Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

The double axe and the labaru?n 607
discussed. Gibbon' long since noted 'the efforts of the critics, who
have ineffectually tortured the Latin, Greek, Spanish, Celtic, Teu-
tonic, Illyric, Armenian, &c. in search of an etymology.' And E.
Venables- as late as 1908 declared it to be 'most probably of Basque
origin'! Meantime in 1903 E. Conybeare^ had solved the problem:
a modest foot-note in his Roman Britain puts the matter in a nutshell—
' The Sacred Monogram known as Labaruni. Both name and
emblem were very possibly adapted from the primitive cult of the
Labrys, or Double Axe, filtered through Mithraism.' The value of
this acute suggestion obviously depends on the possibility of citing,
not merel)^ isolated examples of the Constantinian monogram from
dates prior to that of Constantine^ but rather a connected series of
formal links between the labrys and labarinn. Accordingly in 1908
I published the following diagram (fig. 510)^ which inserts a series of
intermediate symbols taken in chronological order from the coinage
of the Graeco-Scythian kings {s. iii— i B.C.). E. Rapp" had already
in 1866 brought these symbols into connexion with the labarnm,
though not with the labrys, and had assumed that they were solar
'" In Euseb. v. Const, ind. p. 5, 4 f. Heikel Xa'. "EK^pacrts aravpoeLSovs crrifxeiov, owep
vxjv 01 "Pw/j.a2oi Xd^apov KaXovcnv codd. T.V. read Xd^opov, but V^ has a over the first 0.
A Latin form with is attested by Greg. Naz. or. 4 (confra lulianum i). 66 (xxxv.
588 A—B Migne) roXfia Be ijdt] koL Kara tou /uLeydXov crvvd-qixaTO's, 6 fierd rod aroLvpov
wo/xirevei, Kal ayei rbv arpaTov eis v\pos alpd/nevov, KafxaToiv XvrijpLOv 6v re Kai Kara. 'Vwfj.alovs
ovofxtx^ofievou Kal (SaaiXevov, ws hv dwoi. tis, tQv Xonruiv avvdrifidTwu ' k.t.X. And Ducange
/oc. cit. quotes lahorum for labariim from sundry late sources. In cod. Theod. 6. 25 de
praepositis laborum (=cod. lustin. 12. 18) qui...praepositi laborum nostro iudicio et
stipendiorum sudoribus promoventur the manuscripts' reading laboriiiu has been defended
by the fifth-century carmen de lona (formerly ascribed to Tertullian) 40 f. palpitat antemna
stridens, labor horret ab alto, |
ipsa
etiam infringi dubitans inflectitur arbor. But in cod.
Theod. we should probably read the gen. plur. laboroi-um and in carmen de lona the
nom. sing, laborum.
1' Const. Porphyrogen. de cerim. aidae Byzant, i. i (i. 11 Reiske) Kai rd tr/cei;?; r!hv
dpaKOvapluv, \dj3ovpd re Kal Ka/xirridriKTopia, 1 append, (i. 502 Reiske) icrrafj.&wv Kal irpo-
iropevofi^vwv ^/j.wpoo'Oev avrwv twv aKevQiv, Xa^ovpcov, criyviav k.t.X.
^'^ Sozom. /i/si. eccl. i. 4
(Ixvii. 868 A Migne) 6 ^aaiXevs sKiXevcrev dvdpas iirLar-qixovas
Xpvffif Kal Xidoii Tipilois eis (rravpov (rv/j.j3oXov fieraaKevdaaL to irapd, Pw/xaiois KaXov/xevov
Xd^oipov, 9. 4 (Ixvii. 1605 A Migne) ddTepov 5e twv CK7]irTptav, 6 Xd^wpov 'Fw/xaiot KaXovai,
Kal ypd/nfiaTa /SatrtX^ws Xa^wv k.t.X.
1 E. Gibbon T/w History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire London 1781
ii. 194 n. 33.
^ E. Venables in Smith—Cheetham Diet. Chr. Ant. ii. 909.
^ E. Conybeare Roman Britain London 1903 p. 228 n. 2.
* See e.g. O. Zoeckler The Cross of Christ trans. M. J. Evans London 1877 P-
127 ff.,
D. Parsons The Non-Christian Cross London 1896 pp. 147— 162 ('The Monogram of
J.
Christ '), J. B. Bury Appendix 19 on chap. 20 of Gibbon op. cit. London 1896 ii. 565 ff.
•' In the Transactions of the Third International Congressfor the History of Religions
Oxford 1908 ii. 192 fig. 17.
'' E. Rapp ' Uas Labarum und der Sonnencultus' in i\ie Jahrb. d. Vereins v. Alter-
thutnsfreund. im Rheinl. 1866 xxxix—xl. 116— 145 pi. 2.