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)

The decoration of the double axe 635

noted by old Rasche1, though ignored by recent numismatists2—
may be compared with the horse on the bronze axe-heads from
Hallstatt3. Further, the rods bound round the lictor's axe by means
of a red leather strap4 recall the bundle of divining rods used e.g. by
the Scythians5 and the Germans6, and were perhaps in the far past
employed for purposes of divination7. Be that as it may, rods thus
brought into contact with a sacred axe8 and thereby charged with
its virtues would doubtless be deemed of especial value in expelling
evil from a malefactor1'.

That the axe-bearers of the Byzantine court10 had any such reli-
gious history behind them, we have no reason to think11.

(v) The decoration of the double axe.

Sacred and symbolic axes are sometimes characterised as such
by their material or ornamentation. Thus the thin triangular axe-
heads of jadeite, nephrite, and chloromelanite, which date from
mesolithic or neolithic times and are widely distributed in southern
and western Europe12, have been regarded by W. Osborne as cere-
monial or princely weapons13. And the magnificent axe-hammers
of blue14 or green stone15 found in the debris of the second city at

H. A. Grueber's n. i) pi. 116, 19. See now V. Gardthausen in the Num. Zeitschr. 1916
pp. 153—162 (G. Macdonald in The Year's Work in Class. Stud. iqi8—1919 p- 19b

1 Rasche Lex. Num. iv. 1732, viii. 332.

2 E.g. by E. Babelon and H. A. Grueber.

3 Supra p. 618 fig. 515. A Syro-Phoenician axe-head of bronze in the Berlin museum
is shaped like a half ellipse with two large holes in the blade : on it are two small lions
in the round facing each other over their prey (L. Messerschmidt in the Amtliche Bericlile
aus den Kbtiiglichen Kunstsammlungen 1909 xxx. 97 ff. fig. 62, Am. Journ. Arch. 1909
xiii. 367 fig. 3).

4 Lyd. de magistral. 1. 32 p. 33, 10 ff. Wunsch.

5 Hdt. 4. 67. ti Tac. Germ. 10.

7 See A. W. Buckland Anthropological Studies London 1891 p. 140 ff. (' Divination—
by the rod and by the arrow') and especially O. Schrader Prehistoric Antiquities of the
Aryan Peoples trans. F. B. Jevons London 1890 p. 279 f., id. Reallex. pp. 506 f., 737 f.

8 Class. Rev. 1904 xviii. 362 n. 3, infra § 3 (c) i (<r).

9 See e.g. Frazer Golden Bough3: The Scapegoat p. 264^ ('Beating people with
instruments which possess and impart special virtues ').

10 Anna Komnena Alex. 14. 3 (ii. 269 Schopen), Io. Kinnamos hist. 1. 3 (p. 8
Meineke), 3. 4 (p. 97), 4. 21 (p. 187), Niketas Choniates Isaac. Angelus et Alex. fil. 4
(p. 745 Bekker), Georgios Pachymeres de Audron. Palaeol. 1. 27 (ii. 77 Bekker). The
Tre\eKV(p6poL mentioned by these authors are, of course, to be distinguished from the mere
d^vTjcpopoL of Georgios Pachymeres de Mich. Palaeol. 6. 29 (i. 504 Bekker).

11 See Ducange Gloss, med. et inf. Lat. s.v. ' Bapayyoi.'

12 For bibliography see J. Schlemm Wbrterbuch zur Vorgeschichte Berlin 1908 pp. 150—
152 figs, a, b.

13 W. Osborne Das Beil und seine typischen Formen in vorhistorischer Zeit Dresden
1887 p. 27 pi. 5, 3.

14 W. Dorpfeld Troja und llion Athens 1902 i. 375 fig. 326.

15 Id. ib. i. 374 fig. 323, cp. i. 375 figs. 324 and 325.