Introduction

1The innovations undertaken at the sanctuary at Olympia with regard to the cult of Zeus in the 5^th century BC – the construction of the Doric temple of the deity between 470 and 456 BC and the cult statue of Olympian Zeus made by Pheidias for the temple c. 430 BC – also encompassed his representation in the visual arts. The first evidence for this innovation was certainly the statue of Olympian Zeus, whose features, sculpted by Pheidias, of which several had never before been used in a representation of Zeus, were maintained as an example to be followed in the representation of the deity until the Roman period.

2Inter-state sanctuaries, like Olympia, promulgated a variety of contacts among different states, promoting the diffusion of similar institutions and cultural traits throughout a very extensive area1. The search for these similar cultural traits, in this case the image of Zeus, in the numismatic record, can have implications for the understanding of the appropriation of such images by other poleis. As we know, the coins circulated in near and distant places, through several poleis, and also outside the Greek world. The images that these small artifacts carried were copied many times by these other localities. The traits found on the coins were apt to be seen and rearranged and used to compose new images. In this way, an image that initially represented the identity of its place of origin, when readapted by another place, could provide evidence for the phenomenon of Panhellenism. Therefore the import of numismatic images may have signalled for the ancient Greeks the idea of belonging to a wider world2.

3I believe that this process of innovation and, consequently, of transformation of the representation of Zeus surpassed the sphere of the Olympic Games and was appropriated by other localities in the Greek world. Accordingly I chose to look at the numismatic images of Zeus minted in Olympia – by the poleis of Elis and Pisa, which were responsible for the organization of the games in different periods – in search of answers about the influence of the sanctuary on the visual representation of the most important Greek deity.

4The intention of this study is, therefore, to understand how the numismatic type of Zeus, pertaining to Olympia, contributed to the development of a specific representation of this deity in the Greek world. For this investigation, I systematically surveyed all the numismatic types from Olympia minted in the 5^th and 4^th centuries BC and, also, all the numismatic images of Zeus issued in the Greek world, as well as some important examples of sculptures and reliefs of the deity made in this period3. From the constitution of the documentary corpus, I could then compare the numismatic images of Zeus, created in Olympia, with comparandum A (numismatic types from the Greek world) and comparandum B (sculptures and reliefs), while I examined and “dismantled” the images into several elements: hairstyle, head adornment, associated attributes, position (seated, hurling the thunderbolt, etc.), in order to structure a repertoire of individual components and analyze the reassembling of these elements in the other evidence4.

5In the following pages, I present the three main results regarding Zeus’ iconography on Classical Greek coins.

The chronology and the pattern of representation of Zeus on Greek coins

The 5^th century BC – The beginning of representation of Zeus on Greek coins

6The first image of Zeus minted on a Greek coin was struck in the beginning of the fifth century BC, around the year 490 BC, in the Peloponnese region and by cities that formed the Arcadian League. Although some scholars have dated this specimen to c. 480 BC, I have situated it within a temporal framework that goes from the beginning of the representation of Zeus on Greek coins to the transition between the 6^th and the 5^th centuries BC. Thinking back to the invention of the coin in Asia Minor, which occurred at the end of the 7^th century BC, and its subsequent adoption by Greek cities at the beginning of the 6^th century BC, I have traced a historical context for the beginning of figurative representations on coins in ancient Greece as follows.

7In the Greek world, the first images to be represented on a coin were not images of gods or goddesses, nymphs or heroes, but animals. The choice of deities as the symbol of the polis occurred in a somewhat later period. According to a brief survey in the catalogue in Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (1976), by Colin Kraay, one of the oldest such images was found in Sicily: the figure of the head of Dionysos, issued by the polis of Naxos in c. 530 BC. We know that the dating of these coins was, in several cases, done approximately and without a well-determined historical context. However, other numismatic images of deities are known from c. 525 BC: the figure of Apollo minted by Caulonia and the image of Poseidon issued in Poseidonia, in Magna Graecia. It is interesting to note that the oldest numismatic representations of gods in the Greek world were found in colonial areas.

8In the context of the oldest representations of deities on Greek coins, the image of Zeus was chosen as a numismatic type approximately half a century later. Certainly, the temporal contrast between the adoption of the images of other gods and that of Zeus, in the period of transition, may point to characteristics specific to the cult of Zeus that have remained unknown until now, as they have not been studied in the context of the cult of the deity.

9A survey of the numismatic types of Zeus issued in the Classical period in the Greek world has revealed that the 5^th century BC was the first moment at which there was interest in the representation of Zeus’ image on coins, as is attested by the quantity of issues with the image of the deity from the period. It is interesting to note that there was a gap between the Archaic period and the first date that we have for a numismatic type of Zeus in the fifth century BC. The only explanation for this phenomenon that I can find pertains to the development of the Panhellenic character of Zeus that occurred from the end of the 6^th century onwards and reached its acme in the 5^th century BC5. In this sense, we believe that the acme of the ideal of Greek identity in the 5^th century BC may have stimulated the representation of Zeus on Greek coins.

