The Eiivopeari Sky-God. 305
Asiagenus represents Jupiter with thunderbolt and sceptre in a galloping four-horse chariot, and, according to M. Babelon, refers to the same event. When Cicero^ speaks of Gnaeus and Publius Scipio, who fell in Spain, as " the two thunderbolts of our empire"; when Lucretius^ terms Scipio Major " a thunderbolt of war " ; when Virgil and Silius, in imitation of him, call Scipio Major and Scipio Minor "the two thunderbolts of war" and "the thunder- bolts of our race " ; '^ when Valerius Maximus,'* recording the degeneracy of Scipio's son, exclaims "Gracious gods ! Ye suffered this thunderbolt to issue in utter obscurity ! ", they may be, as Mr. H. A. J. Munro^ conjectured, taking the name Scipio to mean " a thunderbolt " (ct/o/ttto?), but they may also have been appealing to the primitive senti- ment of the Roman people, which identified the hero of the moment with Jupiter himself. Again, Manius Acilius Glabrio, who as consul in 191 B.C. had won a great victory over Antiochus III., not only celebrated the customary triumph on his return to Rome, but was subsequently honoured as more than a mere man. For his son erected a statue of him covered with gold, the first of its kind in Italy.*^ Another member of the same family, Manius Acilius Balbus, took part in the defeat of Perseus, king of Macedonia — an exploit commemorated on coins'^ of his son, which show him standing as Jupiter in a four- horse chariot. He holds a sceptre in his left hand, and a thunderbolt in his right ; while his chariot is driven
iQc. pro. Balb. 34. " Lucr. 3. 1034.
=*Verg. Aen. 6. 842 f., Sil. 7. io5 f.
- Val. Max. 3. 5. i. '^ In his note on Lucr. 3. 1034.
^Liv. 40. 34. This statue may have represented him in the guise of Hercules. For it is as Hercules that he figures on later coins of the family (Babelon Monn. de la R^p. rom. i. 103 f. ) rather than as Jupiter (Montfaucon Antiquity Explained i. pi. 8, 17). The gilded statue was dedicated in the temple of Pietas (Val. Max. 2. 5. i).
Morell Thesaurus Fam. Kom. Acilia pi. i, 4, cp. Babelon Mon>i. de la Rip. rom. i. loi f.
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