Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/362

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314 The European Sky -God.

Domitian was constantly called Jupiter by the poets of the day,^ sometimes by way of variation Tonans or " the Thunderer."- On one of his first-brasses we see Jupiter Custos seated with a thunderbolt and a spear ; on another, Domitian himself holding the thunderbolt in his right hand, the spear in his left, while he is crowned by Victory from behind.^ A dedication to Hadrian as lovi Olyinpio is extant.'i It was found at Parium in Mysia, and should be compared with various Greek inscriptions, which give him the titles Zeiis and Olympios probably because in the year 128/129 ^-D- ^^ completed the magnificent temple of Zeus Olympios at Athens.^ A silver medallion of the Roman province Asia, struck about the same time, shows him standing in his character of Zeus with reversed spear, shield and eagle.^ Oppian ^ speaks of Septimius Severus as "the Ausonian Zeus." A bronze coin of Claudius Gothicus, who in 269 A.D. routed an immense horde of Goths, represents the emperor as Jupiter holding a thunderbolt and a reversed spear with the inscription lovi Victoria Another bronze coin struck at Heraclea in Thrace is inscribed lovi Conservatori, and shows either Jupiter, or more probably Licinius as Jupiter, receiving a wreath from a small figure of Victory on an orb which he holds in his right hand, while his left hand has a sceptre, and on either side of him are placed an eagle with a wreath in its beak and a captive in bonds.^ But of all these later emperors he who made the most successful

^ Stat. silv. I. 6. 27, Mart, epigr. 9. 28. 10, 9. 86. 8, 14. I. 2, cp. Dionys. per. 210 o\)% Albs ovk a\4yovTas airJiKfaev Avcrovls alxfJ-V-

  • Mart, epzgr. 6. lo. 9 with Friedlander's n.

^ Stevenson DzcL Rotn. Coins p. 400. ^ Dessau 320.

^P. von Rohden in Pauly-Wissowa i. 500, 509.

® Muller-Wieseler- Wernicke Antike Detikm'dler Zeus p. 98, pi. 9, 28. ^ 0pp. cyit. 3.

"Miiller-Wieseler-Wernicke op. cit. Zeus p. 97, pi. 9, 25. ^ Id. ib. Zeus p. 94, pi. 9, 17.