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

The Golden or Purple Ram in Italy 403

an ivy-wreath enclosing a kiste with half-open lid, from which a
snake creeps out, and on its reverse two snakes twisted together
with a bow-case between them. The Cretan modification of the
latter type introduces Zeus with thunderbolt and eagle in place of
the bow-case (fig. 300)1.

The early Cretans are known to have carried their civilisation
westwards as far as Sicily and south Italy. They took with them
their cult of a god identified with Zeus2. For this among other
reasons3 we may accept Eckhel's4 interpretation of a type occurring
on certain small fifth-century silver coins of Selinous (fig. 301 )5:
Persephone seated on a rock, as befits the daughter of a mountain-
mother, coquets with Zeus, who approaches her as a bearded snake.
The same type is found on a small silver coin of Segesta6. No
wonder Orphic and Pythagorean doctrines received so ready a
welcome in Magna Graecia. It was their old, though not their
oldest, home.

iii. The Golden or Purple Ram of the Etruscans and

Italians.

Etruscan books declared that a ram born of a remarkable or
unusual colour portended universal prosperity to the emperor7.
Tarquitius, who translated into Latin an Etruscan collection of
omens, wrote: ' If a sheep or ram be sprinkled with purple or
golden colour, it increases plenty and great prosperity for the
prince of the order and clan ; the clan continues to have illustrious
descendants and becomes more flourishing in them8.' Hence

1 J. N. Svoronos op. cit. p. 334 pi. 32, 1 (Naples), Head Hist, num.2 pp. 479, 535.

2 Infra ch. ii § 3 (a) ii (5).

3 See Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Demeter-Kora p. 668 f. Miinztaf. 9, 27 a, b.

4 Eckhel Doctr. num. vet2 i. 240f.

5 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Sicily p. 142, Hmiter Cat. Coins i. 218 pi. 16, 2, G. F. Hill
Coins of Ancient Sicily London 1903 p. 86 pi. 6, 5, Head Hist, num.2 p. 169. I figure
a specimen in my collection.

6 Head Hist, num.2 p. 166, citing G. Tropea Numismatica Siciliota del Mus.
Mandralisca in Cefalic 1901 p. 29 no. 5. Eisele in Roscher Lex. Myth. iv. 260 notes
a similar type at Gela; but his reference to Mionnet Descr. de med. ant. i. 236 is mistaken.
Cp. also denarii of C. Memmius c. 60 B.C., on which Ceres appears enthroned with three
corn-ears in her right hand, a torch in her left, and a snake at her feet (Babelon Monn.
re~p. rom. ii. 218 fig.)—a type revived in imperial times (Rasche Lex. Num. viii. 696).

7 Serv. in Verg. eel. 4. 43, Macrob. Sat. 3. 7. 2.

8 Macrob. loc. cit. Rheginos ap. Tzetz. chil. 1. 468 f. cites from Isigonos {frag. 5
Westermann) the statement that sheep have wool of a golden colour.

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