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)

Gradual elimination of the thunderbolt 735

a grand impartial figure, clad in chiton and himdtion, with a knotted
staff in his left hand and a red-flaming thunderbolt in his right.

Yet greater dignity attaches to him when he is represented," not
only holding a sceptre, but also seated on a throne. And this very
enthronement, by reducing his thunderbolt from an actual to a
potential weapon (for no one sits to throw thunderbolts1), tended
to render the god mild as well as majestic. As such he appears on

vases that portray the introduction of Herakles to Olympos. A
h&W-krater from Gela, now at Palermo, referred by Beazley to the
'Altamura painter' at the beginning of the free style'-, shows Zeus
seated on a magnificent throne and Herakles encouraged by Athena
to draw near (fig.. 666)3. The artist, who is not very adroit with the
palmette on the throne-back, has made his Zeus clasp sceptre and
thunderbolt in the same hand—an awkward handful4; the thunder-
bolt is distinctly de trop. Accordingly, on a somewhat later vase, a

Die rbmischen Steindenkmdler des Provinzialmuseunis zu Trier Trier 1893 p. 186 f. no.
463 fig., F. Studniczka loc cit. p. 139 fig. 57).

1 Supra p. 475, infra § 9 (h) ii (d).

2 J. D. Beazley Attic red-figured Vases in American Museums Cambridge Mass. 1918
p. 144 no. 10, Hoppin Red-fig. Vases i. 24 no. 18.

3 H. Heydemann in the Arch. Zeit. 1870 xxviii. 43 f. no. 24 pi. 33 ( = my fig. 666),
Reinach Re~p. Vases i. 408, 3. The reverse design is Zeus pursuing a woman (Semele?).
Height 0-41m.

4 This clumsy combination occurs first on a stdmnos in the Louvre (G 370) by the
' Providence painter ' of the ripe archaic period (F. T. Welcker in the Ann. d. Inst. 1861
xxxiii. 293—298, Mon. d. Inst, vi—vii pi. 58, 2 = Reinach Rip. Vases i. 157, 2, J. D.
Beazley Attic red-figured Vases in American Museums Cambridge Mass. 1918 p. 80 no. 43,
Hoppin Red-fig. Vases ii. 393 no. 34).