Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

430 The supports of the Sky personified
personage can hardly be other than Azizos, whom lambhchos
compared with Ares. If so, he was one, and the more important
one, of the Edessan Twins. The identification is borne out by the
fact that coppers of Edessa struck by Alexander Severus and lulia
Mamaea (fig. 336)\show a somewhat similar little figure standing
on the turreted crown of the goddess in the attitude of a fighting
Fig- 3i6- Fig. 337.
giant and probably intended for the constellation Orion-, whose
position in the starry sky is contiguous to that of the Twins
Whether Azizos and Monimos were, as R. Dussaud* supposes,
parallel forms arising from the duplication of a single god or rather,
as F. Cumont^ suggests, originally distinct divinities on their way
towards ultimate fusion, we cannot with the data at our disposal
'the figure of a divinity on a column' is hardly less so. G. Macdonald in the Hunter
Cat. Coins locc. cilt. hazards 'statue (of Aquarius?)' and is followed by Head Hist,
mim.'^ p. 815.
^ E. Babelon in the Revue beige de nutnismatique 1893 '^^^- 20 f. no. 79
' un petit genie qui, peut-etre, tire de Tare. ' Hunter Cat. Coins iii. 3 1 2 pi. 79, 7 :
pi. 2, 9:
' small
statue (of Aquarius?).' Fig. 336 is from a specimen given to me by Dr Rendel Harris.
MHTKOA eAGCCH NCON. The city-goddess is seated on a stool with a small temple
in her right hand, the river-god Skirtos at her feet, and four stars round about her.
^ For type see G. Thiele Antike Hiinmelsbihier Berlin 1898 p. 119 ff. fig. 45, Klientzle
in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 1027 f. fig. 3.
^ A. Jeremias Handbiich der altorientalischen Geisteskultiir Leipzig 19 13 p. 129 with
pi. I f. (' Sternbilderkarte ' and ' Sternkarte ').
* R. Dussaud—F. Macler Mission dans les Regions desertiques de la Syrie moyettne
(extr. from the Noiivelles Archives des Missions scientijiques x) Paris 1903 p. 57 ff.,
R. Dussaud in the Rn'. Arch. 1903 i. I2g{. —id. Azotes de niythologie syrietine Paris 1903
p. 9f. , id. Les Arabes en Syrie avant PIslam Paris 1907 p. 131 f. Dussaud argues that
various deities identified with the planet Venus were thereby duplicated into hypostases
corresponding with the morning- and evening-star. Thus the Sabaean god '
Athtar, ' equi-
valent onomastique d'Ichtar et forme masculine d' ' Achtoret-Astarte,' produced the pair
Azizos and Monimos, the Arabian counterparts of Phosphoros and Hesperos.
^ F. Cumont litudes syriemies Paris 1917 p. 269 n. 2 : 'On pourrait, il est vrai, se
demander si ce n'est pas le phenomene inverse qui s'est produit ici : les dieux de I'etoile
du matin et de I'etoile du soir, primitivement distincts, seraient confondus lorsque I'astronomie
reconnut que les deux planetes n'en faisaient qu'une. C'est ce qui arriva en Grece
pour Phosphoros et Hesperos.' But see R. Dussaud in the Rev. Arch. 1903
— id. Notes de mythologie syrienne Paris 1903 p. 9 n. i.
i. 129 n. i