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 751

is a bronze statuette at Vienna (fig. 689)1, which shows the god,
associated with two little Lares, as the kindly
guardian of a Roman house. His thunderbolt,
despite its size, is reduced to the veriest sym-
bol, a spiral ornament, a quaint old-fashioned
curio.

Less formidable than the thunderbolt, but
still reminiscent of the thunder, was the eagle2
sometimes carried on the sky-god's hand. For
standing figures as represented in sculpture3
this type was not common, being confined to
late reliefs4 and bronzes (fig. 690)5. But it had

1 Von Sacken Ant. Bronzen Wien i. 6 f. pi. 1 (= my
fig. 689), Reinach Rep. Stat. ii. 9 no. 6. Height: o'i75m.
Patina : grey-green. This remarkable bronze was found in
1830 beside a spring near Verona together with a seated
Hermes (von Sacken op. cit. i. 49 f. pi. 20), two water-carriers
(id. ib. i. 109 f. pi. 44, 2), and two small lamps of acanthus- yig. 690.
pattern—the furniture of a lararium hardly to be dated

earlier than c. 150—200A.D. Iupiter, for so we must call him, stands on a semi-octagonal
base or larophorum (cp. Dessau Inscr. Lat. set. no. 4106, 4 f. with E. Saglio in Daremberg—
Saglio Diet. Ant. iii. 950 fig. 4352), the front of which forms a rounded niche. Beside
him a tree-trunk, hollowed at the top, served as a thurible (?) (von Sacken thought it a
stoup for holy water). On one side of the niche a short pillar supports the moulding. On
the other side, in place of the pillar, was found a little Lar (o,045ln high) holding rhytdn
and situla. In the niche sits, and doubtless sat, a second Lar stretching his right hand
in supplication towards Iupiter.

2 Plin. nat. hist. 10. 15 negant umquam solam hanc alitem fulmine exanimatam. ideo
armigeram Iovis consuetudo iudicavit (cp. ib. 2. 146), interp. Serv. in Verg. Aeji. 1. 394
aut quia nec aquila nec laurus dicitur fulminari ideo Iovis ales aquila, Iovis coronam
lauream accepimus. On the eagle as lightning-bearer see D'Arcy W. Thompson A Glossary
of Greek Birds Oxford 1895 pp. 2, 8, O. Keller Thiere des classisehen Alterthums in
cultiirgeschichtlicher Beziehung Innsbruck 1887 p. 238 ff., id. Die antike Tierwelt Leipzig
1913 p. 2, E. Oder in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. i. 374, H. Usener in the Rhein. Mils.
1905 lx. 24 ff. ( — id. Kleine Schriften Leipzig—Berlin 1913 iv. 491 ff.). The most learned
account of the eagle in antiquity is still S. Bochart Hierozoicon rec. E. F. C. Rosenmuller
Lipsiae 1794 ii. 739—770.

3 As a coin-type, however, it is fairly frequent from the age of Alexander onwards :
see the lists in K. Sittl Der Adler und die Weltkttgel als Attribute des Zeus (supra i. 46
n. 2) Leipzig 1884 pp. 22 f, 27 f. Examples in Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus Miinztaf.

2, 18—21, 24, 28 f.

4 Supra i. 731 f. fig. 540.

5 Eagle in the right hand of Zeus : (1) at Vienna (von Sacken op. cit. i. 10 pi. 2, 5
( = my fig. 690), Reinach Rip. Stat. ii. 7 no. 7. Height o-o6m). (2) at Mont Joux
(H. Meyer Die romischen Alpenstrassen in der Schweiz Zurich 1861 p. 126 pi. 2, 6,
Reinach Rip. Stat. ii. 8 no. 6). (3) in the Pierpont Morgan collection (Le Musie 1907 iv.
140, Reinach Rip. Stat. iv. 7 no. 1). (4) in the P. du Chatellier collection, Cleden in
Brittany (Reinach Rep. Stat. ii. 6 no. 1).

Eagle in the left hand of Zeus : (1) at Cologne (Reinach Rip. Stat. iii. 1 no. 3 'Zeus?').
(2) Bronze relief from Chalkedon (C. Friederichs Kleinere Kunst und Industrie im Alter-
thum Dtisseldorf 1871 no. 1866). Cp. supra p. 246 f. fig. 164.