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)

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Appendix P

replica of it in the collection of the late Dr A. H. Lloyd, Cambridge. On
comparison with the sarcophagus at Rome (Miiller—Wieseler—Wernicke Ant.
Denkm. i. 87 pi. 9, io = Amelung Sculpt. Vatic, ii. 277 f. no. 97 a pi. 24=Reinach
op. cit. iii. 370 no. 2) it becomes clear that the design is better suited to a circular
than to an oblong space. The recumbent female figure, according to Amelung,
is 'wohl eine Personification des Berges Ida.' I too should take her to be the
Phrygian or Cretan nymph Ide (E. Neustadt in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. ix.
880), or—less probably—the nymph Ambrosia (K. Wernicke ib. i. 1809), from
whom Ganymedes has received the bowl. Overbeck Gr. Kunstmyth. Zeus p. 546f.,
W. Drexlerin RoscherZ^. Myth. i. 1599, and P. Friedlander in Pauly—Wissowa
Real-Enc. vii. 748, however, contend that the scene is laid in heaven, not on
earth: cp. Val. Flacc. 2. 415 ff.), partly to the fact that in Levantine art of the
Graeco-Roman age an eagle on a sacred stone had a solar significance (supra
i. 603 f. fig. 475, ii. 186 figs. 129 f. See also F. Cumont in the Revue de Phistoire
des religions 1910 lxii. 119—164, 1911 lxiii. 208—214, republished with
modifications and additions in his Etudes Syriennes Paris 1917 pp. 35—118
('L'aigle funeraire d'Hierapolis et l'apotheose des empereurs'), S. Ronzevalle
in the Melanges de la Faculte orientate de Beyrouth ' L'aigle funeraire en Syrie'
1912 v. 2. 117—178, 221—231, L. Deubner 'Die Apotheose des Antoninus Pius'
in the Rom. Mitth. 1912 xxvii. 1—20, Mrs A. Strong Apotheosis and After Life
London 1915 pp. 181—187). The snake is a further accretion, elsewhere con-
nected with the solar eagle of the Phoenician Ba'al-samin {supra i. 191 f. fig. 138)
and comparable with the snake twined round an ovoid stone or omphalos
on other bronze coins of Tyre {Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Phoenicia pp. cxli,
278 no. 413 Elagabalos pi. 33, 8 = my fig. 791 from a cast, E. Babelon
Les Perses Achemenides p. 328 no. 2240 Elagabalos pi. 37, 5, p. 339 no. 2296
Trebonianus Gallus pi. 37, 29). This serpent-twined egg
appears to have had a cosmic significance: cp. Epikouros
ap. Epiphan. panar. haeres. I. 8. 1 (i. 294 Dindorf)=H.
Diels Doxogr. p. 589, 11 ff. eivai Se e'f virapxfjs coov 8Utjv
to o"U[nrai>, to 5e irvevpa dpciKOVToeidcbs irepl to toov cos
tTTtfpavov 7) cos £a>vT]v TTepicTCpiyyciv Tore ti)v (pvcriv. deXr/crav
fie jiiao-pco tivl tKaipco (Diels cj. kcu crco cp. Aristot. de
caelo 4. 6 313 b 5) irepiao-OTipco trcpiy^ai Trjv TTacrav vXrjv

£lt ovv CpvaiV tcov TtaVTCOV, OVTCO ^L)(CICTCIL p€v TCI OVTCl tis TCI

Sro Tipiacfialpia kcic \ol7tov e< tovtov Ta aTopa StaKeKplcrdciL.
It does not appear with certainty on coins that represent the Ambrosiai Petrai
(pace J. F. Vaillant Numismata area Imfieratomm, Augustorum, et Ccesarum,
in coloniis, muuicipiis, et urbibus iure Latio douatis, cx otnni modulo percussa
Parisiis 1695 ii. 101 fig., 151 fig., Eckhel Doctr. num. vet? iii. 389, Stevenson—
Smith—Madden Diet. Rom. Coins p. 828. Sir G. F. Hill wrote to me (April 8,
1926) with regard to the specimens in the British Museum: 'There is something
twining (?) round the trunk of the tree between the stones, and I have no reason
to suspect either Vaillant or Eckhel...'). Lastly, the fire, which Achilleus Tatios
makes into a marvel and Nonnos into a miracle, figures on the coins only as a
flaming thymiaterion or altar. The essential elements, present from the first, are
the two rocks, the Water of Life or ambrosia that flows from them, and the olive-
tree growing between or beside them.

Now the whole of this ambrosial business has a suspiciously Hellenistic look
about it, and we may well surmise that it has been grafted on to older beliefs of
indigenous growth. Sir G. F. Hill in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Phoenicia p. cxli