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

Zeus of the Oasis a Graeco-Libyan god 361

four inlaid eyes and ending in a bearded snake's-head. The
aesthetic effect of this complex whole is surprisingly good. If man
and beast are to be blended at all, the Greek method of represent-
ing a snake's body with a human head was infinitely preferable to
the Egyptian method of representing a snake's head with a human
body.

But syncretism went further even than
this. The pantheistic type of Sarapis, as
it is commonly called1, or the pantheistic
type of Ammon, as P. Kabbadias would
term it2, appears on gems3 and coins of
imperial date. For example, a coin of
Alexandreia struck by Hadrian (fig. 277)*
represents Zeus with the rays of Helios,
the modius of Sarapis (Zeus Helios Sara-
pis5), the horizontal ram's-horns of Khne-
mu, the spiral ram's-horn of Ammon, the cornu copiae of Neilos,
and the trident of Poseidon combined with the serpent-staff of
Asklepios6.

(£) Zeus of the Oasis a Graeco-Libyan god.

Stripping off these later accretions and subtracting also the
earlier Semitic traits, we are left with the Greek Zeus and the
Egyptian Amen-Ra, who at some period prior to the fifth century
B.C. and probably in the Oasis of Siwah coalesced into the sun-god
Zeus Ammon. But we have yet to ask how Zeus found his way
into the Oasis, and what was the original aspect of his worship in
that isolated spot.

Here we must take account of a startling hypothesis put forward
in 1871 by J. Overbeck7. That admirable scholar argues at length8

1 H. P. Weitz in Roscher Lex. Myth. iv. 379 ff.

2 P. Kabbadias in the'E0. 'A.px- 1893 p. 189.

3 List by L. Stephani in the Compte-rendu St. Pet. 1866 p. 94 n. 9. Add Brit. Mus.
Cat. Gems p. 144 no. 1212, Furtwangler Geschnitt. Steine Berlin p. 122 nos. 2630—
2636 pi. 24, 2639 f. pi. 24.

4 Fig. \ = Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Alexandria p. 88 no. 744 pi. 15, cp. ib. p. 130
no. 1102 Antoninus Pius pi. 15, p. 168 no. 1362 Lucius Verus pi. 15, p. 251 no. 1945
Philippus i pi. 15.

5 Supra p. 188 ff.

6 Cp. the cult of ZeiV'HXios Scuttj/j (g. Plaumann Ptolemais in Oberdgypten (Leipz.
hist. Abh. xviii) Leipzig 1910 p. 89, R. Wiinsch in the Archiv f. Rel. 1911 xiv. 581).

7 On the controversy, to which this hypothesis gave rise, see H. Meltzer in Philologus
1904 lxiii. 213 f.

8 Overbeck Gr. Kunsttnyth. Zeus p. 273 ff.

Fig. 277.