Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 2,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (thunder and lightning): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1925)

430 The supports of the Sky personified

personage can hardly be other than Azizos, whom Iamblichos
compared with Ares. If so, he was one, and the more important
one, of the Edessan Twins. The identification is borne out by the
fact that coppers of Edessa struck by Alexander Severus and Iulia
Mamaea (fig. 336)1 show a somewhat similar little figure standing
on the turreted crown of the goddess in the attitude of a fighting

Fig- 33<5- Fig- 337-

giant and probably intended for the constellation Orion2, whose
position in the starry sky is contiguous to that of the Twins3.
Whether Azizos and Monimos were, as R. Dussaud4 supposes,
parallel forms arising from the duplication of a single god or rather,
as F. Cumont3 suggests, originally distinct divinities on their way
towards ultimate fusion, we cannot with the data at our disposal

'the figure of a divinity on a column' is hardly less so. G. Macdonald in the Hunter
Cat. Coins tocc. citt. hazards ' statue (of Aquarius ?)' and is followed by Head Hist.
num.2 p. 815.

1 F. Babelon in the Revue beige de numismatique 1893 xlix. 20 f. no. 79 pi. 2, 9:
' un petit genie qui, peut-etre, tire de l'arc.' Hunter Cat. Coins iii. 312 pi. 79, 7 : 'small
statue (of Aquarius?).' Fig. 336 is from a specimen given to me by Dr Rendel Harris.
MHTKOA 6A6CCH NOON. The city-goddess is seated on a stool with a small tem-
ple in her right hand, the river-god Skirtosat her feet, and four stars round about her.

2 For type see G. Thiele Antike Himmelsbilder Berlin t 898 p. 119 ff. fig. 45, Kiientzle
in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 1027 f. fig. 3.

3 A. Jeremias Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur Leipzig 1913 p. 129 with
pi. 1 f. (' Stembilderkarte' and ' Sternkarte ').

4 R. Dussaud—F. Macler Mission dans les Regions desertiques de la Syrie moyenne
(extr. from the Nouvelles Archives des Missions scientifiques x) Paris 1903 p. 57 ff.,
R. Dussaud in the Rev. Arch. J903 i. 129 f. —id. ATotes de tnythologie syrienne.Paris 1903
p. 9 f., id. Les Arabes en Syrie avant PLslam Paris 1907 p. 131 f. Dussaud argues that
various deities identified with the planet Venus were thereby duplicated into hypostases
corresponding with the morning- and evening-star. Thus the Sabaean god ' Athtar, ' equi-
valent onomastique dTchtar et forme masculine d' ' Achtoret-Astarte,' produced the pair
Azizos and Monimos, the Arabian counterparts of Phosphoros and Hesperos.

5 F. Cumont Etudes syriennes Paris 1917 p. 269 n. 2 : 'On pourrait, il est vrai, se
demander si ce n'est pas le phenomene inverse qui s'est produit ici : les dieux de l'etoile
du matin et de l'etoile du soir, primitivement distincts, seraient confondus lorsque l'astro-
nomie reconnut que les deux planetes n'en faisaient qu'une. C'est ce qui arriva en Grece
pour Phosphoros et Hesperos.' But see R. Dussaud in the Rev. Arch. 1903 i. 129 n. 1
= id. Notes de tnythologie syrientie Paris 1903 p. 9 n. 1.