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

The Mountain as the Throne of Zeus 129

heights above Kelainai, and he adopts the attitude now familiar to
us as that of the mountain-god.

This type of Zeus reclining occurs again on a relief signed by
Archelaos son of Apollonios, a native of Priene1. That well-known
work of art, referable to the end of the third century B.C., was found
near Bovillae about 1650 A.D. and is now in the British Museum
(pi. xiii)2. Its subject is usually described as the apotheosis of
Homer. Before us rises a steep mountain-side, at the foot of
which Homeros is seen enthroned. He holds a roll in his right
hand, a sceptre in his left. His throne is supported by two kneeling
female figures inscribed I lids and Odysseia: the former carries a
sheathed sword, the latter holds up the stern-ornament of a ship.
In front of Homer's footstool lies another roll with a mouse at one
end of it, a frog (?) at the other, to indicate the Battle of the Frogs
and Mice. Behind the poet stands a woman named Oikoumene,
' The World,' who is holding a wreath above his head, and a man,
named Chronos, 'Time,' who is uplifting a roll in either hand. Since
in features and hair these two figures (fig. 97) resemble Ptolemy iv
Philopator and his wife Arsinoe, it has been conjectured that we
have here the king and queen of Alexandreia portrayed as allegorical
personages3. Before the poet is a lighted altar inscribed A\ be-
hind which stands a humped bull. The sacrificial attendant with
jug and bowl is Mythos. Historia strews incense on the altar,
Poiesis holds up two flaming torches, while Tragodia, Komodia,
a smaller figure named Physis, 'Nature,' and a group of Arete,
' Virtue,' Mneme, ' Memory,' Pistis, ' Faith,' and Sophia, 1 Wisdom,'

1 Inscr. Gr. Sic. It. no. 1295.

2 Brit. Mus. Cat. Sculpture iii. 244 ff. no. 2191 fig. 30, Baumeister Denkm. i. 112
fig. 118, Collignon Hist, de la Sculpt, gr. ii. 674 fif. fig. 354, Overbeck Gr. Plastiki ii.
463 ff. fig. 226, Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 3266 ff. For further details and divergent theories
see the monographs of G. Cuper Apotheosis Homeri Amsterdam 1683, Schott Explication
nouvelle de V Apotheose d^ Homer e etc. Amsterdam 1714, E. Braun Apotheose des Homer
Leipsic 1848, A. Kortegarn De tabula Archelai Bonn 1862, C. Watzinger Das Relief des
Archelaos von Priene (Winckelmannsfest-Progr. Berlin lxiii) Berlin [903, and the other
authorities cited by A. H. Smith in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Sculpture iii. 253 f.

3 C Watzinger op. cit. p. i7ff. figs. 8—9, following and improving upon the identi-
fications proposed by S. Sharpe, viz. Ptolemy vi Philometor and his mother Kleopatra.
Both E. Braun and Sir C. T. Newton remarked a family likeness between the head of
Xpovos and those of the later Ptolemies. F. Hauser in the /ahresh. d. oest. arch. Inst.
1905 viii. 85 f. fig. 28 ( = Imhoof-Blumer Monn. gr. pi. H, 13, cp. Alum. Chron. Fourth
Series 1904 iv 307 ff. pi. 15, 11) proposes a fresh identification based on the coin-portraits
of the Syrian king Alexandros i Balas and his wife Kleopatra. The alleged likeness is
to me, I confess, hardly convincing. Mr A. H. Smith, however, whom I consulted by
letter, kindly writes (Oct. 17, 1911) : ' I think Hauser has a better case than Watzinger.
His coin is surprisingly like. But I gather, from what Hauser says, that the other
version of the coin rather shook his own faith.'

C.

9