Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

762 Gradual elimination of the thunderbolt
eagle-bearing Zeus of Alexander', seated as he is on a throne
;l
Fig. 708.
without a back, with an eagle in his right hand, a
sceptre in his left, the right leg in advance, and the
himdtion wrapped about his lower limbs. Mr Seltman
hazards- the brilliant conjecture that Alexander in-
tentionally combined an obverse type, which in the
west would represent Herakles, in the east Melqarth,
with a reverse type, which in the west would represent
Zeus, in the east Ba'al-tars, thereby pursuing his usual
policy of welding together his Hellenic and bar-
barian subjects.
Lastly Greek art produced on Italian soil a fresh
type of seated Zeus, in which the right hand held
neither thunderbolt, nor eagle, nor even Victory, but
was simply raised to the head in an attitude sug-
gestive of thought. We have already seen that a
wall-painting from Pompeii^ and a well-mouth at
Naples** presuppose a common exemplar of this type,
not impossibly the great statue made by Lysippos
for the market-place of the Tarentines. Here for
the first time the sculptor endeavours
To bring the invisible full into play I
Fig. 709.
andria Kat'isson ' in \h.t American
Journal ofNumist)tatics 1919 liii-
2. I— 42 with 28 figs, and 2 pis.
Babelon's chronology {supra i.
596 n. 2) must be revised accord-
ingly.
' Brit. Mtis. Cat. Coins Ly-
caonia, etc. p. 172 nos. 57 and 58
pi. 31, 2, E. T. Newell loc. cit.
p. 9 fig. 9.
- This conjecture is hardly to
be reconciled with the contention
of E. T. Newell 'Alexander
Hoards' in Numismatic Notes
andMpnographs 1921 iii. 15 pi. i,
16, 19, pi. 2, 2,1 that the first issue
of tetradrachms under Alex-
ander at Amphipolis together
with the last issue under Philip
at the same mint 'probably
covered the years 336 to 334 B.C.'
^ Supra i. 34 pi. i and Frontis-
piece.
* Supra i. 34 ff. pi. ii.