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

Zeus, Dionysos, and the Goat 713

however, put much faith in the accuracy of the die-sinker; for he
varies loose locks (fig. 526) with archaistic ringlets (fig. 527). The
reverse of Fonteius' coins shows Cupid riding on a goat1. This
subject, which is fairly frequent in Hellenistic art2, seems to have
arisen within the Dionysiac circle3. The thyrsos beneath the goat
likewise confirms our impression that the Romans, under the all-
pervading influence of Greece, had come
to regard Vediovis as a sort of Dionysos.
The former was to Iupiter what the latter
was to Zeus.

Indeed few facts in the religious history
of the Mediterranean peoples are more
striking than the vitality displayed by
this belief in the re-born Zeus or Diony-
sos. A bronze medallion of Antoninus
Pius (fig. 528)4 has the infant god riding
his goat to an altar, which stands beneath
a tree and is adorned with festoons and an eagle in relief. A coin
of Gallienus in base silver5 and coins of his son Saloninus in

p. 100 ff., Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 833 n. 1, p. 1243 n. 2, p. 1246 n. 5, Farnell Cults
of Gk. States iv. 254 f., 309.

I take this opportunity of figuring a well-preserved speci-
men, now in my collection, of the Laconian tetradrachm with
obv. head of King Areus? (309—265 b.c.), rev. the cult-
statue of Apollon at Amyklai (fig. 529) : cp. Head Coins
of the Ancients p. 79 pi. 43, 27, Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner
Num. Comm. Pans. ii. 59 pi. N, 16, Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins-
Peloponnesus p. 121 pi. 24, 1, P. Gardner Types of Gk. Coins
p. 178 pi. 15, 28, Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Apollon pp. 6—8
Munztaf. 1, 14—16, K. Wernicke in Pauly—Wissowa Real-
Enc. ii. 43, Montagu Sale Catalogue 1896 i. 55 no. 414 pi. 6 jrjg, c)2g.

= 1897 ii. 30 ho. 215 pi. 3, Head Hist, num.'2' p. 434 fig. 238.

1 Not ' Le Genie aile d'Apollon Vejovis' (Babelon), nor ' der Genius des Vejovis'
(Overbeck), nor even 'Infant winged Genius' (Grueber), but just a commonplace Cupid.

2 To the examples collected by L. Stephani in the Compte-renolu St. Pet. 1863
p. 155 n. 3, id. 1869 p. 88 n. 6, cp. id. 1873 P- 84 n. 1, add a second relief in the
Louvre (Clarac Mus. de Sculpt, pi. 192 fig. i62 = Reinach Rep. Stat. i. 80 no. 1) and
a wall-painting in the house of the Vettii at Pompeii (Herrmann Denkm. d. Malerei
pi. 35 Text p. 46 Erotes fighting on goat-back).

3 See e.g. L. Stephani in the Compte-rendu St. Pet. 1861 pp. 20, 26 n. 4, id. 1863
p. 154 f, id. 1869 p. 55 ff.

4 Gnecchi Medagl. Rom. ii. 16 nos. 60 f. pi. 50, 4, Frohner Med. emp. rom. p. 68 fig.,
Cohen Monn. emp. rom.2 ii. 379 f. no. 1132 fig.

5 Rasche Lex. Num. iv. 876, Suppl. iii. 154, Eckhel Doctr. num. vet.11 vii. 120, 398,
Cohen Monn. emp. rom!1 v. 381 no. 380. Other coins of Gallienus in base silver show
an infant suckled by a goat (Rasche Lex. Num. vi. 1325, Cohen Monn. emp. rom.2
v. 416 no. 781 piet«saecvli ; Rasche id. pietas saecvli). A medallion of Gallienus
and Salonina struck in gold (Gnecchi Medagl. Rom. i. 8 no. 1 pi. 3, 7) and silver {id. id.

Fig. 528.