Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

57^ The double axe and Zeus Labrdyndos
of Commodus shows him, again clothed in a short chitoji and accom-
panied by a lion, confronting a Zeus of more ordinary aspect (with
himdtion, tall sceptre, and eagle) : both deities lay hold of the same
vertical spear (fig. 484)^
Now Hekatomnos, who first introduced the figure of the axebearing
Zeus on the coinage of Karia, hailed from Mylasa, of which
town he and his forebears were regarded as benefactors I Hekatom-
nos was, in fact, king of Mylasa before he became satrap of Karia;
and it is highly probable that the Zeus whose efifigy he struck on
the Carian tetradrachms was but an ennobled form of the Zeus
Fig. 484.
Fig. 485,
whose old cult-image appears on the mintage of Mylasa. And who
was he ? Fortunately Strabon'' has preserved for us a careful account
of the local cults:
'The Mylasians have two sanctuaries of Zeus, one of Zeus Osogo^ as they
call him, the other of Zeus Labrandenos. The former is in' the city. Labranda is
a village on the mountain, where the pass runs over from Alabanda to Mylasa, at
some distance from the city. Here there is an ancient temple and a xoanon of
Zeus Strdtios, who is honoured by the neighbourhood in general and by Mylasa
in particular. A paved way some sixty furlongs in length leads to the city ; it is
called the Sacred Road and is used for processions of the victims. The most
^
J. Friedlaender in the Zeitschr. f. Num. 1875 ii. iiof. fig. { = niy fig. 484).
2 Corp. inscr. Gr. ii no. 2691 c, 6 ff. =:Lebas—Waddington Asie Mineure no. 377, 6 flf.
= Michel Recueil (T Inscr. gr. no. 471,
i, 6ff. = F. Bechtel in Collitz— Bechtel Gr. Dial.-
Inschr. iii. i. 759 f. no. 5753 a, 6 fF. = Dittenberger Syll. inscr. Gr? no. 167, 6 ff. (in a
Mylasian decree of 367—366 B.C., found at Melasso and now in the Louvre) eire^ovXevtre
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7r6Xeajs rrjs M.v\a