Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

82
lupiter-Columns
So far, then, we can accept Hertlein's view. But when, follownig
A. Riese\ he contends that the prone or prostrate giant represents
the earthy he seems to be deserting the principle of interpretation
that he has himself propounded. For the Germanic earth-power
would have been a goddess (Nerthus^ or the like) rather than a
god. Besides, she would surely have been figured below, not above,
the Romanised IrminsiM—a pillar that ex Jiypothesi linked earth
with heaven. I should therefore prefer to explain the giant along
other lines. The provincial sculptor, bound to express himself in
Fig. 44. Fig. 45.
the art-speech of Rome, would naturally draw his design for a
warlike lupiter from the Graeco-Roman type of the Gigantomachy.
Hence his lupiter as rider or driver with uplifted bolt. Hence too
his giant always with serpentine legs*, sometimes with a club^, and
in one case with a second giant beside him". Further, when this
pictorial composition, suitable enough for relief-work or intaglio
or painting on the flat, was translated into sculpture in the round,
^ A. Riese in the Geselhchaft fiir lothringische Geschichte iind Altertumskunde :
J^ahrbuch 1900 xii. 3240".
^ F. Hertlein op. cit. p. 47 f.
^ Tac. Germ. 40. For recent opinion with regard to Nerthus see W. Mannhardt Wald-
und Feldhilte- Berlin 1904
i. 567—602, M. Ihm in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 274—277,
E. Mogk in the Gricndriss der germaniscken Philologie^ Herausgegeben von H. Paul
Strassburg 1900 iii. 367— 369, R. M. Meyer Altgeriiiattische Religionsgeschichte Leipzig
1910 pp. 204— 209, K. Helm Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte Heidelberg 1913 i.
311—321-
* This feature of the Gigantes is discussed by E. Kuhnert in Roscher Le.x. Myth. i.
i67off., M. Mayer Die Giganten und Titanen Berlin 1887 pp. 274— 282 ('Typhoeus ;
Schlangenfussler'), cp. ib. pp. 216, 223 with n. 167, A. von Salis Der Altar von Pergamon
Berlin 1912 p. 67 f., E. Kiister Die Schlaiigc in der griechischen Kunst tmd Religion
Giessen 1913 pp. 95— 97.
^ Supra p. 80.
" A group from Pfalz (?) now in the Museum at Mayence (F. Hertlein op. cit. pp. 18,
40 f., 42 f., 45) has a pair of giants, one bearded, the other beardless. This exceptional
arrangement, like the occasional duplication of the giant's club (supra p. 80 n. 2), might
be referred to a mere feeling for symmetry (as is perhaps the case with some of the
doublets cited by E. Gerhard Zzvei Minerven [Winckeh/iannsfcst-Progr. Berlin viii)
Berlin 1848, Overbeck Gr. IZfinstrnyth. Zeus p. 257 n.'^), but is more probably to be
explained as a reminiscence €f the Gigantomachy.