In connection with a cult from Commagene we can observe rather closely how the fusion of Parseeism with Semitic and Anatolian creeds took place, because {147} in those regions the form of religious transformations was at all times syncretic. On a mountain top in the vicinity of a town named Doliche, a deity was worshiped who after a number of transformations became a Jupiter Protector of the Roman armies. Originally this god, who was believed to have discovered the use of iron, seems to have been brought to Commagene by a tribe of blacksmiths, the Chalybes, who had come from the north.[23] He was represented standing on a steer and holding in his hand a two-edged ax, an ancient symbol venerated in Crete during the Mycenean age and found also at Labranda in Caria and all over Asia Minor.[24] The ax symbolized the god's mastery over the lightning which splits asunder the trees of the forest amidst the din of storms. Once established on Syrian soil, this genius of thunder became identified with some local Baal and his cult took up all the Semitic features. After the conquests of Cyrus and the founding of the Persian domination, this "Lord of the heavens" was readily confounded with Ahura Mazda, who was likewise "the full circle of heaven," according to a definition of Herodotus,[25] and whom the Persians also worshiped on mountain tops. When a half Persian, half Hellenic dynasty succeeded Alexander in Commagene, this Baal became a _Zeus Oromasdes_ ([Greek: Zeus Oromasdes], Ahura Mazda) residing in the sublime ethereal regions. A Greek inscription speaks of the celestial thrones "on which this supreme divinity receives the souls of its worshipers."[26] In the Latin countries "Jupiter Caelus" remained at the head of the Mazdean pantheon,[27] and in all the provinces the temples of {148} "Jupiter Dolichenus" were erected beside those of Mithra, and the two remained in the closest relations.[28]