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

Zeus (Adad) at Hierapolis 583

by lions, while her partner is sitting upon bulls. Indeed, the statue of Zeus
looks like Zeus in every respect, head, clothing, and throne : you could not,
even perversely, compare him to another. But Hera, when you come to look
at her, will be found to exhibit a variety of forms. The general effect is certainly
that of Hera ; but she has borrowed particular traits from a variety of goddesses
—Athena, Aphrodite, Selene, Rhea, Artemis, Nemesis, and the Moirai. In one
hand she holds a sceptre, in the other a spindle ; on her head she wears rays
and a tower ; and < she has too >1 a decorated band [kestos), with which they
adorn none save the goddess of Heaven. Without she is covered with more
gold and precious stones of very great value, some of which are white, others
watery, many the colour of wine, many the colour of fire. Besides, there are
many sardonyxes, jacinths, and emeralds2, brought by men of Egypt, India,
Aithiopia, Media, Armenia, and Babylonia. But a point more worthy of
attention is this : on her head she wears a stone called lychnis, which derives
its name (the "lamp"-stone) from its nature3. By night there shines from it a
broad beam of light, and beneath it the whole nave is lit up as it were with
lamps. By day its radiance is feeble, but it has a very fiery appearance.
There is another remarkable thing about this image {x6anori) : if you stand
opposite and look at it, it looks at you ; as you shift your ground, its look
follows you ; and, if another looks at it from a different position, it has the
same effect upon him as well. Between these two figures stands another
golden imag'e {xoanon) in no way resembling the rest. It has no shape of
its own, but bears the forms of the other deities. The Assyrians themselves
call it a sign : they have given it no special name, indeed they do not
even speak of its origin and form. Some ascribe it to Dionysos, others to
Deukalion, others again to Semiramis ; for on the top of it there is perched
a golden dove, on account of which they say that it is the sign of Semiramis4.

1 Loukian. id. 32 /cat eVt rfj KecpaXy clktiv&s re cpopeei /cat irvpyov, /cat <e/%et /cat> nearbv
tu iiovvqv TTjv Ovpavi-qv koctfxeovat. So I would restore the passage, which, as printed by
Dindorf and others, would imply that she wore the kestos on her head.

2 Not, of course, the true emerald, which is found only in America, but the green
quartz known as the peridot or false emerald (E. Babelon in Daremberg—Saglio Diet. Ant.
ii. 1467 f., supra p. 357 n. 2).

3 On this stone see further E. Babelon loc. cit. p. 1465. It was found in the Indian
river Hydaspes to the sound of flutes while the moon was waxing (Plout. de flnv. 1. 2).
The chalcedony, which resembled it, came from the land of the Libyan Nasamones,
where it was said to spring from a divine shower and was found by the reflected light of
the full moon (Plin. nat. hist. 37. 104, Isid. orig. 16. 14. 5, cp. Strab. 830, 835).

4 The story of the mythical, as distinct from the historical, Semiramis is first found in
Ktesias :—Near Askalon was a large lake full of fish, by the side of which Derketo had a
precinct. She was represented with the face of a woman and the body of a fish. The
tale told to explain her double form was as follows. She had fallen in love with a hand-
some Syrian youth who sacrificed to her. She bore him a daughter, and then, out of
shame, made away with her lover, exposed the child in a rocky desert, and flung herself
into the lake. The babe, nurtured by doves on milk and cheese, was discovered by the
herdsmen and brought up by Sim mas, a man set over the royal herds, who called her
Semiramis after the Syrian word for 'doves' (Ktesias ap. Diod. 2. 4, Tzetz. chil. 9. 502 ff.,
Athenag. supplicatiopro Christianis 30 p. 40 Schwartz, Loukian. de dea Syr. 14, Hesych.
s.v. ~Lefx,LpafjLLs). At the close of her life Semiramis changed herself into a dove and flew
off with a number of other birds (Ktesias ap. Diod. 2. 20, Loukian. loc. cit., Ov. met.
4. 47 f., supra p. 367). Both accounts add that the Syrians or Assyrians pay divine
honours to doves (cp. Xen. an. 1. 4. 9, Clem. Al. protr. 2. 39. 9 p. 30, nff. Stahlin,