To Jupiter

[Horatius Piscinus]

Salvete

Valerius Soranus scripsit:

Almighty Jupiter, who both engendered and fathered kings, things, and gods, God of Gods, who are both One and All (FPL fr.4; August. Civ. Dei 7.9)

Often times in theis collegium when I address questions on the Religio Romana I concern myself with the Gods in general. At times I receive a request for information on a single goddess or god, but I have never taken up the subject of the Religio Romana's central deities, these being the Capitolinus Trinity of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. After Romulus Orcus did such a fine job with the Greek deities we really needed to consider the Roman Gods as well. Unfortunately I have been too busy with other matters to take this project on by myself as Romulus had. I am going to leave studies of individual Roman deities for others to pursue. Instead I will try to provide some information for them to follow. Beginning with Jupiter then, what I will be posting is a number of prayers written by ancient Romans to or about Jupiter. The same I will take up with some of the other Di Consentes under other topics. Through such prayers, as this first one by Valerius Soranus above, we may then begin to understand how the ancient Romans viewed the Gods.

A note about Soranus and why I posted his prayer first. Soranus was the one convicted of revealling the secret name of the protective goddess of Roma antiqua. She was otherwise known as Tacita, the "One who does not speak" Her name. Soranus was also highly respected as the most learned about the Religio Romana's deepest secrets. He was a member of a family of priests among the Hiripi who had a special, yet unknown, relationship with Rome. This prayer that has come down to us is especially interesting, I think, because it appears to express philosophical concepts about Jupiter at a very early date. "The One and All" seems a conception of Jupiter drawn from later Platonism, Soranus living in the last century before the common era, the last years of the Republic, before Greek philosophy had taken such a strong hold on Roman religious ideas. Soranus is an interesting character in the history of the Religio Romana, and quite influential too. He set out what would become the evolution of the Roman concept of Jupiter as a universal deity.

Valete optime

[Horatius Piscinus]

Salvete

In the cultus civile Jupiter was called upon to provide guidence to Rome on fulfilling its destiny. It was from Jupiter that all auspices were sent concerning the Roman State. In private auguries other deities were called upon more often, but still Jupiter was recognized as providing the highest and most overriding auspices. These following prayers concern Jupiter in relation to omens and auspices.

Grant, Father, and augury.

Da Pater augurium. (Servius Ae Aen. 3.89).

Invincible Holiness, with venerating prayers I ask that You send good portents to signify a change for the better for the people of our nation.

Te sancte venerans precibus invicte invoco / Portenta ut poulo patriae verruncent bene (L. Accius Aenead sive Decius fr. 4

Father Jupiter, if it is heaven's will that this Numa Pompilius, on whose head I place my hand, should become king of Rome, then may You signify Your will to us with certain signs within the boundaries that I have designated.

Iuppiter pater, si est fas hunc Numam Pompilium cuius ego caput teneo regem Romae esse, ut tu signa nobis certa adclarassis inter eos fines quos feci. (Livy 1.18.9)


With a starward gaze, his voice lifted to the heavens above, the palms of his hand stretched upward to the skies, he prayed, Almighty Jupiter, if any prayer can bend thee, look upon us - only this; and, if our piety earns it, Father, henceforth grant us thine aid, and confirm this sign (Virg Aen. II 688 sq.).

Then king Romulus said, "As I found this city, be present, Jupiter, Father Mars, and Mother Vesta, and all gods who it is pious to summon, join together to attend. Grant that my work may rise with Your auspices. Grant that it may for many years hold dominion on earth, and assert its power over the east and west.

vox fuit haec regis: 'condenti, Iuppiter, urbem, / et genitor Mavors Vestaque mater, ades, / quosque pium est adhibere deos, advertite cuncti: / auspicibus vobis hoc mihi surgat opus. / longa sit huic aetas dominaeque potentia terrae, / sitque sub hac oriens occiduusque dies.' (Ovid Fasti IV 827-32)

O Gods, I pray, spare us from sinister omens, and grant that my good husband shall return home from the wars to hang his arms before Jupiter Redux

Di, precor, a nobis omen removete sinistrum / et sua det Reduci vir meus arma Jovi. (Ovid Heroides XIII 49-50)

I recognize You, Mightiest of the Gods; Be present now, Father, and confirm the omen of Your eagle.

nosco te, summe deorum / adsis o firmesque tuae, pater, alitis omen. (Silius Punica 4.126-7)

.Valete optime

[Horatius Piscinus]

Salvete

Usually we think of Apollo or Asculapis, or Salus as deities of healing, and Hygenia as goddess of health, but here are a few prayers calling upon Jupiter to heal or maintain health.

