Epithets of Jupiter

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Iuppiter Tonans, possibly reflecting the cult image of the temple of Jupiter Tonans (Prado)

The numerous epithets of Jupiter indicate the importance and variety of the god's functions in ancient Roman religion.

Capitoline cult

Jupiter's most ancient attested forms of

sky god
encompassed the ethical and political domain.

Lightning and rain

Juppiter Tonans ("Thundering Jove") was the aspect (numen) of Jupiter venerated in the

Prado is considered to be a late 1st-century replacement commissioned by Domitian
. The Baroque-era restoration of the arms gives Jupiter a baton-like scepter in his raised hand.

Among Jupiter's most ancient epithets is Lucetius, interpreted as referring to light (lux, lucis), specifically sunlight, by ancient and some modern scholars such as Wissowa.[6] The Carmen Saliare, however, indicates that it refers to lightning.[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.[9]

Other early epithets connected with the atmospheric quality of Jupiter are Pluvius, Imbricius, Tempestas, Tonitrualis, tempestatium divinarum potens, Serenator, Serenus

nomen agentis) Fulgurator, Fulminator.[14] The high antiquity of the cult is testified by the neuter form Fulgur and the use of the term for the bidental, the lightning well dug on the spot hit by a lightning bolt.[15]

A bronze statue of Jupiter, from the territory of the Treveri

Agriculture and war

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.[16][17] The agricultural ones include Opitulus, Almus, Ruminus, Frugifer, Farreus, Pecunia, Dapalis,[18] Epulo.[19] Augustine gives an explanation of the ones he lists which should reflect Varro's: Opitulus because he brings opem (means, relief) to the needy, Almus because he nourishes everything, Ruminus because he nourishes the living beings by breastfeeding them, Pecunia because everything belongs to him.[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. Rumach Etruscan for Roman). However many scholars have argued that the name of Rome, Ruma, meant in fact woman's breast.

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.[22] Here moreover Augustine cites the verses devoted to Jupiter by Quintus Valerius Soranus
, while hypothesising Iuno (more adept in his view as a breastfeeder), i. e. Rumina instead of Ruminus, might be nothing else than Iuppiter: Iuppiter omnipotens regum rerumque deumque Progenitor genetrixque deum....

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.[23]

The epithet Dapalis is on the other hand connected to a rite described by Cato and mentioned by Festus.[24] Before the sowing of autumn or spring the peasant offered a banquet of roast beef and a cup of wine to Jupiter; it is natural that on such occasions he would entreat the god who has power over the weather, however Cato's prayer is one of sheer offer and no request. The language suggests another attitude: Jupiter is invited to a banquet which is supposedly abundant and magnificent. The god is honoured as summus. The peasant may hope he shall receive a benefit, but he does not say it. 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.[25]

Epithets related to warring are, in Wissowa's view, Iuppiter Feretrius, Iuppiter Stator, Iuppiter Victor and Iuppiter Invictus.[26] Feretrius would be connected with war by the rite of the first type of spolia opima which is in fact a dedication to the god of the arms of the defeated king of the enemy that happens whenever he has been killed by the king of Rome or his equivalent authority. Here too Dumézil notes the dedication has to do with being regal and not with war, since the rite is in fact the offer of the arms of a king by a king: a proof of such an assumption is provided by the fact that the arms of an enemy king captured by an officer or a common soldier were dedicated to Mars and Quirinus respectively.

Iuppiter Stator was first attributed by tradition to Romulus, who pledged to build a

Publius Decius Mus, Papirius had to face an enemy who had acted with impious rites and vows; that is, was religiously reprehensible.[31]

More recently, Dario Sabbatucci has given a different interpretation of the meaning of Stator within the frame of his structuralist and dialectic vision of Roman calendar, identifying oppositions, tensions and equilibria: January is the month 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. In this period the preeminence of Janus needs compensating on the Ides through the action of Jupiter Stator, who plays the role of anti-Janus, that is, of moderator of the action of Janus.[32]

List of epithets

Unless otherwise noted, the alphabetical list of epithets listed below are those compiled by Carl Thulin for the 1890

Paulys Real Encyclopädie
. The abbreviation O.M. stands for Optimus Maximus, one of the most common epithets for Jupiter.

