Jupiter Capitolinus

“ Zeus, as we have seen, often condescends to visit mankind, either as a mortal, or under various disguises, whereas Jupiter always remains essentially the supreme god of heaven, and never appears upon earth.
The most celebrated temple of Jupiter was that on the Capitoline Hill in the city of Rome, where he was worshipped under the names of Jupiter-Optimus-Maximus, Capitolinus, and Tarpeius.
The Romans represented him seated on a throne of ivory, holding in his right hand a sheaf of thunderbolts, and in his left a sceptre, whilst an eagle stands beside his throne. ”

“ He frequently declaimed in public, and recited verses of his own composing, not only at home, but in the theatre; so much to the joy of all the people, that public prayers were appointed to be put up to the gods upon that account; and the verses which had been publicly read, were, after being written in gold letters, consecrated to Jupiter Capitolinus.
(344) XI. He presented the people with a great number and variety of spectacles, as the Juvenal and Circensian games, stage-plays, and an exhibition of gladiators. ”

“ The Capitoline, formerly Saturn, then Tarpeian, took its name from Tarpeia, a Roman virgin, who betrayed the city to the Sabines at this point (Plutarch, in "Romulus") . It was also called Mons Saturni and Saturnius, in honour of Saturn, who is reported to have lived here, and was the titular deity of this part of the city. It was afterwards called Capitoline, from the head of a man found here when digging the foundations of the famous Temple of Jupiter. It was added to the city when the Sabines were permitted by Romulus to incorporate themselves with the Romans (Dionysius) . ”

“ His worship spread over the whole empire; it is probable that every city had its temple to the three deities of the Roman Capitol, and the fact that the Romans chose the name of Jupiter in almost every case, by which to indicate the chief deity of the subject peoples, proves that they continued to regard him, so long as his worship existed at all, as the god whom they themselves looked upon as greatest. ”

“ The images of the gods were decked out as for a feast, and the face of Jupiter painted red with minium, like that of the triumphator. Jupiter had a couch, and Juno and Minerva each a sella, and the meal went on in their presence [944] .
Now an investigator of the Roman religious system is here confronted with a difficult problem. Was this simply a Greek practice like that of the lectisternium, and one which began with the Etruscan dynasty and the foundation of the Capitoline temple with its triad of deities? ”

“ A movement against the Capitoline Jupiter would be not only sacrilege but high treason, and the refusal to call to witness the emperor's genius was in fact to deny his imperial authority. The worship of the gods was as much identified with the empire of Rome in the West as with the civilisation of Greece throughout the East. ”

“ The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, with his companions Juno and Minerva, was in a special sense the religious centre of the State and its dominion. Whatever view he might take of the gods and their cults, every Roman instinctively believed that this great Jupiter, above all other deities, watched over the welfare of Rome, and when a generation later Virgil placed the destiny of Rome's mythical hero in the hands of Jupiter, every Roman recognised in this his own inherited conviction. ”

“ To begin, then: they who are called theologists say that there are three Jupiters; the first and second of whom were born in Arcadia; one of whom was the son of Æther, and father of Proserpine and Bacchus; the other the son of Cœlus, and father of Minerva, who is called the Goddess and inventress of war; the third one born of Saturn in the isle of Crete, [20] where his sepulchre is shown. The sons of Jupiter (Διόσκουροι) also, among the Greeks, have many names ”

“ The Romans, however, who have founded a Capitol in honour of Jupiter, but none in honour of Saturn, as also these other nations whose opinion it has been that Jupiter ought to be worshipped pre-eminently and above the rest of the gods, have certainly not agreed in sentiment with the persons referred to ”

“ In ancient Italy every oak was sacred to Jupiter, the Italian counterpart of Zeus; and on the Capitol at Rome the god was worshipped as the deity not merely of the oak, but of the rain and the thunder. Contrasting the piety of the good old times with the scepticism of an age when nobody thought that heaven was heaven, or cared a fig for Jupiter, a Roman writer tells us that in former days noble matrons used to go with bare feet, streaming hair, and pure minds, up the long Capitoline slope, praying to Jupiter for rain. ”