Zeus coin types of the 5^th century BC

The seated type

10The oldest representations of this pattern can be dated to c. 490 BC and were minted by the city of Kleitor for the Arcadian League, in the Peloponnese. These specimens correspond to the oldest numismatic types of Zeus and are important because they allow us to understand the cult of Zeus during the beginning of the 5^th century BC. In Olympia this pattern can be found on coins from two different issues dated to between 452 and 432 BC6. On the reverse, Zeus is represented on a throne on the left, holding a sceptre in his left hand, with an eagle flying around his right arm (fig. 1).

The striding type

11Analysis of the survey of the numismatic types in the Greek world in connection with the types minted in Olympia reveals that this pattern of images of Zeus is typical of the 5^th century BC and was used only in the Peloponnese and in Sicily. In the Peloponnese, the image of Zeus striding was used by Elis on the reverse of the coins from Olympia; these specimens correspond to the first numismatic issue with the image of Zeus issued in the sanctuary, which is dated from c. 470-450 BC, the first date that we have for a numismatic type of Zeus minted at Olympia, according to Seltman’s chronology (fig. 2).

The head type

12Surveying the numismatic types of Zeus minted at Olympia and the types minted in the Greek world generally has shown that the first heads of Zeus were represented on the coinage from Elis to Olympia (fig. 3), and on the coins from the Arcadian League, in the second half of the 5^th century BC. So these are thus the only two known cases of this pattern of representation in the 5^th century BC, which characterize these places as responsible for the oldest representations of the god’s head on Greek coins.

The 4^th century BC – The growth in the number of regions using the image of Zeus on Greek coins

13In the 4^th century BC, growth in the number of the regions starting to use the image of Zeus on coins occurred. The poleis in the Peloponnese and in Sicily kept the issues of numismatic images of the god, but Magna Graecia, Thessaly, Macedonia and Crete started to issue their numismatic issues with the type of the god in this period.

Zeus coin types of the 4^th century BC

The head type

14According to the dating of the specimens, the first numismatic image of the head of Zeus minted in the 4^th century BC that does not belong amongst the issues of Elis for Olympia was issued by Megalopolis in the Peloponnese for the Arcadian League, in the period of the latter’s foundation (fig. 4). In a word, the representation of the head of Zeus was an invention of the 5^th century, but it was adopted in the 4^th century as a model for the representation of Zeus on Greek coins, being developed as a pattern of representation in the Hellenistic period.

The seated type

15This pattern of representation of Zeus is the second type that is more prominent in the 4^th century BC, and occurs only on coins from Crete (Knossos, Praisos, Olous) and in Macedonia (royal issues of Alexander the Great), and in one isolated case in the Peloponnese (the Achaean League).

The striding type

16This is a typical pattern of representation of the 5^th century BC and was used in the 4^th century only by the polis of Messenia when minting types of Zeus Ithomates. The pattern of Zeus striding and hurling the thunderbolt, known in statuary as Zeus Keraunios, ceased to be the predominant pattern of representation on coins as well as on sculptures and reliefs from the second half of the 5^th century BC onwards.

The contribution of Zeus’ coin types from Olympia to the development of Zeus’ visual representation

The olive wreath

17This iconographic element is a representation peculiar to the sanctuary of Olympia. The oldest specimen of the head of Zeus minted by the Arcadian League between 428-418 BC does not include the image of the wreath made with the shoots of the tree. The numismatic representation of a head of Zeus with a wreath of olive leaves was found in Olympia and is dated to 416 BC (see fig. 3). This element can be seen in all 4^th century BC representations of the head of Zeus in Sicily (fig. 5), Magna Graecia (fig. 6) and on the island of Crete. The diffusion of this element was limited to coins, for I have not found it in the representations of the deity on sculptures and reliefs from the Classical period7.

18In order to differentiate olive wreaths from laurel wreaths I had recourse to the drawings in Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen encyclopedia (figs. 7-8)8.

19As we can see, the leaves of the olive tree (Olea europaea) are more thin and pointed than laurel leaves (Laurus nobilis), which are more voluminous. This, therefore, was the criterion of differentiation in the classification of the wreaths present in the drawings of the head of Zeus on the coins. It should be said, first, that the worn state of the numismatic image and the indeterminate nature of the picture in some cases made classifying the wreath leaves difficult.

