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

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Conclusions

inscription records the cult of Zeus Helios1, if a coin represents
Zeus with the moon on his head2, if a myth tells of Zeus trans-
forming himself into a star3, we may be reasonably sure that
inscription, coin, and myth alike belong to the Hellenistic age,
when—as Cicero puts it4—a Greek border was woven on to the
barbarian robe.

To disentangle the complex threads of syncretism is seldom
an easy task ; and here I cannot hope to have attained more than
a limited measure of success. Still, it seemed worth while to
attempt the analysis of such far-reaching cults as those of Zeus
Amnion*, Zeus Sabdzios^, Iupiter Heliopolitanus7, Iupiter Doli-
chenus*,—cults which swept across the ancient world from north
to south, from east to west.

Zeus Ammon was found to be a Graeco-Libyan god, originally
worshipped in the Oasis with rites similar to those of Zeus Ndios
at Dodona9, but later fused firstly with the Theban Amen-Ra10 and
secondly with the Punic Ba'al-hamman11. Zeus Sabdzios proved
to be a Phrygian deity12 closely resembling the Orphic Zeus, the
parallelism of Phrygian and Orphic cults being explained by the
fact that both alike were offshoots of the old Thraco-Phrygian
religion13. Further, since the Graeco-Libyan Zeus Ammon and
the Thraco-Phrygian Zeus Sabdzios were ram-gods of identical
character, it appeared probable that ultimately the former was
akin to the latter ; and it was conjectured that sundry traces of
the same remote original might be seen scattered up and down in
the cults and myths of classical Greece and Italy14.

Iupiter Heliopolitanus was the Roman name of Zeus Adados,
the great god worshipped at Ba'albek or Heliopolis15. Zeus Adados
in turn was essentially a Grecised (and subsequently Egyptised)
form of the Syrian Adad, who both at Heliopolis and at Hierapolis
had not improbably succeeded to the position once occupied by
the Hittite father-god Tesub16. The cult-image of Zeus at Helio-
polis stood with a bull on either hand17. That of Zeus at Hierapolis
is described as ' sitting upon bulls' and figured with two bulls as

I Supra pp. 186—195, 361 n. 6. 2 Supra p. 731. 3 Supra p. 760.

4 Cic. de rep. 2. 9 ita barbarorum agris quasi attexta quaeclam videtur ora esse
Graeciae.

5 Supra pp. 346—390. 6 Supra pp. 390—403.
7 Supra pp. 549—593- 8 Supra pp. 604—633.
9 Supra pp. 361—371. 10 Supra pp. 346—353.

II Supra pp. 353—358. 12 Supra pp. 390—398.
13 Supra pp. 398—400. 14 Supra pp. 401—428.
15 Supra pp. 549—567. 16 Supra pp. 576—589.
17 Supra pp. 567—576.