Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

6o2 The double axe and the labarum
stances in which Constantine had his famous dream. Lactantius
continues:
'Constantine while resting was warned to put the celestial sign of God as a
mark upon his shields and so to give battle. He did as he was bidden and, setting
the letter X aslant and bending round its topmost end, marked chi rho upon
the shields. Armed with this sign his soldiers advanced to the fight.'
The sign intended is almost certainly f \ and it is highly probable
that in this we should recognise a time-serving modification of
Jupiter's trophy-cross.
Eusebios ten years later {c. 324 A.D.)^ omits the dream, but states
that after the victory over Maxentius Constantine had his own statue
erected in the most public place at Rome with 'the trophy of the
Saviour's passion' beneath his hand and 'the saving sign of the
cross' on his right hand, a Latin inscription imputing his success 'to
this sign of salvation, this true token of valour.'
The same author in his Life of Constantine (337
A.D.)^ claims to
^ E. Venables in Smith—Cheetham Diet. Chr. Aut. ii. 909 says: '"transversa X
litera, summo capite circumflexo (i.e. with a line drawn through the middle and turned
into a loop at the top, forming the letter Rho) Christum in scutis notat." ' We
thus obtain
% , no doubt ; but we cannot legitimately extract it from Lactantius' Latin,—at least I do
not see how tratisversa X litera is to mean 'a line being drawn through the letter X-'
B. Schremmer Labarum und Steinaxt Tubingen 191 1 p. i : 'also X oder .p.' But
the first of these two is surely excluded by sumnio capite ; for, if X be laid on its side as
X , it has, to speak strictly, no summum caput.
^ Euseb. Aist. eccl. 9. 9 auW/ca roO (Toirripiov rpbiraiov irixdov^ inro x^'P"
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