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)

Zeus as god of the Dark Sky 959

(pi. lxix)1, must remain almost laughably inadequate. But, after all,
as Pausanias implies, the important thing about thePheidiac Zeus
was not his dimensions but his dignity, not his physical greatness
but his moral grandeur. And if we cannot recreate his vanished
effigy with much assurance, we can at least recall the impression

Miss G. M. A. Richter The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks Yale Univ. Press 1929
p. 169: 'For the long interval between the completion of the temple and Pheidias' statue
we may be permitted to hazard an explanation. Can we not suppose that originally a
marble cult statue was made for the temple and stood duly in its place when the building
was completed in 456? The existence of such an earlier image is indeed suggested by
recent investigations of the floor of the temple which have indicated the presence of a
substructure with ex' votos beneath the Pheidian construction [K. Lehmann-Hartleben
' Libon und Phidias' in the fahrb. d. Dcutsch. Arch.Tnst. 1923/24 xxxviii/ix pp. 37—48].
Possibly the noble and severe head of Zeus (fig. 610) and the enthroned figure (fig. 611)
which appear on the coins of Elis...were inspired by it. The expense of this statue—as
well as of the temple—was defrayed from the spoils taken by the Eleans when they
reduced Pisa and the other dependent cities which had revolted, just as Pausanias
[5- 10. 2] tells us. Then thirty years later the same great earthquake which caused the
mutilation of the crouching figures from the angles of the western pediment [cp. W. Dorp-
feld in Olympia ii. 22]...also damaged this statue of Zeus. By this time the praise of the
great gold and ivory statue of the Athena Parthenos was resounding throughout Greece;
and Olympia determined to have a similar resplendent figure by the same master sculptor.'

But not till imperial times can we expect to find any accurate renderings of the
PheidBac figure (P. Gardner Types of Gk. Coins pp. 77 ff., 146, 176 ff., 197 with pi. 15).
Under Hadrian, when art took an antiquarian turn (W. Weber in The Cambridge Ancient
History Cambridge 1936x1. 320 f. and G. Rodenwaldt ii. p. 800 f.) and the emperor
himself posed as Zeus Olympios {supra ii. 956 n. o, 959 n. o, 962 n. 2, 1120 n. o, 1121
o), we get our first really relevant copies of the final cult-statue.

1 PI. lxix gives photographic reproductions, to the scale %, of the four most important
coins:

(ia) and (1 b) are two differently lighted views of a unique bronze coin, struck by
Hadrian, now at Paris. It was first figured by J. Friedlaender in the Berliner Blatter
l°c cit. pi. 30, 2. See further Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus p. 36 Munztaf., 1, 34..

(2) is another bronze coin struck by Hadrian, now at Florence, which has long been
known. See Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus p. 35 f. Munztaf. 2, 4. H. G. Evelyn-White
>n the Journ. Hell. Stud. 1908 xxviii. 49 fig. 1 illustrates it to the scale f. A second
sP<-'cimen, formerly owned by Queen Christina of Sweden (1626—1689), is lost. A third,
from a slightly varied die, was found by H. Dressel, thickly oxidised, among the
duplicates at Olympia and is published by R. Weil in the Zeitschr. f. Num. 1912
Xx'x. 368 f. pi. I0, 3a. The obv. bust of Hadrian is inscribed AVTOKPATOOP ||
AAPIANOC II AIC, a very exceptional formula perhaps denoting an honour conferred
on the emperor by the Panhellenes, when he was present in person at the Olympic
festival of 129 a.d. (so Weil loc. cit. p. 370 f.).

(3) is a third bronze coin struck by Hadrian and secured by J. Friedlaender for the
°«lin cabinet. H. G. Evelyn-White loc. cit. p. 51 fig. 2 illustrates it to the scale \.

everal replicas were found at Olympia, of which the best preserved, now at Athens, is
Published by R. Weil loc. cit. p. 370 pi. 10, 4 a.

(4) is a fourth bronze coin struck by Hadrian, also in the Berlin collection.
■ G- Evelyn-White loc. cit. p. 51 fig. 3 illustrates it to the scale J. This coin, like

n°- (»), shows small projections on the stile of the throne representing the aydX/iara of
L' "avdves [supra p. 956 n. o), but the bared body of the god and his highly raised left
rir> (supra ii. 754) are concessions to the taste of a later age.