20Therefore, within these parameters we can identify clearly the presence of a wreath of olive leaves on the heads of Zeus minted at Olympia. In all the images of the heads of Zeus with short or long hair issued in the sanctuary, I have noted the existence of a wreath of olive leaves, which is not found in the images of the head of Zeus minted by the Arcadian League in the 5^th century BC. Thus, we can state that the wreath of olive leaves may have been an innovation of the sanctuary of Olympia in the iconography of Zeus on Greek coins. Among the numismatic types from Olympia, we can highlight the obverse of the specimen dating from c. 360 BC, which I consider to be the best defined image of the leaves of the olive tree (fig. 9). In this case, I believe that the close resemblance of the drawings of the leaves on the coin to the natural leaves of the olive tree shows that the artist responsible for the engraving intended to differentiate the leaves of the olive tree from other plants. This numismatic type of Zeus also leads me to think that in fact there are differences in the representation of the wreaths in the image of the head of Zeus on coins, which may force us to review the classification of “laureate” in numismatic catalogues in cases where there is a wreath on the head of the god.

the eagle and the Thunderbolt

21The use of the eagle seems to have been an invention of the Arcadians. According to Mylonas9, the eagle was not mentioned in Homeric texts (n.b. Iliad 11.184, 12.237) and in Pindar’s Odes (Pythian I) as an attribute of Zeus, but was mentioned as a bird that could bring about an omen. The author relates these ancient literary traditions from the Greek north to the absence of the eagle on the statuettes of Zeus Keraunios that were found in Dodona, in Epirus. The representation of Zeus hurling a thunderbolt with his right hand and holding the eagle in his left hand first appeared in the Peloponnesus in the 7^th century BC. For that reason, the author suggests that perhaps this representation could have emerged in Arcadia and in the sanctuary of Mount Lykaion, a place where the figure of the eagle seems to have been represented on the statues of the god that were found there. Mylonas concludes that from Mount Lykaion the use of the eagle as an attribute of Zeus could perhaps have migrated to Olympia10.

22Although the eagle was not a contribution peculiar to Olympia, as I believe is the case with the wreath of olive leaves, I see the use of this bird as an attribute of Zeus sometimes represented near the god on one image and sometimes represented alone on the obverse or reverse of the coins from the sanctuary at Olympia. I have also found the image of the bird on the numismatic images of the god in cities from the western regions of the Greek world, Sicily and Magna Graecia. I believe that the use of the eagle, as well as the thunderbolt11, as an attribute of Zeus on coins and on sculptures and reliefs was diffused from Olympia to other areas, under the influence of the most important Doric and western centre of the Greek world (figs. 10, 11).

The Olympian Zeus of Pheidias

23Tiverios12 claims that the cult statue of Olympian Zeus would have inevitably influenced artists contemporary with Pheidias’ work, as well as artists who worked after the creation of the statue. This statue of Zeus seated on a throne unfortunately has not come down to us, and we know of its existence from narratives such as that of Pausanias (5.11.2-5). Other statues of the seated deity, used for cult inside temples, were made in the 5^th century BC, and we know of them from textual sources, as is the case with the statue of Olympian Zeus at Megara (Pausanias 1.40.2-4).

24In this sense, the statue made by Pheidias in c. 430 BC still remains the greatest contribution from the sanctuary at Olympia to the shaping of Zeus’ iconography in ancient Greece. The seated position of the huge god, as represented in this statue, may indicate that the cult of Zeus as the highest god was fixed among the Greeks. That work has influenced the representation of the god on sculptures as well as on later coins13.

The Peloponnese: a centre of innovation in Zeus’ iconography and the dissemination of a characteristic pattern to the Western Poleis

25Systematic surveying of the numismatic types of Zeus minted in the Classical period has produced a map of the several different regions of the Greek world that were responsible for the issues. As we may observe, the Peloponnese, Sicily, Magna Graecia, Thessaly, Macedonia and the island of Crete were distinguished as the places that chose Zeus as the image to be represented on their coins.

26Among these regions, we can distinguish the Peloponnese and Sicily as the only places to issue numismatic types of Zeus in the 5^th century BC. We believe that the coincidence between these two regions as the places responsible for the oldest issues with images of the deity is due to the intimate relationships that the two regions maintained. We know that it was from several areas of the Peloponnese that the founders of the Greek cities in Sicily and Magna Graecia came. But we also know that since the beginning of the colonization of Sicily and Magna Graecia, the region kept up its relationships with the Peloponnese, due to the participation of athletes from the western Greek cities in the Olympic Games. For that reason, Olympia is considered by the scholars as the most notable Doric and western centre of the Greek world14.

27Finally, I also identified two main centres in the Peloponnese that were responsible for innovation in Zeus’ iconography on coins: the cities responsible for the Arcadian League issues, and the sanctuary of Olympia. From both places come the oldest representations of Zeus on coins as well as the first numismatic representations of the god’s head.