Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/352

 304 The European Sky -God.

and dictator," in other words, to make him king, to erect statues to him everywhere even on the Capitol in the shrine of Jupiter, and to pass a decree that a portrait- figure of him in triumphal attire should be seen to issue from the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.^ Indeed, it appears that a portrait of Scipio was actually set up in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and fetched thence whenever it was needed for a funeral procession of the gens Cornelia.^ Scipio never undertook any business, whether public or private, without first resorting to this temple, where he remained for long sunk in contempla- tion : hence the populace came to believe that he was in reality of divine origin.^ Denarii of the gens Cornelia * represent on the obverse a helmeted head of Scipio sur- mounted by a star — a symbol of divinity which we have met with already : the reverse shows Jupiter with sceptre and thunderbolt standing between Juno, who has a sceptre, and Minerva, who is placing a wreath or crown upon his head. The latter design is meaningless, unless we assume that Jupiter stands for the victorious Scipio. Another denarius of the same gens ^ has Jupiter with sceptre and uplifted thunderbolt driving a four-horse chariot over a snaky giant, the blank spaces of the sky being filled with the sun, moon, and a couple of stars. M. Babelon, following Cavedoni, holds that Jupiter here denotes Scipio's brother, L. Cornelius Scipio Asiagenus triumph- ing over Antiochus the Great, King of Syria. A denarius ^ struck half-a-century later by another L. Cornelius Scipio

'Liv. 38. 56. 12 f., Val. Max. 4. i. 6.

^Val. Max. 8. 15. i, App. de reb. Hisp. 23. The statues of the kings on the Capitol (PHn. nat. hist. 33. 9 f., 34. 22 f.) stood in front of the door of the temple, not within it (App. de bell. civ. i. 16).

^Liv. 26. 19. 5 ff., App. de reb. Hisp. 23. Aur. Vict, de vir. ill. 49. i lovis filius creditus.


 * Babelon, tnonn. de la Rip. rovi. i. 396 f.

^Ib. i. 393 f. ^ lb. i. 399.