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

134 The Mountain as the Throne of Zeus

an armed figure of Roma is offering to the god a small wreath-
bearing Nike (fig. 99)1. The inscriptions on this medallion2
prove that it was struck in the year 167 A.D. and commemorates
the victories won for Verus in the east by his stern lieutenant
Avidius Cassius. Not improbably the artist hinted at the name
of the actual victor by depicting the emperor making his presenta-
tion to the mountain-god Zeus Kdsios*. Lastly, a bronze coin of
Ephesos, struck under Antoninus Pius, represents Zeus seated on
a throne, which is set upon the flat summit of a mountain. Beneath
this mountain lies another mountain-god holding a horn of plenty
and inscribed Peion. Over his head descends a shower from the
raised right hand of Zeus, while the left hand of that deity supports
a thunderbolt. At the foot of the mountain on which Zeus sits
enthroned is a temple; at the back of the same mountain, a three-
storeyed building; and in the distance, perched upon rocks, appear
two similar buildings and a clump of cypress-trees between them
(fig. 100)4. There can be no doubt that Zeus is here represented as

enthroned on Mount Koressos, a height
which dominates the whole valley of
Ephesos and looks down on its neigh-
bour Mount Peion.

The foregoing examples of a mountain
conceived as the throne of Zeus must not
be attributed to any • original effort of
imagination on the part of the Hellenistic
artist. Behind the die-sinker and the
sculptor lay popular belief and long-
standing ritual practice. Those who in
ancient days visited Argos to see the famous statue of Hera, made
by Polykleitos of ivory and gold, found the goddess in her temple
seated on her throne. In one hand she carried a pomegranate, in
the other a sceptre; and about both of them stories were told.
The story about the pomegranate was mystic in character and too
sacred to be rashly bruited abroad. That about the sceptre aimed
at explaining the odd fact that a cuckoo was perched on the tip
of it, and was as follows. When Zeus was in love with the maiden
Hera, he transformed himself into a cuckoo, was caught and petted

1 Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus pp. 156, 161, 190 Munztaf. 2, 32, Froehner Mid.
emp. rom. p. 90 fig., supra p. 34 n. 3.

2 Obv. L VERVS AVG ARM PARTH MAX, Rev. TR • P • VII IMP IIII COS III (Cohen

Monn. emp. rom? iii. 197 no. 291). Cp. JVttm. Chron. Fourtb Series 1906 vi. 101 no. 3
a tooled specimen in the Hunter collection.

3 Append. B Syria.

4 lb. Lydia.