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

The Blue Globe 51

dated by de Rossi shortly after 360 A.D.—shows God the Father,
not only with a blue nimbus and a blue robe, but also seated on a
blue globe, as he presents the scroll of the law to Moses (fig. 23)1.
Similarly the apse of the church of S. Teodoro at the foot of the
Palatine—circ. 600 A.D.—has God the Son seated on a blue globe
spangled with gold stars between St Peter, who
presents S. Teodoro, and St Paul presenting
another saint hard to identify (fig. 24)2. This
type too in all probability derives from a pagan
prototype3. Silver and copper coins of Ourano-
polis, a town founded by Alexarchos, brother of Fj ^
Kassandros, on the peninsula of Akte, represent
Aphrodite Ourania seated on a globe (fig. 2 5)4. On autonomous
copper coins of Klazomenai the philosopher Anaxagoras is seen
sitting on a globe (fig. 26)5: on an imperial
copper of the same town he holds a small
globe in his extended right hand, while he sets
his left foot on a cippus*. A silver coin of Do-
mitia Longina, wife of the emperor Domitian,
shows a child seated on a globe and surrounded
by seven stars (fig. 2j)7. The child has been
identified as the empress' son, who was born in
73 A.D. and died young8. He is here represented as the infant
Zeus of Crete. A Cretan copper, struck under Trajan, has the

Ravenna, 547 a.d.), ii. 101 ff. pi. 28 (S. Laurentius in Agro Verano = 6". Lorenzo fnori
le mura, 578—590 a.d.).

On the relation of the globe to the rainbow in early mediaeval art see O. M. Dalton
Byzantine Art and Archaeology Oxford 1911 p. 672.

1 G. B. de Rossi Musaici cristiani e saggi dei pavimenti delle chiese di Roma anteriori
al secolo xv Roma 1899 pi. 3.

2 Id. ib. pi. 17.

3 Demetrios Poliorketes was represented on the proske'nion of the theatre at Athens
e7ri TTjs oiKovjxevTjs 6xov/j.evos (Douris frag. ^\—Frag. hist. Gr. ii. 477 Muller ap. Athen.
536 a, Eustath. in II. p. 570, 9f.). This, however, does not imply that Demetrios was
seated on a globe (Sittl op. cit. p. 44), but that he was upborne by an anthropomorphic
figure of Oikownene: cp. the relief by Archelaos (infra ch. i § 5 (b)), the gemma Augnstea
at Vienna (Furtwangler Ant. Gemmen i pi. 56, ii. 257), and above all the great Paris
cameo (Id. ib. i pi. 60, ii. 269).

4 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Macedon etc. p. r 33 f., Head Hist, num? p. 206. I figure a
specimen in my possession.

5 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Ionia p. 28 pi. 7, 4, J. J. Bernoulli Griechische Ikonographie
Munchen 1901 i. 118 Miinztaf. 2, 2.

6 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Ionia p. 33 pi. 7, 9, Bernoulli op. cit. i. 118 Miinztaf. 2, 3.

7 Stevenson-Smith-Madden Diet. Rom. Coins p. 341. My illustration is from a cast
of the specimen in the British Museum. *

8 Pauly-Wissowa Real-Enc. v. 1513^

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