Temple of Jupiter Anxur in Terracina
  • Adventus O. M. (arrival, birth)
  • Aetetus O. M.
  • Almus
  • Amaranus
  • Anxurus ("of Anxur, now Terracina")
  • Appenninus ("of the Apennines")
  • Arcanus (protector of the arca, arcane: at Praeneste)
  • Balmarcodes O. M.
  • Beellefarus
  • Bronton (thundering)
  • Cacunus
  • Caelestis O. M. (Heavenly)
  • Caelus O. M.
  • Capitolinus O. M. ("of the Capitol")
  • Casius ("of
    Baʿal Zephon
    )
  • Ciminius (of Mount Ciminus, now Mount Cimino)
  • Clitumnus (of river Clitumnus)
  • Cohortalis O. M.
  • Conservator ("preserver")
  • Culminalis O. M.
  • Cultor ("cultivator")
  • Custos ("protector, warden")
  • Damascenus O. M. ("of Damascus")
  • Dapalis (from daps: dinner, banquet)
  • Defensor O. M.
  • Depulsor O. M.
  • Depulsorius O. M.
  • Dianus
Jupiter Dolichenus, Louvre
  • Dolichenus ("of Dolichus"; equivalent to the ancient Teshub of the Hittites)
  • Domesticus
  • Diovis
  • Elicius (who sends forth, elicits)
  • Epulo (who gives or takes part in banquets)
  • Exsuperantissimus O. M.
  • Fagutalis (of the Fagutal: the god had a temple near an old oak there)
  • Farreus (from the confarreatio, according to Wissowa and Dumézil.)
  • Feretrius
    (who is carried around or whom spoils are carried to on a frame or litter)
  • Fidius (fusion with Dius Fidius)
  • Flagius (worshipped at
    Cuma
    )
  • Frugifer (who bears fruits)
  • Fulgur
  • Fulgurator
  • Fulmen
  • Fulminator
  • Grabovius (in the
    Iguvine Tables
    : who is carried around on a ceremonial litter, from Etruscan crapis ceremonial litter)
  • Hammon O. M. (worshipped in the oasis of Siwa)
  • Heliopolitanus ("of
    Baʿal
    )
  • Hercius
  • Hospes (hospitable or friendly). Mentioned by Ovid in Metamorphoses, Book 10, line 224. Guardian of hospitality, equivalent to Zeus Xeinios[33]
  • Imbricitor (who soaks in rainwater)
  • Impulsor
  • Indiges (later the divine identification of Aeneas)
  • Inventor
  • Invictus
  • Iurarius (of oaths)
  • Iutor (benefictor, beneficent)
  • Iuventas
  • Lapis (flintstone: the f. sends sparkles similar to lightning)
  • Latiaris
  • Liber (who is free, or who frees, also the semen)
  • Liberator
  • Libertas
  • Lucetius (shining, for his lightningbolts)
  • Maius (majestic, great) at Tusculum
  • Maleciabrudes
  • Monitor O. M. (leader, warner)
  • Nundinarius (patron of the nundinae)
  • Obsequens (agreeable, complacent)
  • Opitulator or Opitulus (reliever)
  • Optimus Maximus (O. M.)
  • Paganicus
  • Pantheus
  • Patronus
  • Pecunia
  • Pistor (baker)
  • Pluvialis (of the rains)
  • Poeninus
  • Praedator
  • Praestes (present, protector) at Tibur
  • Praestabilis
  • Praestitus
  • Propagator O. M.
  • Propugnator
  • Puer (child)
  • Purgator (purifier)
  • Purpurio O. M.
  • Quirinus (fusion with Quirinus)
  • Rector (who rules)
  • Redux
  • Restitutor
  • Ruminus (who breastfeeds)
  • Salutaris O. M.
  • Savazios (fusion with Sabatius)
  • Sempiternus
  • Serapis (fusion with Serapis)
  • Serenator (who clears the sky)
  • Serenus ("clear, serene, calm; happy")
  • Servator O. M. ("saviour, preserver, observer")
  • Sospes ("saviour")
  • Stator
  • Striganus
  • Succellus (fusion with Celtic god Succellus)
  • Summanus
  • Tempestas
  • Terminus
  • Territor (who scares)
  • Tifatinus (of Mount Tifata near Capua)
  • Tigillus (beam of the universe)
  • Tonans (thundering)
  • Tonitrator (who generates thunder)
  • Tutator (warden)
  • Valens (strong, sound, effective)
  • Versor (who overthrows or who pours rain)
  • Vesuvius (worshipped at Capua)
  • Viminus (of the Viminal Hill place in which the god had a temple)
  • Vindex (protector, defensor)
  • Vircilinus

