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

The youthful Ammon

375

Petersburg, on which is a scene of considerable interest (fig. 287)\
A youthful god with ram's horns stands leaning on a pillar, a
bay-branch in his left hand. Fie is conversing with a matronly
female figure seated before him. Behind him Pan with goat's
horns holds a larger branch of bay with leaves and berries. He
is balanced by a second female figure raising a phidle. The
sanctity of the place is shown by the bucrdnium and fillet hung
in the background, by the incense-burner visible between the
two principal persons, and perhaps by the sprigs of bay etc. in
the foreground. Stephani, followed by S. Reinach, suggests that
we have here the horned Dionysos of Libye7 promising pardon

Fig. 287.

1 Stephani Vasensamml. St. Petersburg i. 380 ff. no. 880, Compte-rendu St. Pe't. 1862
p. 79 ff. Atlas pi. 5, 2 and 3, Reinach Rip. Vases i. 13, 1 f.

2 This identification is confirmed by an unpublished Apulian jug. at St Petersburg
(Stephani Vasensamml. St. Petersburg \\. 28 f. no. n 19, though F. Wieseler in the
Nachr. d. kon. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. Gottingen Phil.-hist. Classe 1892 p. 226 f. says Apollon
Karneios), which represents a definitely Dionysiac scene. In the centre sits a young man
(Dionysos) with ram's horns, originally painted yellow, on his head : he wears an upper
garment, which has slipped on to his lap, and yellow shoes. In his right hand he holds
a cup, in his left a lyre, both partly yellow. Before him stands a woman (Ariadne?) in
chiton and himdtion, who offers him a bunch of grapes with her left hand, a white wreath
with her right: her arm-bands and necklaces are yellow. Behind Dionysos stands a
second woman leaning on a pillar, which is yellow in part. She wears a chiton, a small
fluttering garment, shoes, arm-bands and necklaces, and holds in her right hand an
aldbastron (?). At her back is a fillet; and in the field are four partly yellow rosettes.