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

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14695#0707

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Zeus Dolichatos and Iupiter Dolichenus 623

Zeus {Tinid) has an eagle-sceptre in his right hand, a winged
thunderbolt in his left, and a wreath of lilies on his head1. The
storm-god as fertilising agent was appropriately decked with the
most fertile of flowers.

In Hellenistic times the same conception made its way into
mythology both poetic and popular. Nikandros tells how Aphro-
dite, jealous of the lily's spotless purity, placed in its centre the
phallos of an ass2. And a lily-flower growing in north Africa was
known to all and sundry as the 'seed of Ammon*.1

The lily as a symbol of fertility probably belonged to an earth-
goddess before it was associated with a sky-god. On a gold ring
found by Messrs Drosinos and Stamatakis in a complex of buildings
to the south of the grave-precinct at Mykenai a goddess seated on
a pile of stones beneath a tree wears a lily in her hair and her
attendant handmaidens are similarly adorned4. Coins of Biannos
in Crete have as reverse type a lily, as obverse a female head5—
presumably that of Bianna, who appears to have been an earth-
power of some sort6. Hera too, who by many enquirers from

the Louvre {Arch. Zeit. 1875 xxxii pi. 9), whose diadem is composed of palmettes
alternating with half-open lotus-buds. In view of the fact that the lily was the Greek
equivalent of the lotus his comparison was just.

1 Gerhard Etr. Spiegel iii. 84 ff. pi. 82, Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus p. 187 f.
Atlas pi. 1, 37. Gerhard (op. cit. iii. 85 n. 108) thinks that the wreath consists of
pomegranate-flowers : but cp. the lily-wreath and lily-sceptre of Zeus on another Etruscan
mirror published by the same scholar a few years later (ib. iv. 10 pi. 281).

2 Nik. a/ex. 406 ff. with schol. and Eutekn. ad loc, Nik. georg.frag. 2, 28 ff. Lehrs.

3 C. Leemans Papyri Graeci Musei Antiquarii Publici Lttgduni-Batavi Leyden 1885
ii. 41 pap. 5 col. \\a, 26 ybvos "Afxfxwvos, KpLvdvdefxov, R. Pietschmann in Pauly—
Wissowa Real-Enc. i. 1857.

4 C. Schuchhardt Schlief/iamt's Excavations trans. E. Sellers London 1891 p. 2766°.
fig. 281, Perrot—Chipiez Hist, de VArt vi. 840 ff. fig. 425, Furtwangler Ant. Gemmen. i
pi. 2, 20, ii. 9f., Sir A.J. Evans in the Journ. Hell. Stud. 1901 xxi. 107 f. fig. 4 (en-
larged f) and in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1900—1901 vii. 15.

5 J. N. Svoronos Numismatique de la Crete ancienne Macon 1890 i. 43 pi. 3, 15
(flower), Imhoof-Blumer and O. Keller Tier- und PJlanzenbilder auf Milnzen und
Gemmen des klassischen Altertums Leipzig 1889 p. 63 (lily), Head Hist, num.2 p. 459 (rose).

6 Steph. Byz. s.v. Btei^os- tto\ls Kprjrrjs. ot fMev airb Biivvov rod tGiv KovprjTwv evbs-
oi 5e dirb ttjs irepl rbv "Apt] yevopbivqs /3tas, r\v evravOd <pao~t.v dirb f "Orou /cat 'E0tdXrou rCov
iraLduju Uoo~€i5Q>vos, /cat f^expi- Ka-i v^v T(* KaXovp^eva exarofMpovLa Overai t<£>"Apet. 6 TroXiTrjs
BteWtos. oi 8e rt/xds diroTrefXTreiv r($ Te/xtXty Att /cat Bievviw. '£o~ti /cat erepa ttoXls ev
TaXXia. at%tioi> ydp irore ffvfxiraaav ItprjT7]v Karaaxovros, et's erepovs rbirovs dTrtp/dfovTO,
oinrjaaL 8e rivas 'Ydpovvra ttjs TraXtas, oiiirw xeiroXLa/xevov. xPV&f1™ °" aureus dodevros,
ottov e\co5eo~T<XTOi> tottov Qedaovrai, /carot/c^crat • eXdbvres ovv eiri rbv'Bbdavov Trorapibv ttjs
TaXXLas, iXd)8r] ovra, oIktjctcu, /cat ttjv irokiv outws dvop,do~ac, eireibri ,uta ru>v ovv avrois
irapdevwv Biavva KaXov/aevrj, x°Pev0V0~a> virb tlpos x^Lcr/xaT0S iXrjcpOrj.

Another Cretan virgin that suddenly vanished was Britomartis, who escaped the
pursuit of Minos by disappearing in a grove at Aigina and was thenceforth worshipped as
the goddess Aphaia (Ant. Lib. 40). The story of Persephone, carried off by Plouton
while she watched the Nymphs dancing and plucked the lilies of Enna (Colum. de re rust.
 
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