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

Zeus Dolichaios and Iupiter Dolichenus 625

it as the flower of the planet Zeus. For example, Konstantinos
Manasses, who in the middle of the twelfth century composed a
universal history in ' political' verse, thus describes the creation of
the stars :

Then first the sky beheld the mighty stars,

Fair spheres that vied one with another and decked

Its surface, as do flowers in the fields1.

Kronos was somewhat dark and leaden of hue;

Zeus shone like silver2; Ares glowed like fire;

Helios beamed bright as thrice-refmed gold;

The globe of Aphrodite had the glint

Of tin ; like bronze the red-rayed Hermes flared;

Clear as a crystal was Selene's light.

Thus many-coloured was the sky's robe seen.

Kronos was blue as is the hyacinth;

Zeus like a lily shone; a violet, Ares;

The golden Helios was a crimson rose3;

The morning star, a white-flowered pimpernel;

Hermes shot rays, a blossom steeped in red;

Selene, a narcissus with fair petals.

Such was the flower-bed that adorned the sky;

Yea, such a pleasance, diverse, gracious, gleaming,

Was planted there upon the face of heaven,

And made a star-set garden of the sky

With God for gardener, and for plants and herbs

And flowers pied the flashing of the stars4.

Another Byzantine scholar drew up in prose a list of the seven
planets, to each of which he assigned its appropriate metal and
plant: a later hand added a series of corresponding animals5.

1 I do not remember to have met with this conceit in classical literature. It occurs,
of course, in modern poetry, e.g. H. W. Longfellow Evangeline 1.3' Silently one by one,
in the infinite meadows of heaven, | Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the
angels.'

2 For Zeus 'Apytipov see supra p. 25 n. 2.

3 J. Millingen Ancient Unedited Monuments Series ii London 1826 p. 36 pi. 19, 2
figured a terra-cotta disk, which represents the head of Helios emerging from the petals
of a rose—a type probably based on coins of Rhodes {e.g. Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Caria,
etc. p. 250 pi. 39, 16 the sun rising out of a rose, Hunter Cat. Coins ii. 441 no. 38).

4 Konst. Manass. comp. chron. 113—134 Bekker.

5 Piccolomini in the Rivista di Filologia ii. 159 published the following among other
Planudean excerpts : tup en-rot TrXaprjTWP ret xpw/xara tCop re fxeraXKwv /cat tlpoop dvdewp

ocos aero?
avaXoyovai tois xpwftacrr Kpopos fiev fAoXtifidw /cat vaKivdcp, Zei)s 5e apytipqi /cat Kpipqj,
\vkos Xeuiv Trepicrrepa

"Aprjs aidrjpw /cat i'y, "HXtos xpi/crt'y /cat iropcpvpo: podu, ' Acppod'tTT) KaaaiTepu /cat dpayaXXidi,
SpaKUiv t) avejaaii'Tj jSovs

'Ep/j.rjs %dX/cy /cat ipvdpoddvu}, ^eXy}vr] 8e va\cp /cat vapKLcrcrui. The interlinear glosses
are by the hand of a corrector. J. Bernays in the Arch. Zeit. 1875 xxxii. 99 cites Lobeck
Aglaophamus p. 936 and Brandis in Hermes 1867 ii. 266, where passages are collected
bearing on the attribution of different metals to different planets. Lists varied. Thus

C.

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