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)

708

The spear of Zeus

For a similar figure on a silver dekdlitron of Syracuse (215—212 B.C.)
(fig. 643) almost certainly—as W. Abeken argued1—represents the
famous statue of Zeus Ourios2 carried off from that city by Verres
and known to the Romans as Iupiter Imperator'\ a manifest transla-

tion of Zeus Strategos.

The transition from storm-god to war-god may likewise be
suspected in the case of that imperial favourite Iupiter Victor*, whose

Fig. 643. Fig. 644. Fig. 645.

figure—again with spear reversed—on bronze coins and medallions
of Claudius ii Gothicus (268—270 A.D.) is no doubt merely a religious
expression for the victorious emperor himself (fig. 644)5.

Other and less sophisticated examples of Zeus with spear in hand
occur here and there among the Greek coins of south Italy, the
Etruscan mirrors, the Gallo-Roman statuettes, and the Roman lamps.

Coppers of Petelia in Bruttium struck in the third century B.C.

1 W. Abeken in the Ann. d. Inst. 1839 xi. 63 pi. A, 1.

2 Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Sicily p. 224110. 661 fig. (= my fig. 643), G. F. Hill Coins
of Ancient Sicily London 1903 p. 196 fig. 68, Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus pp. 131,
164, 220 f. Miinztaf. 2, 25, Miiller—Wieseler—Wernicke Ant. Denkm. \. 97 pi. 9, 24
(comparing L. Miiller Numismatique de Vancienne Afrique Copenhague i860 i. 50 no. 193
fig. a gold coin of Kyrene).

3 Infra § 7 (c).

1 Preller—Jordan Rom. Myth? i. 197 ff., Wissowa Ret. Knit. Rom.2 pp. 123, 139 f.
5 Cohen Monti, emp. row.2 vi. 142 nos. 127 and 128 fig., Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth.
Zeus p. 165 f. Miinztaf. 2, 35 ( = my fig. 644), Miiller—Wieseler—Wernicke Ant. Denkm.
i. 97 pi. 9, 25, Gnecchi Medagl. Rom. iii. 63 no. 9 pi. 156, 1 (' col fulmine e lo scettro').
For other numismatic types of Iupiter Victor see Rasche Lex. Num. iv. 896 ff., 1225,
1228, Suppl. iii. 158, 275, Stevenson—Smith—Madden Diet. Rom.
Coins p. 484.

Iupiter Stator (on whom see E. Aust in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii.
682—686, 758, H. Jordan—C. Huelsen Topographie der Stadt Rom
im Alterthnm Berlin 1907 i. 3. 20—23, Wissowa Rel. Kult. Rom?
p. 122 f.) appears on Roman coins from Antoninus Pius to Carausius
(Rasche Lex. Num. iv. 921, Suppl. iii. 157, 162, Stevenson—
Smith—Madden Diet. Rom. Coins p. 484 fig.) usually as a nude
Fig 646 figure standing erect with a'spear (sceptre?) in one hand, a thunder-

bolt in the other (fig. 646 is from a silver coin of Gordianus Pius in
my collection). His title was Grecised as ^Lr-qaios (Plout. v. Cic. 16 et's to tou Hrriaiov Aids
iepbv, bv 1,TaTopa. 'Fu/maioi KaXovaiv) or 'E7riO"Tctcrios (Plout. v. Rom. 18 'iar^aav ovv -rrpuirov
ov vvv 6 rod Aids rod "Lrdropos idpvrai veibs, bv "EtiridTaaiov av ris epii-qvevaeiev) or, less
accurately, as 'Opduicrios (Dion. Hal. ant. Rom. 2. 50 quoted supra p. 422 n. r).