Decimus Junius Juvenalis scripsit:

Grant me a great length of life, O Jupiter, give to me many years.

Da spatium vitae, multos da Iuppiter annos. (Juvenal X 185)

Q. Horatius Flaccus scripsit:

For a child lying sick in bed for five long months, a mother calls out, "O Jupiter, who gives and takes away great anguish, if the quartan ague leaves my child, then on the day You indicate to hold a fast, nude he shall stand in the Tiber River."

Iuppiter, ingentis qui das adimisque dolores, / mater ait pueri mensis iam quinque cubantis, / frigida si puerum quaranta reliquerit, illo / mane die, quo tu indicis ieiunia, nudus / in Tiberi stabit. (Horace Satires II 3.288-92)

Sextus Propertius scripsit:

O Jupiter, may You finally show compassion for this ill-stricken girl, the death of one so beautiful would cause Your reproach.

Iuppiter, affectae tandem miserere puellae: / tam formosa tuum mortua crimen erit. (Propertius 2.28a. 1-2)

Gaius Valerius Flaccus Balbus Setinus scripsit:

I pray first to You, thunderous Jupiter Tonans, that now finally You may spare me in my old age and lift the manner in which Your anger has been set upon me.

'te'que ait 'infesti, quae nunc premis, ira Tonantis, / ante precor, nostrae tandem iam parce senectae, / sit modus.? (Valerius Flaccus Argonautica 4.474-6)

Then as patron of the State, Jupiter was also called upon to safeguard the health of the emperor and members of the Senate.

Marcus Vellius Paterculus scripsit:

Jupiter Capitolinus, Mars Gradivus called progenitor and aide of the Romans, Vesta, perpetual guardian of fire, and whatever divine powers in this greatness of Roman sovereignty, the largest empire on earth, exulted to the highest dignity, to You the public voice calls to witness and to pray: guard, preserve, and protect this state, this peace, this prince, and those who succeed to the Senate, by their long standing, determined worthy to consider the most grave matters among mortals.

Iuppiter Capitoline et auctor ac stator Romani nominis Gradive Mars, perpetuorum custos Vesta ignium et quidquid numinum hanc Romanii imperii molem in amplissimum terrarum orbis fastigium extulit, vos publica voce obtestor atque precor: custodite servate protegite hunc statum, hanc pacem, hunc principem, eique functo longissima statione mortali destinate successores quam serissimos. (Vellius Paterculus II 131)


Valete optime

[Quintus Aurelius Orcus]

Salve Piscine
One thing that is notacible among Hellenic Olympian gods is that these gods were called upon for various reasons: healing, war, love, etc... Except maybe Ares. But gods like Apollo, Aphrodite had warlike epithets, even though they had nothing do with war. So my guess is that this is the same for the Roman Olympian gods, right?
My knowelegde on Roman gods is not that big as my knowelegde on Hellenic gods. But i'm learning.
vale
Romulus

[Horatius Piscinus]

Salve Draco

One reason I chose to look at Jupiter first is because He increasingly became a universal god. Refer back to that discussion I once had with Florus where I wrote about the different levels of deities all known as Jupiter (If I find it I will repost it here.) Jupiter Ammon, Jupiter Dolichenus, Jupiter Damascenus. It is like I was telling Gede in the topic on Fortuna. The highest deity in any local pantheon came to be identified with Jupiter. Varro made the first mention of the Judaic Yahweh when he equated their god to Jupiter. There was later too a philosophical deity, a cosmic Jupiter that was above all other gods.

