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

56

The Blue Globe

he is, as J. J. Bernoulli points out, a decidedly Zeus-like personage

(fig. 32)1. Similar in pose and pretension is
the figure of Hipparchos on imperial coppers
of Nikaia in Bithynia2. And analogous
scenes could be cited from Roman mosaics3.

Lastly—to pass from the origin to the
significance of the symbol—we observe that
the globe is coloured blue in the Pompeian
Fig^2. painting4, blue5 or blue-green6 in the Roman

mosaics. Obviously therefore it signifies the
sky rather than the earth, a conclusion
confirmed by the fact that it came to be
banded with the astronomical zones (figs. 25,
27), or quartered into tcmpla and spangled
Fig. 33. with stars (figs. 22, 24, 29, 33*).

iii. The Blue Mantle.

A third method of characterising Zeus as god of the blue sky
may perhaps be detected in the practice of giving him a blue or
bluish mantle.

Zeus with the blue nimbus had his knees enveloped in a
himdtion of gleaming violet lined with blue8. Zeus with the blue
globe wore a violet-blue cloak with a blue gold-embroidered border
and sat on a throne mantled in greenish blue9. A decorative panel

1 Bernoulli op. cit. i. 75 ' in zeusartiger Haltung ' Miinztaf. 1, 21.

2 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Pontus etc. p. 167 pi. 33, 9, Bernoulli op. cit. i Miinztaf. 2,
15, ii. 186.

3 E.g. one from Pompeii now at Naples, and another from Sarsina now in the Villa
Albani (Bernoulli op. cit. ii 34 ff. figs. 3f.)« One at Brading in the Isle of Wight is pub-
lished in the Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1880—81 p. 138 f.
with pi.

4 Supra p. 42. Several other paintings of the same provenance represent a globe
among the attributes of Zeus (eagle, thunderbolt, sceptre, wreath, mask of Zeus) : see
Helbig Wandge?n. Camp. p. 3if. nos. 105, 106, 108—112, Sogliano Pitt. mnr. Camp.
p. 19 no. 72.

5 Supra p. 51, L. von Sybel Christliche Antike Marburg 1909 ii. 329 [S. Agata dei Goti).

6 J. Ciampinus Vetera Monimenta Romse 1747 ii. 101 ff. pi. 28 (S. Lorenzo fuori
le mura).

7 From a third brass of Constantine the Great (Cohen Monn. emp. rom? vii. 231 f.)
in my collection. The globe, with three stars above it, rests on an altar inscribed
votis xx (votis vicennalibus). The legend is beata tranqvillitas. In the exergue
str [signata Treveris) is the mint-mark of money struck at Treves. See further
Stevenson-Smith-Madden Diet. Rom. Coins p. 125.

8 Supra p. 34. 9 Supra p. 42.