“ What a pity it is that this Golden Age should have come to an end! But it was Jupiter and his brothers who brought about the sad change.
It is hard to believe it, but men say that Jupiter was the son of the old Titan king, Saturn, and that he was hardly a year old when he began to plot how he might wage war against his father. As soon as he was grown up, he persuaded his brothers, Neptune and Pluto, and his sisters, Juno, Ceres, and Vesta, to join him; and they vowed that they would drive the Titans from the earth. ”

“ But several thousand years ago it would have been very dangerous for him to have cursed Jupiter, and yet Jupiter is just as powerful now as he was then, but the Roman people are not powerful, and that is all there was to Jupiter—the Roman people. ”

“ What would happen were millions of men enslaved by one solitary idea concerning the nature of the gods? The genius of the Greeks and the prudence of our ancestors made allowance for doubt, and tolerated the worship of Jupiter under several names. No sooner should a powerful sect come on this ailing earth and proclaim that Jupiter has one name only, than blood would flow the world over, and no longer would there be but one Caius whose madness should threaten the human race with death. ”

“ He inflames the senses, he flatters the affections, he drives out the more vigorous conscience of a virtuous breast; nor is there wanting authority for the enticing abomination, that the mischief may creep upon people with a less perceptible approach. They picture Venus immodest, Mars adulterous; and that Jupiter of theirs not more supreme in dominion than in vice, inflamed with earthly love in the midst of his own thunders, now growing white in the feathers of a swan, now pouring down in a golden shower, now breaking forth by the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. ”

“ The procession moved along towards the Capitoline Hill, on which stood the great temple of Jupiter, where the chief ceremonies of the day were to be performed. The people waved garlands, and shouted, the more devout prostrating themselves before the statues as they passed along, until the hill was gained. Coecus had taken care to have a large number of animals ready for the sacrifice, so that the people might not be stinted in their expected portions of meat. ”

“ This Deity, "the boy-god," as poets love to call him, was the offspring of Venus and Mars; when Venus had given birth to him, Jupiter foresaw the mischief he would create in the world, as well as in his more immediate kingdom; he therefore banished him from his court, and menaced him with his wrath, should he return. The Goddess conveyed him to the isle of Cyprus, where he was suckled by the wild beasts of the forest.
No sooner had strength come with years, than Cupid, forming a bow of the ash tree, and arrows of the cypress, ungratefully turned against the animals who had supported him. ”

“ In some way or other—I don’t know how—he tried to get rid of Jupiter, and made himself so unpleasant that Jupiter had to take his kingdom away from him, and make himself king. That is how Jupiter became king of all the gods and goddesses.
Saturn, when he lost his kingdom, went to Italy, where a king named Janus received him very kindly. Saturn and Janus became such friends that Janus made him king with him; and Saturn ruled so well that he made his people the happiest in all the world. Everybody was perfectly good and perfectly happy. Saturn’s reign on earth is called the Golden Age. ”

“ The statue of Jupiter at Olympia, which he had ordered to be taken down and brought to Rome, suddenly burst out into such a violent fit of laughter, that, the machines employed in the work giving way, the workmen took to their heels. When this accident happened, there came up a man named Cassius, who said that he was commanded in a dream to sacrifice a bull to Jupiter. The Capitol at Capua was struck with lightning upon the ides of March [15th March] ; as was also, at Rome, the apartment of the chief porter of the Palatium. ”

“ We believe from his thundering that Jupiter has dominion in the heavens: Augustus shall be esteemed a present deity the Britons and terrible Parthians being added to the empire. What! has any soldier of Crassus lived, a degraded husband with a barbarian wife? And has (O [corrupted] senate, and degenerate morals!) the Marsian and Apulian, unmindful of the sacred bucklers, of the [Roman] name and gown, and of eternal Vesta, grown old in the lands of hostile fathers-in-law, Jupiter and the city being in safety? ”

