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

Zeus in Astronomy and Astrology 757

invention of astrology to Iupiter Be/us1. Late writers found it
easy to drop the cult-title and to credit the Greek Zeus or the
Roman Iupiter rather than their oriental counterpart with the
ordering of the universe. Aristeides the rhetorician (117—c, 180 A.D.)
describes the courses of moon and stars as the ' arrangement of
Zeus2.' And Martianus Capella (c. 400 A.D.) puts into the mouth
of Harmonia the following hymn addressed to Iupiter as ruler of
the starry sky3:

Thee, Iupiter, in my star-sounding song,

Thee first I name and worship. For through thee

The sacred revolution of the sky

Is wont to wheel again in order due

The jewelled constellations. Thou Almighty

Beneath thy sceptred diadem dost bind

And sway thy kingdom, Sire of every god,

While the great universe rolls on, rolls ever,

Thanks to the mind fed by thy starry force.

As sparks on tinder that will burst aflame,

The scattered stars declare thy handiwork.

Phoebus proclaims thee, while with task divine

His rays renew the purple dawn for men

And give their glory to the ambrosial day.

Cynthia, queen of night, month after month

Waxes with horns of gold. Beneath thine eye

Through fires that light the Wain the Serpent shines

And drives apart the Bears of Arcady.

So the hard Earth soft-wrapped in circling Air

Rests on its axis, and by either pole

Rules and is ruled ; so Nereus knows the bounds

Of ocean, so for food laps upper Fire,

That all things thrive with no discordant strife

And, parted, love the everlasting league,

Fearing the chaos that might break their peace.

Thou, King of Heaven, thou, Father, Best of all,

Who in thy love dost clasp the stars together,

And to thy children givest perpetual life,

All hail—my lute uplifts its lay to thee

For whom full-sounding songs sound yet again.

1 Plin. nat. hist. 6. 121 durat adhuc ibi (sc. Babylone) Iovis Beli templum ; inventor
hie fuit sideralis scientiae, Solin. 56. 3 Beli ibi (sc. Babylone) Iovis templum, quern
inventorem caelestis disciplinae tradidit etiam ipsa religio, quae deum credit, Mart. Cap.
701 ibi (sc. Babylone) Iovis Beli templum, qui inventor fuit disciplinae sideralis. Cp. Iul.
Val. res gest. Alex. 3. 56 quod ubi factum est, Iovis quoque Babylonii simulacrum motari
(nutare corr. ex natare cod. Ambros.) coepit.

2 Aristeid. or. 1. 7 (i. 9 Dindorf) nod rj tjXlov re a-rravcrTos Kivqais virep yijs re Kal vtto
yyjv Alos €<ttl irpbpp-qaLS ifkiLo irpoeLprnievr} virep ttjs tov iravTbs ko&fxov cpavoTijros, Kal aeXrjvrj'i
bpbp.0l Kal xopetat irdvTwv acrrpwv Aids eari dL&Kocr/nos.

s Mart. Cap. 911 f.