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

7T4

Goat instead of Bull

gold1 and base silver (fig. 530)2, to be dated not long after the
year 253 A.D. when the former assumed the title of Augustus and
the latter that of Caesar, show the same infant with the legend
Iovi crescenti, 'to the growing Iupiter.' A bronze medallion of
Saloninus (fig. 53i)3 has a similar design inscribed Iovi exorienti,

'to the rising Iupiter,'—an inscription which suggests that the
young prince was viewed as a sun-god. The general significance
of these designs, a fond hope that the prince in question would
inaugurate a new and brighter age, is illustrated by a relief near
the hippodrome on the Appian road4. The child seated on the
goat is flanked by two standing figures—Sol with torches and
Mercurius with a horn of plenty. The monument is dedicated
'to the Good Hope of Augustus5.'

Sometimes the babe on whom such hopes centred6 is defi-
nitely characterised as Dionysos. Small bronze coins bearing a

i. 54 no. 1 pi. 27, 8, Cohen Monn. emp. rom.2 v. 492 no. 9) or billon (Kubitschek Rom..
Medallions Wien p. 18 no. 162 pi. 10) has an infant suckled by a goat, while a second
infant (who?) is seen between the forelegs of the same goat: in front, an eagle; above,
a tree and the legend pietas faleri ( — valeri for Valeriana); beneath in the exergue,
a thunderbolt.

1 Rasche Lex. Num. iv. 876 f., Cohen Monn. emp. rom.% v. 519 no. 25.

2 Rasche Lex. Num. iv. 877, Suppl. iii. 154, Eckhel Doctr. num. vet.2 vii. 422,
Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus p. 200 f. Mtinztaf. 3, 7, Cohen Monn. emp. rom.'z v. 520
nos. 26—28, 29 fig., 30—32. I figure a specimen in my collection.

3 Gnecchi Medagl. Rom. iii. 61 no. 4, Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus p. 201 Miinztaf.
3, 8, Cohen Monn. emp. rom? v. 520 f. no. 33 fig.

4 Gruter Inscr. ant. tot. orb. Rom. iii. 1075 no. 1 with pi. after Boissard Antiqq.
iv. 138 ('in via Appia, non procul ab Hippodromo castrensi') bonae»spei | avg«vot |
pp tr, Preller—Jordan Rom. Myth? ii. 254 n. 2, cp. Wissowa Rel. Kult. Rom.'2
p. 330 n. 1. I have not reproduced the plate, as Boissard's illustrations are notoriously
unreliable.

5 Cp. also a coin of Gallienus in base silver, which shows the infant seated on a goat
with the legend laetit-temp (Cohen Monn. emp. rom? v. 384 no. 421).

6 The case is somewhat different with Hadrian's favourite Antinoos, who was
represented most frequently as a Dionysos (see e.g. C. v. Levezow Ueber den Aniinous
dargestellt in den Kunstdenkmalern des Alterthums Berlin 1808 pis. 7, 8, 9, 10 and the
list of statues, busts, and coins by K. Wernicke in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. i. 2441).

Fig- 530.

Fig. 531-