Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

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The sword of Zeus
lupiter, grasping a bolt in one hand and a spear in the other,
fittingly expressed the popular belief in a sky-god, whose weapons
were thunder and lightning.
In conclusion, it should be noticed that Roman lamps with
crescentic handles not unfrequently have the crescent embellished
with a relief of lupiter holding a thunderbolt in his right hand and
a spear or sceptre in his left (fig. 652)^ An example in the British
Museum gives him an unmistakable spear (fig. 653)^ The lightninggod
was a suitable adornment of the light-giving lamp^, and his
threatensome attitude an excellent apotrdpaion.
iii. The sword of Zeus.
Greek literature never equips Zeus with a sword. Can the same
be said of Greek art ? The question arises in connexion with an
important Attico-Ionian ampJiora found at Caere in Etruria and
now preserved in the Louvre (pi. xxx)^ The body of the vase
exhibits two scenes, which together form one of our earliest repre-
sentations of the Gigantomachia'. The main combat is that of Zeus,
who single-handed attacks three Giants. Agasthenes is down and
out ; Ephialtes and Hyperbios still show fight. The Giants are
armed like Greek hoplites. So too is Zeus, except that the round
shield borne on his left arm is fringed with twenty bristling snakes
sens et ne servent plus que de pretexte a une pose, d'occasion a un geste De meme,
ici, la lance au lieu du sceptre.'
^ J. Toutain in Daremberg—Saglio Diet. Ant. iii. 1327 f. fig. 4593 ( = my fig. 652)
from a terra-cotta specimen in the Louvre, Brit. Mus. Cat. Lamps p. 129 nos. 854—857
terra-cotta handles only.
^ Brit. Mus. Cat. Lamps p. 129 no. 857 fig. 159 (=my fig. 653). Height if inches.
According to H. B. Walters, 'Zeus has three darts or arrows in r. hand.' But nos. 854
856 make it clear that a thunderbolt is intended.
^ G. Supka in \\i& Jahrb. d. kais. deutsch. arch. Inst. 1915 xxx Arch. Anz. pp. 24,
27 f. fig. 6 publishes a large bronze lamp from Mor, now in the National Museum at
Buda-Pesth, which has a fine bust of Zeus (eyes and lips originally incrusted), without
thunderbolt, spear, or sceptre, between the horns of the crescent and below it on the
crescent a bust of Helios. Other lamp-handles show Zeus between the horns, upborne
on an eagle grasping a thunderbolt (A. C. P. de Tubieres Comte de Caylus Recueil
d'antiquit^s egyptiefi7ies, ^trtisques, grecques, romaities et gauloises Paris 1764 vi. 305
pl- 97> 5> Babelon—Blanchet Cat. Bronzes de la Bibl. Nat. p. 1 1 no. 20 fig. Cp. supra
p. 102 f. fig. 64).
^ Pottier Cat. Vases dii Loitvre ii. 544 f. no. E 732, id. Vases antiques du Louvre
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