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Cook, Arthur B.
Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,2): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits) — Cambridge, 1940

DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14699#0015

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Floating Islands

981

is the simplest. Here are seen two omphaloi or stelai with rounded tops, from
the base of which streams are flowing. Streams of what? Presumably o( ambrosia.
The rocks, to deserve their name, must themselves be the very source of that
elixir (for the Water of Life as honey see e.g. Kalcvala 15. 377 ff. trans. W. F.
Kirby, cp. W. H. Roscher Nektar und Ambrosia Leipzig 1883 p. 46 ff.,
W. Robert—Tornow De apium mellisque apud veteres significatione ct symbolica
el mythologica Berolini 1893 pp. 85—89, 122—126). I cannot, therefore, agree
with Eckhel Doctr. num. vet? iii. 390 'profluente subtus aqua, nimirum quod

Fig. 790.

aqua maris perpetuo humectantur.' Again, the coins give no hint of the eagle
and the piddle. These are not mentioned before the fifth-century epic of
Nonnos and may be an accretion due partly to the popular concept of Zeus as
an eagle fed on ambrosia from the phidle of Ganymedes (e.g. Reinach Rip.
Reliefs i. 115, 190 no. 1, ii. 232 no. 3, iii. 231 no. 2, 370 no. 2, 4S9 no. 2. I add
in fig. 790 a Roman lamp of Augustan date in my possession (scale \), cp. a
similar but smaller lamp with bungled inscription published by R. Kekule in
the Ann. d Inst. 1866 xxxviii. 121 f. pi. G, 1, and in pi. lxix, (1) the relief on a
bronze mirror-case of early imperial date frcm Miletopolis (Melde) acquired in
1907 by the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (diameter 6i inches); (2) an exact
 
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