Epithets from Augustine

St. Augustine names eleven epithets of Jupiter in his work De civitate Dei:[34]

  • Victor: he who conquers all things.
  • Invictus: he who is conquered by none.
  • Opitulus: he who brings help to the needy.
  • Impulsor: he who has the power of impelling.
  • Stator: he who has the power of establishing, instituting, founding.
  • Centumpeda: he who has the power of rendering stable, lasting.
  • Supinalis: he who has the power of throwing on the back.
  • Tigillus: he who holds together, supports the world.
  • Almus: he who nourishes all things.
  • Ruminus: he who nourishes all animals.
  • Pecunia: he to whom everything belongs.

Jupiter outside Rome

Iuppiter Latiaris

The cult of Iuppiter Latiaris was the most ancient known cult of the god: it was practiced since very remote times on the top of the Mons Albanus on which the god was venerated as the high protector of the Latin League, which was under the hegemony of Alba Longa.

After the destruction of Alba by king Tullus Hostilius the cult was forsaken. The god manifested his discontent through the prodigy of a rain of stones: the commission sent by the senate to inquire into it was also greeted by a rain of stones and heard a loud voice from the grove on the summit of the mount requiring the Albans to perform the religious service to the god according to the rites of their country. In consequence of this event the Romans instituted a festival of nine days (nundinae). However a plague ensued: in the end Tullus Hostilius himself was affected and lastly killed by the god with a lightning bolt.[35] The festival was reestablished on its primitive site by the last Roman king Tarquin the Proud under the leadership of Rome.

The

decemvirs.[45]
Wissowa remarks the inner linkage of the temple of the Mons Albanus with that of the Capitol apparent in the common association with the rite of the triumph:[46] since 231 BC some triumphing commanders had triumphed there first with the same legal features as in Rome.[47]

Iuppiter Arcanus

Arcanus was the epithet of one of the Jupiters worshipped at

Praeneste.[48] His theology and cult are strictly connected to that of the Fortuna Primigenia worshipped in the famous sanctuary there. He is the protector of the lots sortes stored in the arca, whence his epithet.[49] G. Dumézil attempted a purely Indoeuropean interpretation of the theology of Fortuna and of her relationship with Juppiter and Juno,[50] other scholars see the subcessive accretion of a Greek-Etruscan and then a later Greek influence on Fortuna and the theological structure underlying her relationship to Jupiter, i. .e. earlier the child and then the parent of Fortuna.[51] Jacqueline Champeaux interprets the boy represented on the cista of the 3rd century BC from Praeneste, now at the Archaeological Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome, as Jupiter puer[52]
and arcanus: the image engraved on it represents a boy sitting in a cave, reading a lot inscribed on a tablet. 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.

The sortes of Praeneste were inscribed on rods of chestnut wood: they had sprung out of earth fully inscribed when a certain Numerius Suffustius cut the earth open with his spade, under the indication of some dreams.[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. Thus Iuppiter Arcanus is the god of the arx of Praeneste. 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.[55][56]

Iuppiter Appenninus

The god was venerated in a sanctuary at the mountain pass between Umbria and Marche now named Scheggia Pass, about eight miles North-East of Iguvium along the Via Flaminia, on Mount Petrara.[57] He had a famous oracle there which gave his responsa by means of sortes (lots). Its reputation was great during the Empire and it was consulted by emperor Aurelian. Dedications have been excavated on the place [58] and in Algeria on the top of a hill near Philippeville.[59][60] Claudian mentions the oracle in his description of the travel of Honorius from Fanum Fortunae.[61]

As was the case for the sanctuary of Iuppiter Poeninus on the Great St. Bernard, the mountain pass held a religious significance as a point of communication between different geographic areas, a passage to a different and unknown world that required a religious protection for the traveller.

Other Italic Jupiters

Jupiter was worshipped also under the epithets of Imperator Maximus in Praeneste, Maius in

Anxur[65] (now Terracina
), where he was represented as a young man without beard.

In Umbro-Oscan areas he was Iuve Grabovius in the Iguvine Tables, Iuppiter Cacunus (of the top of mountains, cf. Latin cacumen and Iuppiter Culminalis), Iuppiter Liber (see section on Liber above), Diuve Regature in the Table of Agnone that Vetter interprets as Rigator,[66] he who irrigates, and Dumézil as Rector, he who rules and Diuve Verehasus tentatively rendered by Vetter as Vergarius.