What you refer to would naturally be true of such a universal deity like Jupiter. Other deities as well had many aspects. Ceres Ultrix would seem a surprise but one does exist in Campania. Many deities are called upon as Pater or Genitor, but not all. Likewise other epitaphs are commonly used, while some epitaphs are used almost exclusively with certain deities. George Appel made a survey of such epitaphs. I think you may want to consider what Proclus wrote on the different types of deities. Each of the deities of the higher pantheon, what we know as the Di Consentes, would exhibit attributes of each of these categories of deities, and Proclus goes into that a little in his "Elements of Theology." Lesser gods and goddesses do not have as many aspects, so that a Minerva Salus of healing is not likely to be called upon as a war goddess, while Minerva would.

I'll go back, looking over some things and see if I can explain this better.

Vale optime

[Horatius Piscinus]

Salve Draco

This is what I posted on Jupiter in reply to Florus over a year ago

There is an evolution in the conception of Juppiter, especially in the imperial period. From the Chaldean Oracles, Proclus quoting in his commentary on the Parmenides, "They are intellectual conceptions from the Paternal Fountain partaking abundantly of the brillance of Fire in the culmination of unresting Time. But the primary self-perfecting Fountain of the Father poured forth these primogenial Ideas." The Paternal Fountain, the Fountain of the Father, is at times identified with Jupiter in the Chaldean Orcales, as where Synes quotes from that work, saying, "of all Souls, those certainly are superlatively blessed, which are poured forth from Heaven to Earth; and they are happy, and have ineffable stamina, as many as proceed from Thy Splendid Self, O King, or from Jove Himself, under the strong necessity of Mithus." In commenting on Euclid's Elements Proclus mentions that Philolaus reflects that the right angle of a square equates to Rhea, Hestia, and Demeter, as the "effluences and generative powers...these life-giving divine forces' received by the earth, and that the angle of the equilateral triangle is assigned by Philolaus to "Kronos, Hades, Ares, and Dionysus, since he includes within their province the entire fourfold ordering of the cosmic elements derived from the heavens or from the four segments of the zodiacal circle." Then he continues, "Hence a tetradic triad and a triadic tetrad that partake of the generative and creative goods maintain the whole order of generated things. The number twelve, which is their product, ascends towards a single monad, the sovereignty of Zeus. Philolaus says that the angle of the dodecagon is the angle of Zeus, because Zeus holds together in a single unity the whole duodecimal number. In Plato likewise Zeus leads 'the twelve' and has absolute dominion over all things." There is in Proclus' thought a hierarchy of divinity. We could say that there is the material figure of the apparent course of the planet Jupiter, above which is the celestial figure of Jupiter that itself resides in the soul figure of Jupiter. The souls of the Psychic Realm are governed by the Intelligibles of the Noetic Realm, and the intelligible Jupiter would thus rule over the soul figure of Jupiter. And the Intelligible Jupiter would himself be an extension of the Intellectual or Ineffable Jupiter, one of the theoi of the Henadic Realm. In the Elements of Theology Proclus mentions that there are only a limited number of these Henadic gods, such as gods of purifying, propitiating, perfecting, and generating, Jupiter perhaps identified with the last. I do not think however that Proclus would carry Jupiter further above the Henadic Realm so as to say that He *is* the Monad, nor would He be the Creative Fire of the Chaldean Oracles. In some of the mystery cults, prior to Proclus of course, Jupiter was raised to an exceedingly high status, maybe even as a generic term for divinity as you say, but I do not recall Him be regarded as the Highest God in any of them. Jupiter is regarded as commanding the Universe as He became identified with the Axis Mundi. But in that, as in the Mithraic cult, there was then identified an even higher deity than Jupiter, as it was understood that the position of the Axis Mundi could be altered, and that thus the Lord of Destiny had power even over Jupiter.

Some of the other posts I made in conjunction with this discussion I will place under a new topic on theology and take up some of Proclus' ideas as well.

