Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

The decoration of the double axe 635
noted by old Rasche^ though ignored by recent numismatists^
may be compared with the horse on the bronze axe-heads from
Hallstatt^ Further, the rods bound round the Hctor's axe by means
of a red leather straps recall the bundle of divining rods used e.g. by
the Scythians^ and the Germans*, and were perhaps in the far past
employed for purposes of divination''. Be that as it may, rods thus
brought into contact with a sacred axe^ and thereby charged with
its virtues would doubtless be deemed of especial value in expelling
evil from a malefactor
That the axe-bearers of the Byzantine court'" had any such reli-
gious history behind them, we have no reason to think".
iy) The decoration of the double axe.
Sacred and symbolic axes are sometimes characterised as such
by their material or ornamentation. Thus the thin triangular axe-
heads of jadeite, nephrite, and chloromelanite, which date from
mesolithic or neolithic times and are widely distributed in southern
and western Europe'^ have been regarded by W. Osborne as ceremonial
or princely weapons 'I And the magnificent axe-hammers
of blue" or green stone'^ found in the debris of the second city at
H. A. Grueber's n. i) pi. ii6, 19. See now V. Gardthausen in the Num. Zeitschr. 1916
PP- 153— 162 (G. Macdonald in The Year's Work in Class. Stud. igiS^igig p. 19).
' Rasche Lex. Num. iv. 1732, viii. 33-2.
^ E.g. by E. Babelon and H. A. Grueber.
* Supra p. 618 fig. 515. A Syro-Phoenician axe-head of bronze in the Berlin museum
is shaped like a half ellipse with two large holes in the blade : on it are two small lions
in the round facing each other over their prey (L. Messerschmidt in the Afntliche Berichte
aus den Koniglichen Kunstsammlungen 1909 xxx. 97
xiii. 367 fig. 3).
* Lyd. de magistrat. i. 32 p. 33, 10 ff. Wiinsch.
^ Hdt. 4. 67. 6 j^(. Germ. 10.
flf. fig. 62, Am. Joiirn. Arch. r909
^ .See A. W. Buckland Anthropological Studies London 1891 p. 140 ff. ('Divination
by the rod and by the arrow ') and especially O. Schrader Prehistoric Antiquities of the
Aryan Peoples trans. F. B. Jevons London 1890 p. 279 f., id. Reallex. pp. 506 f., 737 f.
^ Class. Kev. 1904 xviii. 362 n. 3, infra § 3
(c) i (cr).
*• See e.g. Frazer Golden Bough'^ : The Scapegoat p. 264 f. ('Beating people with
instruments which possess and impart special virtues ').
'" Anna Komnena Alex. 14. 3 (ii. 269 Schopen), lo. Kinnamos hist. i. 3 (p. 8
Meineke), 3. 4 (p. 97), 4. 21 (p. 187), Niketas Choniates Isaac. Angelus et Alex. fil. 4
(p. 745 Bekker), Georgios Pachymeres de Andron. Palaeol. i. 27 (ii. 77 Bekker). The
weXeKvipopoL mentioned by these authors are, of course, to be distinguished from the mere
d^ivT](p6poi of Georgios Pachymeres de Mich. Palaeol. 6. 29 (i. 504 Bekker).
^' See Ducange Gloss, med. et inf. Lat. s.v. ' 'Rdpayyoi. '
'^ For bibliography see J. Schlemm Worterbuch zur Vorgeschichte Berlin 1908 pp. 150
152 figs, a, b.
'* W. Osborne Das Beil und seine typischen Formen in vorhistorischer Zeit Dresden
1887 p. 27 pi. 5, 3.
" W. Dorpfeld Trofa und Ilion Athens 1902 i. 375
15 Id. lb. i. 374 fig. 323, cp. i, 375 figs. 324 and 325.
fig. 326.