Bibliography

  • Georg Wissowa religion und Kultus der Römer Munich 1912
  • Georges Dumézil La religione romana arcaica. Edizione e traduzione a cura di Furio Jesi Milano 1977 (expanded translation into Italian based on the 2nd edition of La religion romaine archaïque Paris 1977.
  • Jacqueline Champeaux Fortuna. Recherches sur le culte de la Fortune à Rome et dans le monde romain dés origines à la mort de César. I: Fortune dans la religion archaïque Paris 1982; "Sors Oraculi. Les oracles en Italie sous la République et l'Empire" in MEFRA 102 1990 1.

References

  1. ^ Wissowa p. 108 citing Varro LL V 47and Festus p. 290 M. s.v. Idulia.
  2. ^ Wissowa p. 108 citing Paulus p. 92 M.; Servius Ad Aeneidem VIII 641.
  3. ^ Wissowa p. 108 citing Festus p. 189 M. s.v. lapis; Polybius Historiae III 25, 6. According to Wissowa and Dumézil, Iuppiter Lapis seems to be inseparable from Iuppiter Feretrius, in whose tiny shrine on the Capitol the silex was lodged.
  4. ^ Suetonius, Vita Augusti 29.91, etc. See Samuel Ball Platner and Thomas Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, (London: Oxford University Press) 1929. On-line text)
  5. Pliny's Natural History
    , 39.79
  6. ^ G. Wissowa p. 100.
  7. ^ G. Dumezil ARR It. tr. Milan 1977 p. 167. The carmen Saliare has: "cume tonas Leucesie prai ted tremonti/ quot tibi etinei deis cum tonarem" ("When you thunder, oh God of light, they tremble before you! All gods beneath you have heard you thunder!")
  8. ^ Petronius Satyricon 44.
  9. ^ Paulus s. v. p. 94 L 2nd; p. 2 M; Tertullian Apologeticum 40.
  10. ^ Apuleius DeMundo 37; cf. Iuppiter Serenus CIL VI 431, 433,; XI 6312; Iuppiter Pluvialis CIL XI 324.
  11. ^ Iuppiter Serenus has been recognized as an interpretatio of the Phocean god Ζευς Ούριος: F. Cenerini above p. 104 citing Giancarlo Susini "Iuppiter Serenus e altri dei" in Epigraphica 33 1971 p. 175-177.
  12. ^ Vitruvius I 2, 5; CIL I 2nd p. 331: sanctuary in the Campus Martius, dedicated on October 7 according to calendaries.
  13. ^ CIL XII 1807.
  14. ^ CIL VI 377; III 821, 1596, 1677, 3593, 3594, 6342 cited by Wissowa above p. 107.
  15. ^ Festus s. v. provorsum fulgur p. 229 M: "...; itaque Iovi Fulguri et Summano fit, quod diurna Iovis nocturna Summani fulgura habentur." as cited by Wissowa above p. 107.
  16. ^ Augustine De civitate Dei (hereafter CD) VII 11. Pecunia is tentatively included in this group by Wissowa above p. 105 n. 4. Cfr. Augustine CD VII 11 end and 12.
  17. ^ Frugifer CIL XII 336. Apuleius De Mundo 37.
  18. ^ Cato De Agri Cultura 132; Paulus s. v. p. 51 M.
  19. ^ CIL VI 3696.
  20. ^ Wissowa above p. 105 n. 4 understands Pecunia as protector and increaser of the flock.
  21. ^ Bruno Migliorini s.v. Roma in Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti vol. XXIX p. 589; A. W. Schlegel Sämtliche Werke Leipzig 1847 XII p. 488; F. Kort Römische Geschichte Heidelberg 1843 p.32-3.
  22. ^ N. G. L. Hammond & H. H. Scullard (Eds.) The Oxford Classical Dictionary Oxford 1970 s. v. p. 940.
  23. ^ Servius IV 339.
  24. ^ Cato De Agri Cultura 132; Festus s. v. daps, dapalis, dapaticum p. 177-8 L 2nd.
  25. ^ Epulo CIL VI 3696.
  26. ^ Wissowa above p. 105-108.
  27. ^ Livy I 12, 4-6.
  28. ^ Plutarch, Life of Romulus ch.8 pg.7
  29. ^ Livy X 36, 11.
  30. ^ Dumézil above It. tr. p. 174-5.