“ Instead of punishing him, however, Jupiter was so delighted with his cleverness and impudence that he made Mercury his chief messenger and cup-bearer. He also gave him a winged cap, wings for his heels, a short sword, and a scepter called caduceus—a rod round which two living serpents coiled. The winged cap was called petasus, and whenever he put it on he became invisible; the wings for his heels were called talaria, and made him able to fly faster than lightning to any place he pleased. The caduceus was a magic wand. ”

“ Jupiter grew up under the care of the nymphs, and, after a mighty conflict, overthrew the dynasty of the old gods and took possession of the throne and dominion of Cronus. He was then supreme14 ruler of gods and men, but had viceroys of the sea and the regions of the dead in Neptune and Pluto. His lawful wife, Juno, reigned with him in equal sovereignty. Their children were Mars, Vulcan and Hebe. Although wedded to Juno, Jupiter as the deity of the visible heavens, had brides and children in many lands. ”

“ Now Jupiter became ruler of the universe and sole master of the Empire of the world, and divided with his brothers, reserving for himself the kingdom of heaven, and giving the Empires of the sea to Neptune, and that of the infernal regions to Pluto. The sea moved at his wrath, and hell burned his opposers, and he looked down from heaven at the commotion of his wrath till the men on earth considered their welfare only secured by worshipping his smile. Athens and all her superstition is gone now, and the godly man now laughs at the folly of the wisdom that all talent of old times craved for. ”

“ But let us admit that, as is said, Jupiter has himself appointed against himself ways and means by which his own declared purposes might fittingly be opposed: are we also to believe that a deity of so great majesty was dragged down to earth, and, standing on a petty hillock with a mannikin, entered into a wrangling dispute? And what, I ask, was the charm which forced Jupiter to leave the all-important [1] direction of the universe, and appear at the bidding of mortals? ”

“ For it were more tolerable to say that many parts of Jupiter are, through his weakness and want of power, hurried on to do many absurd things against his nature and will, than that there is not any intemperance or wickedness of which Jupiter is not the cause. Moreover, since they affirm the world to be a city and the stars citizens, if this be so, there must be also tribes-men and magistrates, the sun must be some consul, and the evening star a praetor or mayor of a city. ”

“ But Jupiter was not so happy. He saw that men were gaining daily greater power, and their very prosperity made him angry.
"That young Titan!" he cried out, when he heard what Prometheus had done. "I will punish him."
But before punishing Prometheus he decided to vex the children of men. So he gave a lump of clay to his blacksmith, Vulcan, and told him to mold it in the form of a woman. When the work was done he carried it to Olympus.
Jupiter called the other gods together, bidding them give her each a gift. ”

“ Aristotelians and Ptolemaists received the information with much disfavour and incredulity, and many persons positively refused to believe Galileo, whom they accused of inventing fables. On the other hand, the upholders of the Copernican theory hailed it with satisfaction, as it declared that Jupiter with his four moons constituted a system of greater magnitude and importance than that of our globe with her single satellite, and that consequently [Pg 127] the Earth could not be regarded as the centre of the universe. ”

“ Your want of intelligence deceives you concerning the circle of the zone, and perchance from that you find out that you must pray to Jupiter. Saturn is told of there, but it is as a star, for he was driven forth by Jupiter, or let Jupiter be believed to be in the star. He who controlled the constellations of the pole, and the sower of the soil; he who made war with the Trojans, he loved the beautiful Venus. Or among the stars themselves Mars was caught with her by married jealousy: he is called the youthful god. ”

“ Jupiter was the king of heaven, and he ruled not like the Jehovah of the christian, with mildness and love, but depended upon his thunder and his might. By these terrible means and not by love for him, his subjects were kept in awe. Listen to him in the 8th book of the Iliad, where he forbids the gods to take any part in the contest between the Greeks and Trojans. I give Pope's translation. Jupiter does not speak in the language of mildness, but threatens and denounces the most cruel punishment for disobedience, merely because his power enables him to enforce it. ”