Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

59^ The double axe and Zeus Labrdyndos
concludes that the artist was in all probability an Attic sculptor of
the fourth century B.C., representing a non-Attic Zeus, some such
deity as the Carian Zeus Labrdyndos with kdlathos, chiton, and
himdtioju 'In the new head from Asia Minor,' he says, 'I think we
can catch for the first time a clearly perceptible echo of Pheidias'
great creation—not, of course, in the true Pheidiac style, but in the
soft flowing lines of a contemporary of Praxiteles.' This mention of
Zeus Labrdyndos was a conjecture worthy of the great critic. A post
scripticm by P. Arndt goes far to confirm it, viz., a report from the
previous owner of the head that it was actually discovered at Mylasa\
Zeus Labrdyndos can hardly be separated from Zeus Labrdnios,
whose precinct is still to be traced near Amathous in Kypros. The
site was first detected by Cesnola. In 1877 he records-
'another range of hills west of these ruins \sc. Amathous], on the summit of
one of which, very difficult of ascent, situated between the two small villages of
Aghios Dimitri and Fasuli^, I found the ruins of an elliptical structure measuring
twenty-seven feet by sixteen. Its area was strewn with pieces of broken
statues, upon two of which an eagle was carved. I discovered also on the bases
of two life-size statues to which the feet still adhered, Greek characters roughly
but deeply cut in the calcareous stone (see Appendix). I should have liked to
explore this spot thoroughly, as these ruins are not improbably those of a
temple dedicated to Jupiter, but I had brought neither a tent nor provisions with
me,' etc.
One looks in vain for the inscriptions to Cesnola's Appendix. They
are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art at New York-*, and were
published in 1883 by I. H. Hall^, who adds important extracts from
la Sculpt, gr. ii. 334
Furtwangler's words :
fig. 169. The style of the Boston head is happily expressed in
' Es ist nicht die strafTe imd unnahbare Hoheit der phidiasischen
Epoche, nicht das ruhelose sturmische Wollen der Alexanderzeit, es ist ein freundliches,
edel menschliches Wesen, das in schlichten, ruhigen und milden Formen hier sich
ausspricht.'
^ Hence P. Arndt infers that the head represents Zeus Kdrios or Osogda or Labrdyndos
or Strdtios. He cites the view of Overbeck Gr. Kiinstniyth. Zeus p. 1-24 f. that the
colossal torso of a seated male figure from the Mausoleum {Brit. Mus. Cat. Sculpture ii.
124 no. 1047), identified as a divinity— perhaps Zeus—by Sir C. T. Newton {A History
of Discoveries at Halicarnassiis, Cnidiis, and Branchidcs London 1862 ii. i. 221), was
rightly regarded by K. L. von Urlichs [Skopas'' Leben und Werke Greifswald 1863 p. 197 f.)
as Zeus Labrdyndos, the national god of Karia. But A. H. Smith Brit. Mus. Cat.
Sculpture ii. 124 justly remarks that 'the figure would do equally well for Mausolos, or
some other heroified ruler.'
^ L. P. di Cesnola Cyprus London 1877 p. 285.
" Ohnefalsch-Richter Kypros p. 19 calls the village ' Pasoulla.'
* J. L. Myres The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cesnola collection
of antiquities from Cyprus New York 1914 p. 322 nos. 1914, 1915 and p. 550 no. 1914
'OXtdcras At Aa^pavLui ei}|a.|/uevos AiriSuiKev, no. 19 1 5 Arj/xrjTpis Ai Aa^paviio fv^dfj.\evos
cLTriSwKev (L H. Hall read ev^d,fie\vos dirediliKr]).
^ 1. H. Hall 'A Temple of Zeus Labranios in Cyprus' in the Journal of the American
Oriental Society 1885 xi Proceedings at New Haven, October 24—25, 1883 pp. clxvi