Di deaeque te semper ament

[Quintus Aurelius Orcus]

Salve Piscine
I think you made an error when you responded to my post using: "salve Draco" Anyway, i read the other posts you mentioned and its allot to digest. I got to say, have you ever thought of writing down everything you know on the Religio Romano for future generations?
A deity higher than Zeus or Jupiter? I think we should be talking about deities since the Moirai are the ones even Zeus would not challenge. Ofcourse i'm referring to Hellenismos.
I haven't read any of the works of Proclus or the other authors you mentioned, but i'm planning on it in the future so that i know what some of the things you are talking of mean.
I think at some point the status of most Olympian gods were raised. But one thing that strikes me, comparing Religio Romano and Hellenismos with Hinduism is that the absense of an evil force like in Teutonic religions where Loki and the giants represent destructive forces and Ahriman and his agents in Zoroastrianism. Ofcourse the epithet Soter can also be used in such a way that it can protect people from evil, even though for some deities there were distinctive epithets that described them as averters of evil. I'm not sure what the Roman counterpart for soter or Soteira is.
I forgot if this ever came up here, but when people put evil into the eqation, we should ask ourselves what evil truly is. So i think that is why the epithets "saviour" and "averter of evil" are not so clearly defined, because most people had different ideas on what evil is in a way that lets say Zeus Soter or Herakles soter could not become a christlike deity.
vale optime
Romulus

[Horatius Piscinus]

Salve Orce

Mea culpa, It is getting harder for these old eyes to see at 3 AM

No I will never write a book on the Religio Romana since I am no expert, no philosopher, or theologian, and trying to collect all my thoughts on the subject would be difficult. Then you'd need a translator to wade through it all, as I tend to get lengthy when I really begin thinking about the topic.

The Involuti are not geerally brought up among Romans, although they were known as the higher deities among the Etruscans. The notion of an absolute evil is alien to Greek or Roman concepts. Evil, one might say, results from when the natural order provided with the Gods is not followed. Thus some abnormal birth, a monster in its true sense, was regarded as a prodigy signifying that the natural order was out of balance, not that some source of evil was at work in the Universe. Plotinus took up the subject, countering the arguments attempted by Gnostics. The question is whether the world in an inheritently evil place to be completely abandoned as is held in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim form of religions and among the Eastern religions based in Hindu-Buddhism; or is the world essentially a good and beautiful place in which to live and enjoy, and a universe which we are in part responsible for preserving. Evil results from when we do not meet our commitments and obligations to help preserve the universal order of Nature.

The Roman epitaph comparable to Soteira is Sospita, ascribed to Juno, Juno Lucina, Minerva, and Venus I believe. It refers to a goddess who saves people from the miseries brought on by evils in the world, like the miseries of lpain brought on by a bad labor in childbirth. But since there is no concept of a god of evil to be defended against, Sospita has no meaning related to Zoroastrian dualism. The Religio Romana recognizes a dichotomy in things, generally expressed as male and female rather than as good and evil. The dualistic Judeo-Christian-Muslim notion based in Zoroastrianism holds that people must embrace either the one or the other, becoming either good or evil. But the view of dichotomous philosophies, such as is the basis of the Religio Romana. seeks a harmonious union of opposites. Or as Ovid said, 'You will do best to travel in the middle' Medio tutissimus ibis

[Lucius Tyrrhenus Garrulus]

Salvete Piscine et omnes!
I don't know if this is applicable, but has anyone noticed how similiar the vocabulary is between these prayers to Jupiter and Catholic prayers to God? Almighty, Father... Interesting.
Valete bene!

[Horatius Piscinus]

Salve Tyrrhene

There is a Catholic orphanage I visit and a few months back I spent some time in the priest's library, looking over his Ritus Romanorum, dated to the 1920's. I found it entertaining in how very different their Latin expressions are in prayer, because it would certainly have implied a very different meaning in Classical Latin from how it had been translated into English for American congregations.

Christianity is based primarily in the Eastern traditions, with considerable Greek influence. The translations that were made then into Latin and that have since been used I think offer only a superficial similarity. Father in Heaven is a euphanism used in Classical Latin for Jupiter, as was omnipotents. On occaision such terms were applied to other deities, certainly Mars was known as Father, while even a few goddesses were called Almighty. Not all terms used in Christianity bear the same meaning and content as they are found in the Classical prayers of the Religio Romana. And the philosophical speculations behind the epitaphs used by both religious traditions are quite different. That is one reason why I separated out from this topic another topic on pagan theology where some of those differences might be examined.

Di deaeque te semper ament.