  31. ^ Livy X 29, 12-17; nefando sacro, mixta hominum pecudumqur caedes, "by an impious rite, a mixed slaughter of people and flock" 39, 16; 42, 6-7.
  32. ^ Dario Sabbatucci above, as summarized in the review by Robert Turcan above p. 70.
  33. ^ ""Iuppiter Hospes" - Google Search". www.google.com. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
  34. ^ Augustine, De Civitate dei VII 11-12; translation of Virginia.edu, with some alterations.
  35. ^ Livy I 31 1-8.
  36. ^ Macrobius I 16.
  37. ^ Festus s.v. prisci Latini p. : "the Latin towns that existed before the foundation of Rome".
  38. ^ L. Schmitz in W. Smith Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities London 1875 s. v. Feriae p. 529.
  39. ^ Cicero De Divinatione I 18; Dionysius Hal. AR IV 49, 3; Festus p. 212 L l. 30 f.; Scholiasta Bobiensis ad Ciceronis pro Plancio 23.
  40. ^ Festus s.v. oscillantes p. 194 M; C. A. Lobeck Aglaophamus sive de theologiae mysticae Graecorum causis libri tres Königsberg 1829 p. 585.
  41. ^ Cicero Pro Plancio 23; Varro LL VI 25; Pliny NH III 69.
  42. ^ Pliny XXVII 45.
  43. ^ A. Alföldi Early Rome and the Latins Ann Arbor 1965 p. 33 n. 6 cited by O. de Cazanove above p. 252.
  44. ^ Wissowa above p. 109; L. Schmitz in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities London 1875 s. v. Feriae p. 529: Niebuhr History of Rome II p. 35 citing Livy V 42, Plutarch Camillus 42.
  45. ^ Wissowa p. 110. CIL 2011–2022; XIV 2236–2248.
  46. ^ Wissowa above p. 110.
  47. ^ Livy XLII 21, 7.
  48. ^ CIL XIV 2852, 2937, 2972. The other is Imperator Maximus: cfr. Jacqueline Champeux.
  49. ^ Cf. Paulus s.v. arcanum p. 16 M.
  50. ^ For an exposition of Dumézil's interpretation the reader is referred to article Juno.
  51. ^ Jean Gagé above p. 39-40; J. Champeux Fortuna. Recherches sur le culte de la Fortune à Rome et dans le monde romain dés origines à la mort de César. I: Fortune dans la religion archaïque Paris 1982 (as reviewed by John Schied, "Religion romaine , religion latine" in Revue d' études latins 1985); "Sors Oraculi. Les oracles en Italie sous la République et l'Empire" in MEFRA 102 1990 1 p. 283.
  52. ^ Cicero De Divinatione II 85.
  53. ^ Cicero above I 34; II 85-86.
  54. ^ CIL XIV 2852, 2937, 2972, 2981.
  55. ^ CIL XIV 2895, 2918.
  56. ^ Francesco Marcattili Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum. Cult Places s. v. Arx. Paul Getty foundation 2007 p. 187 ff.
  57. ^ Notiziario degli scavi archeologici 1877 p. 120-122; T. Ashby & R. A. L. Fell "The Via Flaminia" in Journal of Roman Studies XI 1921 p. 125-190 map at p. 178 as cited by J. Champeaux below.
  58. ^ CIL XI 5803-4.
  59. ^ CIL III 12576 and VIII 7691.
  60. ^ Jacqueline Champeaux "Sors oraculi" in MEFRA 102 1990 p. 276.
  61. ^ Claudian VI consulatu Honorii Augusti 500-514. As cited by J. Champeaux above.
  62. Maia
    ; CIL XIV 216; Ephemeris Epigraphica VII 1276.
  63. ^ CIL 3555; cf. Historia Augusta Maximinus et Balbinus V 3; in Rome Iuppiter Praestitus CIL III 4037, Iuppiter praestabilis CIL IX 1498 and the Lares praestitites.
  64. ^ Livy I 2, 6; Pliny NH III 56; Servius Aen. I 259.
  65. ^ Vergil Aeneis VII 799 and Servius' comment; Porphirius ad Horatii satiras I 5, 26; CIL X 6483.
  66. ^ Emil Vetter Handbuch der Italischen Dialekte I Heidelberg 1953 n. 147