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

Zeus Oromdsdes

74i

Small copper coins of Kypros dating from the Ptolemaic period
ave as their obverse type a laureate head of Zeus,
as their reverse Zeus standing with corn-ears in his
right harfd, a sceptre in his left, and a large star above
his head (fig. 542)1. In view of other Cypriote coppers,
which connect the star with Aphrodite and her dove2,
we may venture to identify it with the planet Venus FlS- 54^-
rather than with the planet Iupiter3.

Finally, stars played an important part in the cult of Zeus Oro-
mdsdes, the Hellenised Auramazda4, who was represented, like Men5

vir doctus in Classical Journal vii. 234, ILdpLov cj. Schellenberg) top At'a ecprj Sta to
dcrrpou, cp. Eustath. in Od. p. 1709, 55 f. ev 8e prjTopiKqi Ae£i/c<£ evprjrai /ecu ravra •
'Zeiprjves, rd acrrpa. See also U. von Wilamowitz-Mollendorff Timotheos die Perser
Leipzig 1903 p. 44 and D. Mulder in Philologus 1906 lxv. 217 f. cited by O. Hdfer in
Roscher Lex. Myth. iv. 601. Supra p. 299 n. 2.

1 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Cyprus p. lxxxi. I figure a specimen in my collection.

2 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Cyprus p. lxxviii pi. 22, 8 and pi. 24, 16.

3 In the case of tetradrachms struck by Antiochos viii Grypos {supra p. 731 figs. 538,
539) I interpreted the star held by the god as the planet Iupiter. But the moon is so
constantly associated with the evening-star in oriental art that it is at least equally
possible to regard the star in question as the planet Venus.

4 Supra p. 10 n. 1. As to the name Auramazda my friend the Rev. Prof. J. H.
Moulton in his Early Religious Poetry of Persia Cambridge 1911 p. 7311. writes:
'HommeFs discovery of the name Assara Mazas in an Assyrian record of the middle of
the second millenium B.C. takes the divine name back to the Aryan period, or to Iranian
antiquity prior to the change of s to //....The Boghazkeui Indra and ATdsatia might be
Indo-Aryan, but Mazas cannot. It seems probable therefore that Mazdah was a cult
epithet of a great Ahura—some would say the Vedic Varuna—long before Zarathushtra.'
Id. id. p. 56'Having thus discarded conceptions of Deity which failed to satisfy his
spiritual sense, Zarathushtra proclaimed his own conceptions in their stead. One
inherited name for God was good enough for him. Ahura in the Gathas already means
"Lord," its etymological meaning "spiritual" having apparently died out before the
division of the Aryans. Who or what was "the Lord"? His relation to Nature is
wholly in accord with the Bible itself. "Who covereth Himself with light as with a
garment" is almost a quotation from the Gathas. But his own nature is something
higher yet. He is " the Wise" {Mazdah), which seems specially to denote the " know-
ledge of good and evil," the unerring instinct that can distinguish between Truth and
Falsehood, which for the Prophet were the most vital aspects of good and evil.' Id. id.
p. 57 f. : 'The elements of the combination Ahura Mazdah in the Gathas are declined as
separate words, arranged indifferently, and either word may be used alone. "The Wise
Lord" will probably represent it to us better than "Ahura Mazdah." It soon became
fixed as a proper name. By the time of the great Darius, the first Zarathushtrian King of
Persia (it would seem), the name has become a single word, Auramazda, with flexion
only at the end.' See further J. H. Moulton Early Zoroastrianism London 1913 pp. 30 ff.,
61, 90 ff., 106 ff., 422 ff., alib.

It is reasonable to suppose that the Hesychian gloss Mafeus • 6 Zevs irapa <&pv£i
preserves in a Grecised form the cult-title Mazdah.

5 A. M. Migliarini in the Ann. d. Inst. 1843 xv. 392 f. pi. O, P 2, Reinach Pierres
Gravees p. 135 no. 20 pi. 123. Furtwangler Geschnitt. Steine Berlin p. 141 nos. 3177!.
pi. 26, p. 197 nos. 4914—4917 pi- 35, W. Drexler in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 2692,
2745-