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

Zeus and the Solar Wheel 289

(fig. 209)1. Altars dedicated to Iupiter and marked with one or
more wheels, a wheel and a thunderbolt, a wheel between two
thunderbolts, etc., are not uncommon in the
Celtic area2 and attest the widespread worship
of the same solar deity.

In Greece the evidence is literary, not
monumental. Lykophron the pedant, who c.
274 B.C. composed his outrageously obscure
tragedy the Alexandra, included in it the fol-
lowing comparatively lucid lines :

Howbeit one there is, who past all hope

Helpeth us friendly, he the Oak-tree-god

Promantheus A it Mops Gyrdpsios called3.

A colossal stone statue found in 1876 at Seguret (Vaucluse)
and now in the Museum at Avignon shows Iupiter in Roman
military costume. His lowered right hand grasps a ten-spoked
wheel resting on a support. Beside his left foot is his eagle,
behind which a snake issues from a tree-trunk {Rev. Arch.
1884 ii. 11 f. pi. 1).

1 A bronze statuette (height '14 m.) found in 1774 at Le
Chatelet near Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne) and now in the
Musee de Saint-Germain. The god holds a thunderbolt in
his raised right hand, a six-spoked wheel in his lowered left. p- 2Q(^
On a brass hoop, which passes over his right shoulder and

through a handle affixed to his back, are slung nine S-shaped pendants of bronze. See
further A. Heron de Villefosse loc. cit. i. 3 ff. fig. 2, Reinach op. cit. p. 33 ff. no. 5,
J. Dechelette Manuel d'' Arche'ologie prihistorique Paris 1910 ii. 1. 466 fig. 196.

An altar from Vaison shows Iuno with patera and peacock, Iupiter in military costume
with a thunderbolt in his right hand, a wheel in his left, and an eagle at his feet (Rev.
Arch. 1881 i. 5 f., 1884 ii. 12).

On an altar from Theley in the Museum at Treves a youthful deity with cloak and
crown held an object now lost in his right hand, and raises a six-spoked wheel like a shield
in his left hand: a smallish bird is perched at his feet (Rev. Arch. 1884 ii. 10f. fig. 7 after
F. Hettner 'Juppiter mit dem Rad' in the Westdeutsche Monatsschrift 1884 iii. 27—30).

With the foregoing monuments Reinach op. cit. p. 35 compares two others not
definitely identified with Iupiter: (1) A bronze statuette found at Hartsbourg, formerly
Saturbourgh, shows the Germanic god Chrodo (? cp. M. Schonfeld W'drterbuch der
altgermanischen Personen- und V'dlkemamen Heidelberg 1911 p. 142 s.v. ' Chrodebertus')
standing on a fish: he holds a six-spoked wheel in his uplifted left hand, a basket of fruit
and flowers in his lowered right (Montfaucon Antiquity Explained trans. D. Humphreys
London 1721 ii. 261 pi. 56, 3 after H. C. Henninius, cp. M. Mayer in Roscher Lex.
Myth. ii. 1481). (2) On the marvellous silver bowl found at Gundestrup in Jutland
a bearded and partly bald or tonsured god raises both hands and thereby eclipses half of
a many-spoked wheel, which is apparently turned by a beardless male figure in a horned
helmet (S. Muller ' Det store solukar fra Gundestrup i Jytland' in the Nordiske Fortids-
minder 1892 pi. 5, A. Bertrand La Religion des Gaidois Paris 1897 p. 368 f. fig. 58).

2 To the lists in the Rev. Arch. 1881 i. 58"., id. 1884 ii. 13 f., Reinach op. cit. p. 35,
J. Dechelette op. cit. ii. 1. 467 f. add now J. Curie A Roman Frontier Post and its
People Glasgow 1911 p. 334 f. fig. 49 an earthenware mould showing Iupiter with helmet,
shield, club, and eight-spoked wheel.

3 Lyk. At. 535 ff. d\\' earc yap tls, Zctti /ecu irap eXirida \ ijpuv apcoyos irpev/xev-qs 6
Apvp:vios I 8ai.pi.ojv \lpop.avdevs Aidioyp Yvpa\pios.

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