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)

9°4

The stone of Elagabalos

1899 near the same spot1. The cap, a work of Septimian date,
shows (fig. 744, a, b)z the conical stone set on a lion-footed stool,
which is covered with a fringed cloth. On the left stands Minerva
with aigis and helmet; on the right, Iuno(?). Both lay a hand
caressingly on the stone. The third person of the Capitoline triad,
Iupiter, is identified with the stone itself and attested by the eagle
placed in front of it. The scene is completed by Victory sacrificing
a bull, behind which is Tellus with cornu copiae and child.

Once a year, at midsummer, the stone was taken from the
Palatine to the suburb temple. Elagabalus himself conducted it on
a chariot resplendent with gold and jewels3 (figs. 7414, 745, 746s).
But these vagaries were terminated by his death in 222 A.D. The

Fig. 746.

1 C. Huelsen in the Rom. Mitth. 1902 xvii. 67 n. 1.

2 F. Studniczka 'Ein Pfeilercapitell auf dem Forum' in the Rom. Mitth. 1901 Jfl*
273—282 pi. 12 (parts of which = my fig. 744 a, b), Mrs A. Strong Roman Sculpture ft'01'1
Augustus to Constantine London 1907 p. 307 ff. pi. 94. The cap measures o"56m high and
broad, o'37m deep.

Studniczka loc. cit. thought that the block might have come from the temple on t'ie
Palatine. Huelsen loc. cit. p. 67 would rather refer it to a small sacellum in the Foru111,
A. von Domaszewski in the Sitzungsber. d. Heidelb. Akad. d. Wiss. Phil.-hist. Clas5^
1918 Abh. xiii. 150—153 held that the Palatine was full up and put the temple °^
Elagabalos in Regio xi on the site of the temple of Dis Pater (Lamprid. v. Heliogab.
Heliogabalus a sacerdotio dei Heliogabali, cui templum Romae in eo loco constituit, in
quo prius aedes Orci fuit, quem e Suria secum advexit). E. Strong Art in Ancient Ro"'e
London 1929 ii. 148 accepts the view that the capital came from the precinct of a la'&
temple on the north-east side of the Palatine—a temple erected by Elagabalus to ho"56
the stone of Emesa and re-dedicated by his successor Severus Alexander to Iupiter Ul
(supra ii. 1102 n. 8 with figs. 940 and 941): but see the objections of S. B. Platnef
T. Ashby A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome Oxford 1929 p. 307.

3 Plerodian. 5. 6. 6 ff. 1 Supra p. 901 n. 2.
6 Cp. a denarius at Berlin (J. Leipoldt Die Religionen in der Unnvelt des Urchr's ^

turns in D. H. Haas Bilderatlas zur Rdigionsgeschichte ix—xi Leipzig—Erlangen 19
p. xii fig. 92), a bronze medallion at Paris (Frohner Mid. emp. ro?u. p. 167 fig-, ^ t
Monn. emp. rom.- iv. 325 f. no. 20 fig., Gnecchi Medagl. Rom. ii. 79 no. 1 p'" 9 '^y
(=my fig. 745) 'ritoccato') and Vienna (Gnecchi ib.), and a billon coin struC'CI^
Elagabalus at Alexandreia in 221/2 A.D. (Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Alexandria etc. P-
no. 1520 pi. 25 ( = my fig. 746)).