Epithets of Jupiter

[1] On the southern peak was the most ancient sanctuary of the god, traditionally said to have been built by Romulus: this was the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius, which was restored by Augustus.

[7] To the same atmospheric complex belongs the epithet Elicius: while the ancient erudites thought it was connected to lightning, it is in fact related to the opening of the reservoirs of rain, as is testified by the ceremony of the Nudipedalia, meant to propitiate rainfall and devoted to Jupiter.

[8] and the ritual of the lapis manalis, the stone which was brought into the city through the Porta Capena and carried around in times of drought, which was named Aquaelicium.

[15] A group of epithets has been interpreted by Wissowa (and his followers) as a reflection of the agricultural or warring nature of the god, some of which are also in the list of eleven preserved by Augustine.

[20] Dumézil maintains the cult usage of these epithets is not documented and that the epithet Ruminus, as Wissowa and Latte remarked, may not have the meaning given by Augustine but it should be understood as part of a series including Rumina, Ruminalis ficus, Iuppiter Ruminus, which bears the name of Rome itself with an Etruscan vocalism preserved in inscriptions, series that would be preserved in the sacred language (cf.

[21] Diva Rumina, as Augustine testifies in the cited passage, was the goddess of suckling babies: she was venerated near the ficus ruminalis and was offered only libations of milk.

In Dumézil's opinion Farreus should be understood as related to the rite of the confarreatio the most sacred form of marriage, the name of which is due to the spelt cake eaten by the spouses, rather than surmising an agricultural quality of the god: the epithet means the god was the guarantor of the effects of the ceremony, to which the presence of his flamen is necessary and that he can interrupt with a clap of thunder.

This interpretation finds support in the analogous urban ceremony of the epulum Iovis, from which the god derives the epithet of Epulo and which was a magnificent feast accompanied by flutes.

Iuppiter Stator was first attributed by tradition to Romulus, who pledged to build a temple in his honor in exchange for his almighty help at a critical moment in the final battle of the war with King Titus Tatius of the Sabines.

[29][30] in a similar manner one can explain the epithet Victor, whose cult was founded in 295 BC on the battlefield of Sentinum by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges and who received another vow again in 293 by consul Lucius Papirius Cursor before a battle against the Samnite legio linteata.

Here too the religious meaning of the vow is in both cases an appeal to the supreme god by the Roman chief at a time when as a chief he needs divine help from the supreme god, even though for different reasons: Fabius had remained the only political and military responsible of the Roman State after the devotio of Publius Decius Mus, Papirius had to face an enemy who had acted with impious rites and vows; that is, was religiously reprehensible.

Moreover January sees also the presence of Veiovis who appears as an anti-Jupiter, of Carmenta who is the goddess of birth and like Janus has two opposed faces, Prorsa and Postvorta (also named Antevorta and Porrima), of Iuturna, who as a gushing spring evokes the process of coming into being from non-being as the god of passage and change does.

[42] This competition has been compared to the Vedic rite of the vajapeya: in it seventeen chariots run a symbolic race which must be won by the king in order to allow him to drink a cup of madhu, i. e.

The Latiar became an important feature of Roman political life as they were feriae conceptivae, i. e. their date varied each year: the consuls and the highest magistrates were required to attend shortly after the beginning of the administration.

This might be a mythic illustration of the working of the oracle, in which Jupiter is at one time the child (puer) who ritually draws the rods of the lots (here while deciphering one) and their keeper, arcanus.

[53] A different interpretation of the epithet is directly connected to the word arx, which designates the political, military and religious centre of ancient Italic towns.

This interpretation is supported by numerous inscriptions found on the area around the local arx, sited on the summit of Monte Ginestro (m. 752), which dominates the town.

The wall in opus polygonale climbed from the town to surround the arx: epigraphs attest the cults of Iuppiter Arcanus[54] and Mars.

Jupiter was worshipped also under the epithets of Imperator Maximus in Praeneste, Maius in Tusculum,[62] Praestes in Tibur,[63] Indiges at Lavinium[64] and Anxurus at Anxur[65] (now Terracina), where he was represented as a young man without beard.