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

Djebel Shekh Berekdt is a place called Burdj Bdkirhd, situated at
the northern end of Djebel Bdrishd. Here was once a fine Roman
temple, built in the time of the Antonines ; and a few paces to the
east of it are the foundations of a very ancient altar. Temple and
altar were enclosed by a precinct-wall, now almost wholly destroyed.
On the lintel of the precinct-door Dr E. Littmann deciphered a
dedication to Zeus Bomos1, the god whose existence was postulated
by Prof. Clermont-Ganneau.

Zeus Bomos, no doubt, was the Grecised form of a Syrian god.
But the Hellenic Zeus too was here and there believed to inhabit
a hewn slab or pillar of stone, e.g. at Sikyon, in Arkadia, at
Tarentum2. The Frontispiece of this volume will serve to show

1 Aii Bw//,£ /neya\u) eV^/coy 'AiroWdoPios /ecu'A7ro\\o(pa\t>7]s kclI Xa\(3iu)v ol Mapiwuos rbv
TTvkQiva avearrjaav irovs | airo eVoi/dou /xeidov Ztovs Ba, Topirtaiov (W. K. Prentice in
Hermes 1902 xxxvii. 118).

2 In dealing with aniconic representations of Zeus as a stone we must carefully dis-
tinguish artificial from natural forms. This distinction is not well observed by Overbeck
Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus p. 3 ff. or even by Farnell Cults of Gk. States i. 102 ff., though it
is rightly emphasised by W. Robertson Smith Lectures on the Religion of the Semites'1
London 1907 p. 206 f.

The statement of Maximus Tyrius that the earliest men dedicated mountain-tops—
Olympos, Ide, etc.—as dydXfxaTa to Zeus {supra p. 102 n. 5) may be an erroneous
inference from the fact that Zeus was worshipped on such high-places, or a generalisation
from the case of Mt Argaios (id.). There is, however, good evidence for the identification
of natural stones, probably meteorites, with Zeus : e.g. the stone near Gythion called
Zeus KairiruiTas (infra ch. ii § 10 (f)) ; the stone at Delphoi said to have been swallowed
by Kronos in place of Zeus (infra ch. ii § 10 (d)); the stone of Elagabalos, the god of
Emesa in Syria, who was regarded as a solar Zeus or Iupiter (infra ch. ii § 10 (c)).

Among artificially-shaped stones we may notice several types—-the pillar, the pyramid,
the pyramid on a pillar, the omphalos.

Zeus is represented on Apulian vases by a pillar pure and simple (supra p. 36 fig. 9),

or by a pillar inscribed AIOSI (supra p. 36 ff. pi. iii). This presumably had behind it

long-standing local tradition; for it is known that Zeus KaTac/3drr)s had a pillar-cult
at Tarentum in very early times (infra ch. ii § 3 (a) ii (5)). Cp. also an Apulian bell-
kratir (Brit. Mus. Cat. Vases iv. 42 no. F 62) on which is a stepped stile bearing the

inscription TE P M fl N , i>e. Zeus Tepjxwv as the equivalent of Iupiter Terminus (Plout.
7J. Num. 16 with Plat. leg. 842 E f., Dem. de Halonnes. ^gf. = Anth. Pal. 9. 786).

Zeus MeiAixios at Sikyon was a mere pyramid (Paus. 2. 9. 6 e'en 5e Zeus MeiXi^ios
Kal"Apre/xis dvo/uLa^o/mefr] Harpipa, avv t€X"XI TreTroirjfAeva ovSe/xia- TrvpapildL 5e 0 MeiAi^ios, i]
8e k'lov'l eariv einaa fxevri) : cp. the conical stone inscribed AI02^ MHA-f!SI!OY

at Korkyra (supra p. 164 n. 5) and the bronze pyramids of Iupiter Dolichenus (infra
ch. i § 6 (g) xx (#)).

Zeus 2,Topiraos (A. S. Arvanitopoullos in the 'E0. 'Apx- 1906 p. 63 f. fig., K. A.
Rhomaios id. 1911 p. 150 fig. 1, infra ch. ii § 3 (c) iv (e)), Zeus Ildaios (K. A. Rhomaios
loc. cit. p. 152 fig. 7), and Zeus Harpcpos (id. id. p. 153 fig. 9} were, like other Arcadian
deities, represented at Tegea by small pyramids surmounting four-sided pillars of Doliana

marble: these pillars are inscribed l>lO££T|ORPAO, AIOI PA | 11 O ,

and ANTIO XOCkAl AAMOlCTPATOCl AlinAl TPw luu