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

5«

The Blue Mantle

a Roman dedication to Iupiter Purpurio may be taken to imply
that the god wore a purple garb1.

The first and most obvious explanation of this conventional
colouring is the fact that Zeus was king of all and, as such, would
of course wear the purple or blue of royalty. If we pursue the
enquiry and ask why royal robes were blue or purple, we enter the
region of conjecture. In its origin perhaps the usage was pro-
phylactic, red {i.e. blood-colour)2 passing into purple, and purple
into blue.

But, whatever the ultimate significance, it is probable that by
Hellenistic times, if not earlier, a fresh meaning had been read
into the ancient custom, the purple or blue robe of Zeus and of
his earthly representative being interpreted as a symbol of the
sky3. Hence in both cases it came to be spangled with golden
stars. At Elis the god Sosipolis was painted as a boy clad in a
starry chlamys^. His name recalls the Zeus Sosipolis of Magnesia
on the Maiandros5, who is known to have had a sacred purple
robe6. It is highly probable that these two divinities were alike
related to the Cretan Zeus7. Again, Demetrios Poliorketes, who
posed as Zeus8, had a dark-tinted chlamys inwoven with stars of
gold and with the twelve signs of the zodiac9. Scipio, when he
triumphed in 201 B.C., was 'dressed according to ancestral custom

1 Corp. inscr. Lat. vi no. 424 = Dessau Lnscr. Lat. sel. no. 3040 (found at Rome near
the Monte Testaccio):

IJCINIA LICINIA OCTAVIA
QVINTA PVRPVKIs SATVRNIN

(A thunderbolt) (Three female figures standing) (A patera)

IOVI • OPTIMO • MAXIMO
PVRPVRIONI

It is commonly assumed that Iupiter Purpurio took his name from one of the three
dedicants, Licinia Purpuris (Preller-Jordan Rom. Myth? i. 208 n. 1): it should be further
assumed that the god was clad in purple.

2 See my note in the /ourn. Hell. Stud. 1898 xviii p. xlivf., W. Headlam ib. 1906
xxvi. 268 ff., F. von Duhn ' Rot und Tot' in the Archiv f. Rel. 1906 ix. 1 ff.

3 This conception is illustrated with a wealth of examples from ancient, mediaeval,
and modern life by Dr R. Eisler Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt Miinchen 1910, to whose
diligent collection of materials I am much indebted, though I cannot always agree with
his conclusions.

4 Paus. 6. 25. 4, cp. 6. 20. 2ff.

5 Dittenberger Syll. inscr. Gr.2 no. 553, 48, 51 f., Head Hist, num.2 p. 892.

6 Anaxenor the kithara-playev of Magnesia as a token of high honour was painted in
the purple robe of Zeus Swcrt7roXtj (Strab. 648), supra p. 57.

7 See Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 142, p. 1526 n. 6.

8 Plout. v. Demetr. 10, 42, Clem. Al. protr. 4. 54. 6 p. 42, 246°. Stahlin. See Folk-
Lore 1904 xv. 302 f.

9 Douris frag. 31 {Frag. hist. Gr. ii. 477) ap. Athen. 535 F, .Plout. v. Demetr. 41.