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

608 The Bull and the Sun in Syria

forced to watch the province with anxious interest1. No wonder
that under these emperors with their Syrian connexion the cult of
Iupiter Dolichenus became popular.

At Rome he had two sanctuaries, one on the Esquiline, the
other on the Aventine. A couple of marble tablets, found 'in 1734
on the Esquiline near the Tropaea Marii, record that in the reign
of Commodus the chapel of Iupiter Dolichenus was, at the bidding
of the god, enlarged by a certain D. Iunius Pacatus and his son
Alexander, and further that on August 1, 191 A.D. soldiers
belonging to the second cohort of the Guards presented the god
with a tetrastyle dining-room (tetrastylum), a fountain {nymphaeiim),
a bowl with a small column, an altar with a small marble column,
another small column, a little wheel {prbiculus) with a small column,
and decorated the whole chapel2. On the Aventine too there was
a Dolocenum, which was still standing in the fourth century3, though
no dedications to the god of so late a date are recorded. It adjoined
the sites of S. Alessio and S. Sabina, as is clear from several
inscriptions found there4. One of these throws some light on the
nature of the cult. It runs as follows5:

Good Luck®. .

In accordance with a behest of Iupiter Dolichenus, Best and Greatest, the
Eternal, to him who is the Preserver of the Whole Sky, a Godhead Pre-emine7it,
a Provider Invincible1, L. Tettius Hermes, a Roman knight, a candidate* and
patron of this place, to secure the safety of himself of Aurelia Restituta his wife,

1 Dion Cass. 80. 4. 1 f.

2 Corp. insc. Lat. vi no. 414a, 414$ — Kan op. cit. p. 65 f. no. 64a, 64$ = Dessau Inscr.
Lat. sel. no. 4315a, 4315b, H. Jordan—C. Huelsen Topographie der Stadt Rom im Alterthum
Berlin 1907 i. 3. 356 f. Other inscriptions which may be referred to this cult-centre
are listed by Kan op. cit. p. 66 ff. nos. 65—74.

3 The Notitia regionum urbis xiv (written between 334 and 357 a.d.) and the Curio-
sum urbis regionum xiv (written between 357 and 403? a.d.) both say: Regio xiii
Aventinus continet...Dolocenum (H. Jordan op. cit. Berlin 1871 ii. 561 f.). Their arche-
type was written between 312 and 315 a.d. [id. ib. ii. 540).

4 Kan op. cit. p. 70 ff. nos. 75—8r, H. Jordan—C. Huelsen op. cit. i. 3. 167 f. n. 43.

5 Corp. inscr. Lat. vi nos. 406, 30758 = Kan op. cit. p. 70 f. no. 75 = Wilmanns Ex.
inscr. Lat. no. 92, 3 = Dessau Inscr. Lat. sel. no. 4316.

ti Cp. W. Larfeld Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik Leipzig 1907 i. 436 ff. The
Latin b ■ f [bona fortuna) corresponds with the Greek dyadrj tvxv as a preliminary formula
for the sake of an auspicious beginning: see Dessau Inscr. Lat. sel. nos. 467, 4316.

7 b. f. I ex praecepto I. o. m. D. aeterni, conservatori totius poli et numini pra|e-
stantisso (sic) exhibitori invicto, etc. On the epithet aeterni see F. Cumont in the Rev.
Philol. N.S. 1902 xxvi. 8.

8 The term kandidatus here and in similar inscriptions (Pauly—Wissowa Real-E7ic. iii.
1466 f.) implies, not merely the ritual use of white clothing (T. Mommsen on Corp. inscr.
Lat. vi nos. 406—413 and in the Ephem. epigr. iv. 532), but also that a complete analogy
existed between the election of public priests and that of magistrates (F. Cumont loc. cit.
p. iof.).