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

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270 The Solar Wheel in Greece

A limestone relief in the museum at Gizeh (fig. 196)1 shows
Nemesis in the act of flitting through the world. The sculptor has
made a clumsy attempt to combine three different modes of pro-
gression—wings spread for flight, limbs in the attitude of running,

Fig. 196.

and a wheel as a vehicle. Beside the goddess is her familiar
animal, the griffin, one of its forepaws likewise resting on a wheel.
Griffin and wheel are frequently associated with Nemesis on coins
and gems2. An interesting development of the type occurs at

Smyrna, where there was an ancient cult of
two wingless Nemeseis3. On the reverse
of a coin struck by Commodus (fig. 197)4
we have a corresponding duplication of
attributes; the two Nemeseis are drawn by
a pair of griffins in a two-wheeled car. The
wheel has become a chariot. The same
thing has happened on a red jasper in the
British Museum (fig. 198)5. A winged
Nemesis holding her robe with her right
hand and an apple-branch in her left is standing in a car drawn
by a large snake. The transformation of the wheel into a chariot

1 Bull. Corr. Hell. 1898 xxii. 601 pi. 16, 1.

2 H. Posnansky op. cit. p. 131 ff. pi. 1.

3 Paus. 1. 33. 7, 7. 5. 1 ff., 9. 35. 6, A. Boeckh on Corp. inscr. Gr. ii nos. 2663, 3148,
3163, 3193, H. Posnansky op. cit. pp. 61—67, O. Rossbach in Roscher Lex. Mylh.
iii. 121 f.

4 H. Posnansky op. cit. p. 136 pi. 1, 2.

5 Brit. Mus. Cat. Gems p. 138 no. 1141, H. Posnansky op. cit. p. 166 pi. 1, 40.
Posnansky would here recognize ' eine Verschmelzung der Nemesis mit Hygieia.' This
is hardly necessary. Nemesis had a bearded snake on the Peiraieus relief {supra p. 269);
and Zeus, according to one version, wooed her in the form of a snake (schol. Clem. Al.
protr. 2. 37. 2 p. 308, 13 Stahlin cited infra p. 279 n. 4).