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. The festival was reestablished on its primitive site by the last Roman king Tarquin the Proud under the leadership of Rome. The
feriae Latinae, or
Latiar as they were known originally, were the common festival (
panegyris) of the so-called Priscan Latins and of the Albans. Their restoration aimed at grounding Roman hegemony in this ancestral religious tradition of the Latins. The original cult was reinstated unchanged as is testified by some archaic features of the ritual: the exclusion of wine from the sacrifice the offers of milk and cheese and the ritual use of rocking among the games. Rocking is one of the most ancient rites mimicking ascent to heaven and is very widespread. At the
Latiar the rocking took place on a tree and the winner was of course the one who had swung the highest. This rite was said to have been instituted by the Albans to commemorate the disappearance of king
Latinus, in battle against
Mezentius the king of
Caere: the rite symbolized a search for him both on earth and in heaven. The rocking as well as the customary drinking of milk was also considered to commemorate and ritually reinstate infancy. The Romans in the last form of the rite brought the sacrificial ox from Rome and every participant was bestowed a portion of the meat, rite known as
carnem petere. Other games were held in every participant borough. In Rome a race of chariots (
quadrigae) was held starting from the Capitol: the winner drank a liquor made with absinthe. 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.
soma. The feasting lasted for at least four days, possibly six according to
Niebuhr, one day for each of the six Latin and Alban
decuriae. According to different records 47 or 53 boroughs took part in the festival (the listed names too differ in Pliny NH III 69 and Dionysius of Halicarnassus AR V 61). 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. They could not start campaigning before its end and if any part of the games had been neglected or performed improperly the
Latiar had to be wholly repeated. The inscriptions from the imperial age record the festival back to the time of the
decemvirs. 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: since 231 BC some triumphing commanders had triumphed there first with the same legal features as in Rome.
Iuppiter Arcanus Arcanus was the epithet of one of the Jupiters worshipped at
Praeneste. 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. G. Dumézil attempted a purely Indoeuropean interpretation of the theology of Fortuna and of her relationship with Juppiter and Juno, other scholars see the successive 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. 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 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. 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 and Mars.
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. 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 and in Algeria on the top of a hill near Philippeville.
Claudian mentions the oracle in his description of the travel of
Honorius from Fanum Fortunae. 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
Tusculum,
Praestes in
Tibur,
Indiges at
Lavinium and
Anxurus at
Anxur (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
Agnone tablet that Vetter interprets as
Rigator, he who irrigates, and Dumézil as
Rector, he who rules and
Diuve Verehasus tentatively rendered by Vetter as
Vergarius. ==References==