CIMRM 611 - Drawing of lion-headed god. Vatican ms.

A drawing in a Vatican manuscript. Vermaseren does not seem to have seen it, but repeats all his details from Cumont.

CIMRM entry

611. Statue, formerly "in aedibus Jo. Antonii di Ponione" (Porsione ?). Ms Vaticanus, 3439 f. 145 (drawings collected by Fulvius Ursinus 1529-1600); MMM II 484 No. 77bis. Standing figure with kalathos on lion's head and two large wings attached to his shoulders. His body is entwined by three coils of the serpent, which directs its head towards an eye on the god's breast. There are also eyes on each cheek and one on the forehead. Around his waist a belt on which a lion to the right. On the l. thigh a scorpion and a knife, on the other thigh a child, holding a pair of scales. The god holds in his l.h. a sceptre; in his hanging r.h. a patera. It is not all together impossible, that the drawing should be mere fantasy (cf. Matz in Nachr. Ges. Wiss. Göttingen. 1872, 55) or a forged restoration of No. 545. (Cumont). but this is not quite certain. The god with kalathos we also find on a relief from Dura-Europos (see No. 401; and one eye on the breast we find again on the interesting,statue from Castel Gandolfo (No. 326).