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

6o

The Blue Mantle

of Iupiter, who on the column of Trajan appears as a half-length
figure with arched mantle launching a thunderbolt against the
Dacians (fig. 34)1—a design destined to influence both Raphael2
and Michelangelo3.

By a curious duplication, not to say triplication, Caelus with
his mantle spread above him is seen immediately beneath the
throne of Iupiter on a sarcophagus at Amalfi (fig. 35)4 and on
another in the Villa Medici at Rome5. This conception too was
taken over by Christian art6. The famous sarcophagus of Iunius
Bassus, a prefect of Rome who died in 359 A.D., shows the same

Fig- 34-

personification of the sky supporting, not Iupiter with a thunder-
bolt enthroned between Iuno and Minerva or between Sol and
Luna, but Christ with a roll enthroned between Saint Peter and
Saint . Paul (fig. 36)7. Another fourth-century sarcophagus in the

caelvs • aeternvs • ivp[//] | ter • ivnoni • reginae • [ minervae • ivssvs •
libenl?] I dedit • pro • salvtem • svam | m • modivs • agatho • et • pr[<?] | favsti •

patron i • hominis • [s] | et • helpidis • svaes • cvm • s[uis]. Dessau, however, reads
optumus maximus .. | Caelus aeternus, 7upp[i~\\ter, and thinks that opttimus maximus
was a later addition intended to be taken with Iuppiter. He interprets [s~\ as s[ancti?].
See further Cumont Textes et maizs.. de Mithra ii. 104, 233 ff.

1 C. Cichorius Die Reliefs der Traianssaule Berlin 1896 ii. n6f. pi. 19.

2 A. P. Oppe Raphael London 1909 pi. 174, 2 'The third day' and pi. 182, 1 'God
appearing to Isaac ' in the Loggia of the Vatican.

3 G. S. Davies Michelangelo London 1909 pi. 36 'The separation of land and sea'
and pi. 37 ' The creation of Adam ' in the Sistine Chapel at Rome.

4 M. Camera Istoria della citta e costiera di Amalfi Napoli 1836 p. 40 ff. pi. 3 (poor),
E. Gerhard Antike Bildwerke Munchen Stuttgard & Tubingen 1828—1844 p. 371 pi. 118
(Caelus with a rayed crown rises from the sea, adjoining which is the figure of Mother
Earth.)

5 O. Jahn in the Ber. sacks. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. 1849 Phil.-hist. Classe pi. 4, Wien.
Vorlegebl. A pi. 1 r, 3, Robert Sark.-Relfs. ii. 136°. pi. 5, 11 and 11', Roscher Lex. Myth. iii.
1625 f. figs. 10 and 10 a.

6 See O. Jahn Archaologische Beitrdge Berlin 1847 p- 85 n. 28 and F. Piper Mythologie
der christlichen Kunst Weimar 1851 ii. 44 ff.

7 The sarcophagus stands now in the crypt of the Vatican and in such a position that