Epithets of Jupiter
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 cult are those of the state. The most important of his sanctuaries in Rome were located on the Capitoline Hill , earlier Tarpeius. The Mount had two peaks, each devoted to acts of cult related to Jupiter. The northern and higher peak was the citadel . On the arx was located the observation place of the augurs , to which the monthly procession of the sacra Idulia was directed. 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. The god here had no image and was represented by the sacred flintstone. The most ancient known rites, those of the spolia opima and of the fetials, connect Jupiter with Mars and Quirinus, and are dedicated to Iuppiter Feretrius or Iuppiter Lapis''. From this earliest period, the concept of the sky god encompassed the ethical and political domain.Lightning and rain
Juppiter Tonans was the aspect of Jupiter venerated in the Temple of Juppiter Tonans, which was vowed in 26 BCE by Augustus and dedicated in 22 on the Capitoline Hill; the Emperor had narrowly escaped being struck by lightning during the campaign in Cantabria. An old temple in the Campus Martius had long been dedicated to Juppiter Fulgens. The original cult image installed in the sanctuary by its founder was by Leochares, a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BCE. The sculpture at 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 wikt:Lucetius, interpreted as referring to light , specifically sunlight, by ancient and some modern scholars such as Wissowa. Etymologically, the 4th-century author Servius the Grammarian connects the epithet to the word wikt:lux, meaning "light." Aulus Gellius, a 2nd-century CE Roman writer, claims that the titles wikt:Diovis and Lucetius were applied to Jupiter because "he blesses and helps" individuals by means of "the day and the light, which are equivalent to life itself." Another author, the 5th-century historian Macrobius, states that the Salii applied the epithet Lucetius to Jupiter since he is regarded "as the source of light." Likewise, the 2nd-century grammarian Festus claims that others used to refer to Jupiter as Lucetius because he was believed to be the cause of light. According to Servius, the title was also used by the Oscan people to refer to Jupiter, although the epithet does not appear in known Oscan inscriptions. However, Oscan texts do contain the name wikt:λωϝκτιηις, which may serve as a parallel to the Latin term. Another Italic parallel may derive from the Latin epithet Lucetia, which was applied to the goddess Juno. More broadly, it is possible that this term is related to the title Loucetius, a Gaulish epithet applied to Mars, and—according to the classicist Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak—it may connect to the Greek goddess Leucothea and the Lithuanian deity Laukpatis. The ultimate etymological source of the title is probably the Proto-Indo-European root wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/lewk-, whence also perhaps Old Norse Logi.
Another, similar epithet "Leucisiae" is mentioned in the works of the grammarian Quintus Terentius Scaurus, who writes "cuine ponas Leucesiae praetexere monti quot ibet etinei de is cum tonarem." Phonologically, this term is unusual, as it contradicts the otherwise well-established Proto-Italic sound shift of -ew- to *-ow-. The linguist Michael Weiss notes that the scant attested forms in Old Latin showcasing -ew- all demonstrate the atypical feature after a coronal consonant, perhaps indicating that either some Latin dialects preserved the sequence -ew- after coronals or secondarily shifted *-ow- to -ew- after such consonants. The manuscript version documented by Scaurus is likely corrupt, though the philologist Theodor Bergk has suggested a possible restoration based on another passage from Festus that reads "Pretet tremonti prietemu." Utilizing this evidence, Bergk emended the text of Scaurus to "quome tonas Leucesie, prae tet tremonti quot ibet etinei de iscum tonarem."
Despite the revision of Bergk, the philologist Martin Litchfield West still states that the text is only "half-intelligible," though he translates the sequence as "When you thunder, Leucesios, they tremble before thee, all who..." Alternatively, the historian Georges Dumézil translates the text as "When you thunder, oh God of light, they tremble before you! All gods beneath you have heard you thunder!" Based on this passage, Dumézil argues that the name Lucetius most likely referred to the flash of the thunderbolts or lightning, rather than the concept of light itself as suggested by later Roman authors. West suggests that the epithet Leucisiae may more connect to an Indo-European tradition in which the thunderbolt of a sky god is cast as something to be feared. In support of this theory, West notes a verse from the Rigveda in which it is stated that "all things tremble" before the storm deity Indra and a passage from the Iliad in which it is stated that even the sea god Oceanus "has fear of the lightning of great Zeus."
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. 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. Other early epithets connected with the atmospheric quality of Jupiter are Pluvius, Imbricius, Tempestas, Tonitrualis, tempestatium divinarum potens, Serenator, Serenus and, referring to lightning, Fulgur, Fulgur Fulmen, later Fulgurator, Fulminator. 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.
Agriculture and war
A group of epithets has been interpreted by Wissowa 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. The agricultural ones include Opitulus, Almus, Ruminus, Frugifer, Farreus, Pecunia, Dapalis, Epulo. Augustine gives an explanation of the ones he lists which should reflect Varro's: Opitulus because he brings opem to the needy, Almus because he nourishes everything, Ruminus because he nourishes the living beings by breastfeeding them, Pecunia because everything belongs to him.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. 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. Here moreover Augustine cites the verses devoted to Jupiter by Quintus Valerius Soranus, while hypothesising Iuno, 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.
The epithet Dapalis is on the other hand connected to a rite described by Cato and mentioned by Festus. 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.
Epithets related to warring are, in Wissowa's view, Iuppiter Feretrius, Iuppiter Stator, Iuppiter Victor and Iuppiter Invictus. 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 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. Dumézil opines the action of Jupiter is not that of a god of war who wins through fighting: Jupiter acts by causing an inexplicable change in the morale of the fighters of the two sides. The same feature can be detected also in the certainly historical record of the battle of the third Samnite War in 294 BC, in which consul Marcus Atilius Regulus vowed a temple to Iuppiter Stator if "Jupiter will stop the rout of the Roman army and if afterwards the Samnite legions shall be victoriously massacred...It looked as if the gods themselves had taken side with Romans, so much easily did the Roman arms succeed in prevailing...". 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.
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 Janus, at the beginning of the year, in the uncertain time of winter. In this month Janus deifies kingship and defies Jupiter. 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, 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.