of Kronos and thereto
Nodded with darkling brow2: the lordly locks,

1 Strab. 354, Val. Max. 3. 7. ext. 4, Dion Chrys. or. 12 p. 383 Reiske, Macrob. Sat.
5. 13. 23, Eustath. in II. p. 145, 10 ff., cp. Polyb. 30. 10. 6, Plout. v. Aem. Paul. 28.

2 KvavirjcxLv ew' 6<ppvai. ' Blue ' here implies ' black ' (see Stephanus Thes. Gr. Ling,
s.vv. Kvaveos and its compounds)—a confusion characteristic of early thought and as such
well known to anthropologists. A seated figure of Zeus from a sixth-century poros pediment,
now in the Akropolis Museum at Athens, has undeniably black hair, eyebrows, and
beard (T. Wiegand Die archaische Poros-Architektur der Akropolis zu Athen Cassel and
Leipzig 1904 p. 97 ff. pi. 8, 1—2).

It is probable that Pheidias' chryselephantine Zeus and its copies had hair and beard
of gold; for Lucian makes Zeus complain that a couple of his curls, weighing six minas
apiece, were cut off and stolen from Pisa by burglars (Loukian. Rip. trag. 25), and
Pausanias states that Theokosmos of Megara, helped by Pheidias, made for the Megarian
Olympieion a statue of Zeus, which had irpbaioirov e\e<pavros /ecu x/woO (Paus. 1. 40. 4).
But it would be rash to infer from this that the god was essentially fair-haired. The
Minoans of Knossos made ivory statuettes of athletes with hair of gilded bronze (Ann.
Brit. Sch. Ath. 1901 —1902 viii. 72 f. pis'. 2 f.). Were they blondes? Herodes Attikos
erected a chryselephantine statue of Poseidon in the Isthmian temple (Paus. 2. 1. 7 f.).
But Poseidon was not xanthotrichous.

A terra-cotta head of Zeus found at Olympia and dating from the first quarter of the
fifth century B.C. bears traces of a blackish brown varnish on the hair, on the forehead,
and round the eyes : this was either a protective coating (G. Treu in Olympia hi. 35 f.
pi. 7, 4 and fig. 37), or more probably a lustre intended to imitate the effect of bronze
(A.. Furtwangler Die Bronzefunde aus Olympia Berlin 1879 P* 9°> W. Deonna Les
statues de terre cuite dans Vantiquite \ Sicile etc. Paris 1908 p. 25 f.). The terra-cottas
from Smyrna that show Zeus or Zeus Sarapis with gilded head and hair (Brit. Mus. Cat.
Terracottas C 445, cp. D 392, S. Reinach Esqnisses archdologiques Paris 1888 p. 223 f.)
may denote a similar attempt to copy gilt bronze. A terra-cotta head of Zeus, found by
Lord Savile at Lanuvium and now in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, came
probably from a pediment of the third century B.C. (W. Deonna op. cit. p. 138): it shows
traces of red in the hair and beard ; but here we have to reckon with the conventional
colouring of architecture (A. Furtwangler Aegina Munchen 1906 i. 304 ff.).

Greek vase-painters, bound by their artistic traditions, commonly of course represent
Zeus with black hair, but occasionally give him a grey beard or white hair (Overbeck
Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus p. 29).

Not till Roman times do we get a demonstrably light-haired Zeus. On wall-paintings
from the Villa Farnesina (Gaz. Arch. 1883 viii. 99 f. pi. 15 Zeus with the attributes of
Dionysos, Ann. d. Inst. 1884 lvi. 320, Mon. d. Inst. xii. pi. 7, 5, P. Girard La Peinture
Antique Paris 1891 p. 309 fig. 188, Helbig Guide Class. Ant. Rome ii. 246 no. 1083) and
from Pompeii (listed in Helbig Wandgem. Camp. p. 30 ff., Sogliano Pitt. mur. Camp.
p. 19 ff., Herrmann Denkm. d. Malerei pis. n, 46, 2, etc.) his hair varies from dark to
light. A wall-painting of the Hadrianic age from Eleusis shows him enthroned with a
Nike in his right hand, a sceptre in his left: his head is unfortunately mutilated, but