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

Zeus Oromdsdes

745

or barsom1, in his left hand and a high tiara on his head : this
tiara in front and behind had a vertical
stripe on which round disks were worked
in low relief, while about its edge was a
diadem adorned with a row of upright
winged thunderbolts (fig. 544)2. On the
right of Zeus sat Kommagene, conceived
as a Tyche with a kdlathos and a corn-
wreath on her head, a horn of plenty in
her left hand, and a bunch of corn-ears,
grapes, pomegranates and a pear-shaped
fruit in her right3. On the left of Zeus was

1 J. H. Moulton Early Religions Poetry of Persia
Cambridge 1911 p. 127: 'The barsom (baresman) is a
Magian ritual instrument, a bundle of twigs held before
the face : cf. Ezekiel viii. 17. It adapts the name of an
Aryan institution of a very different kind, the Indian
Aarhis, or carpet of grass on which the sacrifice was
laid.' Id. Early Zoroaslrianism London 1913 pp. 68 f.,
189 ff., 198 f., 408 f. See further O. M. Dalton The
Treasure of the Oxus etc. London 1905 p. 46 f. : 'the
barecman or barsom, a small bundle of rods supposed to
be composed of branches of the date, pomegranate, and
tamarisk, the gathering of which Ormuzd describes to Zarathustra in the nineteenth
chapter of the Vendidad3. (3[A.] Hovelacque, [IJ Avesta, Zoroastre et le Mazdeisme
Paris 1880], p. 425 ; M. Dieulafoy, \_L? Acropole de~\ Suse [Paris 1893], p. 393 n. 4 ; see also
note to no. 48.) It was the constant accompaniment of almost every ritual act, and in his
daily prayers before the sacred fire, as Strabo noted of the Magi in Cappadocia, the priest
always held it in his hand4. (4'Pa/35aw fxvpu<Lvojv Xeirrtjbv Mafx-qv Karexovres, Strabo, xv.
733 5 [J- G.] Rhode, [Die heilige Sage und das gesaiiimle Religions-System der alten
Baktrer, Meder, Perser etc. Frankfort 1820], p. 509.) The texts do not seem to imply
that the rods were used for purposes of divination, but there is some authority for believ-
ing that this was at one time the case—The bundle of rods seems to be shown in the
hands of the two statuettes nos. 1 and 2 [p. 75 f. pis. 2 and 12], the second of which may
well represent a magus of high rank ; a number of the figures upon the gold plaques (see
plates xiii and xiv) also hold it, and attention may be called to the fact that the object
held by the deity in the Sassanian rock sculpture, fig. 42, has some resemblance to a
bundle of rods.' A Graeco-Persian relief of c. 425—400 B.C., found- near Daskyleion,
shows two priests in Persian dress with covered mouth and nose and uplifted barsom (?),
offering a ram's head and a bull's head on a pyre (?) of slender sticks (T. Macridy in the
Bull. Corr. Hell. 1913 xxxvii. 348 ff. fig. 4 pi. 8).

2 Fig. 544 shows the seated Zeus of the east terrace (Humann—Puchstein op. cit.
p. 255 f. pis. 25—27 and 29, 5 f., Hamdy Bey—Osgan Effendi op. cit. p. 15 f. pis. 12 and
15) completed with the help of the head from its counterpart of the west terrace
(Humann—Puchstein op. cit. p. 296^ pi. 31, 3, Hamdy Bey—Osgan Effendi op. cit.
p. 19 pi. 19).

3 Kommagene is the one figure whose head, though not quite in the original position,
still rests upon its shoulders. She, in common with many another Asiatic Tyche (supra
p. 136 n. 6, cp. p. 597 n. 4 and p. 710), may be regarded as a late modification of
the ancient mountain-mother, who after all had the longest, if not the best, claim to be
honoured on such a site. Hence Antiochos (supra p. 744) was careful to describe himself

Fig. 544-