Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

146
Diana-Pillars
Steps give access to a bridge across a stream, along which three
ducks are swimming. Above the bridge is a broad but low marble
plinth. Over this trails a fillet. On it are a bticranium, a sacrificial
bowl from which incense-smoke (?) curls upward, and a goat whose
hind legs appear on a detached piece of plaster. From the plinth
rises the club-like pillar with its disk. The shaft, yellowish brown
in colour, seems to be of timber': to it are attached the heads of
several woodland animals—stag, boar, and goat. Below the discoid
capital hang pendants (tassels.'*); and above it project other small
accessories (a row of deer-heads .'')^ The finial, which doubtless
topped all, is not preserved. Partially encircling the pillar is a
curved wall, over which woollen fillets are slung. The wall is pierced
with a series of narrow openings and surmounted by three archaistic
statues of females'*, each with a metal spike on her head and a pair
of torches in her hands. To the right are several indistinct archi-
tectural features, apparently two large smooth pillars on a base.
Upon one of these pillars a parrot is perched. And upon the base
lies a great golden crown, set with red and green jewels and
adorned with a row of deer-heads {"})* precisely resembling those of
the disk. In the foreground a rude stone altar^ is burning (.^). In
the background a huge tree, perhaps meant for a pine, spreads abroad
its branches surrounded by the foliage of a dim-lit forest. The
whole scene almost certainly depicts a shrine of Diana Nemorensis
decked with spoils of the chase. It is on record that this goddess
was worshipped in the form of 'a log' {ligninny. And the ring of
deer-heads (?) on the upper part of the pillar recalls the 'crown
decorated with stags' worn by Nemesis, the Greek counterpart of
Diana Nemorensis^ Finally, in the great golden crown tricked out
^«wrt7a?i? Berlin 1909 p. 38, M. Rostowzew 'Die hellenistisch-romische Architekturlandschaft
' in the Jidtit. Mitth. 191 1 xxvi. 6 f. fig. 2 (which I have used to correct Mau's
colour-plate). Height 2-53'". Breadth (•44. The painting is of the second or 'archi-
tectural' style (.:. 80-10 B.C.).
^ M. Rostowzew loc. cit. regards the pillar as made of bronze : but how then were the
heads of the slain beasts fastened to it ?
^ For M. Rostowzew these are ' G?'e!'fenkop/e.' They are not particularly like deer, or
griffins either. Cp. the ornaments of the crown surmounting a sacred pillar, flanked by
Aphrodite and Hermes, in a wall-painting from Pompeii (B. Quaranta in the Real I^Iuseo
Borbonico Napoli 1824 i. 1—9 pi. 32, Helbig Wandgem. Camp. p. 8 no. 20, R. Engelmann
Bilder-Atlas zuni Homer Leipzig 1889 Odyssee p. 4 no. 24 pi. 4).
^ ' Bronzebilder der Hekate' (Rostowzew /(?c cit.).
* M. Rostowzew again says ' mit...Greifenkbpfen.^
^ Cp. Gratt. cyneg. 483 ff. (cited supra i. 274).
^ Commod. instructiones i. 19. 2 (cited supra i. 281 n. 5).
'' Supra i. 275. If Rostowzew's interpretation of the upstanding ornaments as griffin-
heads is correct, we must comfort ourselves with the reflection that the griffin was a more
frequent attribute of Nemesis than the stag {supra i. 270, 276, 281).