Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

538

Zeus Ombrios

round his head and an aigis over his left shoulder. Even the

inward effortless triumph, and the pictorial quality of the whole (Mttller—Wieseler Denkni.
d. alt. Kunst ii. 2 f. pi. r, 5, Mtiller—Wieseler—Wernicke Ant. Denkm. ii. 1. 3^
pi. 3, 7, Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus p. 243 ff. Gemmentaf. 3, 3, Furtwangler A*»'
Gemmen i pi. 59, 8 ( = my pi. xliii: scale }), ii. 266, iii. 155, Lippold Gemmen pi. 2, 3
(enlarged) p. 168).

Hardly less remarkable is a cameo of mottled green malachite, now in my collection
and here published for the first time (pi. xliv: scale \). Zeus appears as a noble full-face
head, again wearing an oak-wreath (with three acorns) and a scaly aigis (in deeper green)'
This masterpiece may be placed somewhat later in the Hellenistic age than the sardonyx

a Fig. 348. b

above recorded, though earlier than such degenerate works as the mask from Otiic01
the Rotunda of the Vatican (Overbeck op. cit. Zeus p. 74 ff. no. 1 Atlas pi. 2, I ■>' Qr
bust from Pompeii in the Museum at Naples (id. ib. p. 82 f. no. 13 Atlas pi. 2> 3 1
the colossal head at Florence (id. ib. p. 86 f. no. 17 Atlas pi. 2, 5 f.). Malachite, oh^^te
from mines between Suez and Sinai, was known to the Egyptians at a very ear )
(G. F. Kunz The Curious Lore of Precious Stones Philadelphia & London I9r3 P' erS
and amulets made of it have been widely credited with protective and curative p ^
(S. Seligmann Der bose Blick und Verwandles Berlin 1910 ii. 30, id. Die magiM!,e"' n
undSchutzmittelStuttgart 1927 p. 261, cp. p. 282, W. M. Flinders Petrie Amulets L° gj.
1914 p. 52, Sir E. A. Wallis Budge Amulets and Superstitions Oxford 1930 ?'eJ£tant
Pliny speaks of it as highly prized for making seals (Plin. nat. hist. 37. 114)1
examples seem to be of the greatest rarity. Possibly malachite, like 'plasma
357 n. 4), was a rainy stone and as such deemed appropriate to Zeus. f tlifee

Later still (s. ii B.C.?) and of much less merit is a grandiose circular sardonyx ntiJ
layers, now at Petrograd, which represents Zeus as a profile head with exaggera ^ ^y,
furrow and occipital curve: oak-wreath (one acorn) and aigis as before gt -, jl*'

Zeus p. 243 ff. Gemmentaf. 3, 4, L. Stephani in the Compte-rendu St. Pe"t. 18 1 1