The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

PERSIA. 147
in those regions the form of religious transformations
was at all times syncretic. On a mountain top in the
vicinity of a town named Doliche, a deity was wor
shiped who after a number of transformations became
a Jupiter Protector of the Roman armies. Originally
this god, who was believed to have discovered the use
of iron, seems to have been brought to Commagene
by a tribe of blacksmiths, the Chalybes, who had come
from the north. 2 ^ He was represented standing on
a steer and holding in his hand a two-edged ax, an
ancient symbol venerated in Crete during the Myce-
nean age and found also at Labranda in Caria and all
over Asia Minor. 2 "* The ax symbolized the god s mas
tery over the lightning which splits asunder the trees
of the forest amidst the din of storms. Once estab
lished on Syrian soil, this genius of thunder became
identified with some local Baal and his cult took up
all the Semitic features. After the conquests of Cyrus
and the founding of the Persian domination,
this "Lord
of the heavens" was readily confounded with Ahura
Mazda, who was likewise "the full circle of heaven,"
according to a definition of Herodotus, 2 ^ and whom
the Persians also worshiped on mountain tops. When a
half Persian, half Hellenic dynasty succeeded Alex
ander in Commagene, this Baal became a Zeus Oromasdes*
(Ahura Mazda) residing in the sublime ethe
real regions. A Greek inscription speaks of the celes
tial thrones "on which this supreme divinity receives
the souls of its
26
worshipers." In the Latin countries
"Jupiter
Caelns" remained at the head of the Mazdean
pantheon, 2 7 and in all the provinces the temples of
* ZeOs