Zeus - Giove/Zeus - Jupiter

Zeus

Zeus (in greco antico: Ζεύς, Zéus) nella religione greca è il re, sovrano degli dèi e dei sovrani, il capo di tutti gli dèi, il capo dell'Olimpo, il dio del cielo e del tuono. I suoi simboli sono la folgore, il toro, l'aquila e la quercia.
Figlio del titano Crono e di Rea, era il più giovane dei suoi fratelli e sorelle: Estia, Demetra, Era, Ade e Poseidone. Nella maggior parte delle leggende o miti era sposato con Era (protettrice del matrimonio e dei figli), anche se nel santuario dell'oracolo di Dodona come sua consorte si venerava Dione (viene raccontato nell'Iliade che Zeus sia il padre di Afrodite, avuta con Dione).
Il frutto dei suoi numerosi convegni amorosi furono i suoi molti celeberrimi figli, tra i quali Apollo e Artemide, Hermes, Persefone, Atena, Dioniso, Perseo, Eracle, Elena, Minosse e le Muse. Secondo la tradizione da Era, la moglie legittima, ebbe Ares, Ebe, Efesto e Ilizia. Tali rapporti amorosi venivano consumati da Zeus anche sotto forma di animali (cigno, toro, ecc.), infatti tra i suoi enormi poteri egli aveva anche quello di tramutarsi in qualsiasi cosa volesse.
La figura equivalente a Zeus nella mitologia romana era Giove, mentre in quella etrusca era il dio Tinia. Zeus ha anche molte analogie con il norreno Odino e lo slavo Perun.

Etimologia ed elementi del culto

Zeus, che viene spesso poeticamente chiamato con il vocativo Zeu pater (O padre Zeus!), è l'evoluzione di Di̯ēus, il dio del cielo diurno della religione protoindoeuropea chiamato anche Dyeus ph₂tēr (Padre Cielo). Il nome del dio deriva dalla radice Diovis (la di in greco) che significa luce, per questo Zeus è il dio della luce. Il dio era conosciuto con questo nome anche in sanscrito (Dyaus ove Dyaus Pita), in lingua messapica (Zis) e in latino (Jupiter, da Iuppiter, che deriva dal vocativo indoeuropeo *dyeu-ph₂tēr) lingue che elaborano la radice *dyeu- ("splendere" e nelle sue forme derivate "cielo, paradiso, dio"), nonché nella mitologia germanica e norrena (*Tīwaz, in alto tedesco antico Ziu, in norreno Týr) unito con il latino deus, dīvus e Dis (una variazione di dīves) che proviene dal simile sostantivo *deiwos.
Per i Greci e i Romani il dio del cielo era anche il più grande degli dei, mentre nelle culture nordiche questo ruolo era attribuito a Odino: di conseguenza questi popoli non identificavano, per il suo attributo primario di dio del tuono, Zeus/Giove né con Odino né con Tyr, quanto piuttosto con Thor (Þórr). Zeus è l'unica divinità dell'Olimpo il cui nome abbia un'origine indoeuropea così evidente.
In aggiunta a questa origine indoeuropea, lo Zeus dell'epoca classica prendeva alcuni aspetti iconografici dalle culture del Vicino Oriente, come lo scettro. Gli artisti greci immaginavano Zeus soprattutto in due particolari posizioni: in piedi, mentre con il braccio destro alzato segue ad ampie falcate una folgore che ha appena scagliato, oppure seduto sul suo trono.

Il ruolo di Zeus nella mitologia classica

Zeus era il più importante degli dèi e comandava su tutto l'antico Pantheon Olimpico greco. Fu padre di molti eroi ed eroine e la sua figura è presente nella maggior parte delle leggende che li riguardano. Sebbene lo Zeus "radunatore di nuvole" dei poemi omerici fosse un dio del cielo e del tuono al pari delle equivalenti divinità orientali, rappresentava anche il massimo riferimento culturale del popolo Greco: sotto certi aspetti egli era l'espressione più autentica della religiosità greca e incarnava l'archetipo del divino proprio di quella cultura.

Gli epiteti di Zeus

Gli epiteti o i titoli attribuiti a Zeus enfatizzano i vari campi nei quali esercita la sua autorità. I più comuni sono:

• Zeus Aitnaîos – Zeus Etneo, relativo al monte-vulcano Etna, come l'Olimpo, sacro a Zeus.
• Zeus Apómuios – Zeus scaccia-mosche, a cui, secondo Pausania, si facevano sacrifici per allontanare le mosche; comparato in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible alle teorie di Friedrich W. A. Baethgen e Karl Arvid Tångberg sul nome Ba' al Zebub (l'epiteto Àpómuios secondo il Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, di Pierre Chantraine, è attribuito anche a Eracle).
• Zeus Nemeos – Zeus Nemeo, relativo a Nemea, città dell'Argolide, dove si disputavano i Giochi Panellenici, dedicati a Zeus, che svolgevano a cadenza biennale.
• Zeus Olympios – Zeus Olimpio, relativo al dominio di Zeus sia sugli altri dèi, sia sui Giochi Panellenici che si tenevano a Olimpia.
• Zeus Oratrios – dio del fulmine, il fuoco celeste, epiteto cretese della divinità.
• Zeus Panhellenios – Zeus di tutti i Greci al quale era dedicato il famoso tempio di Eaco sull'isola di Egina.
• Zeus Xenios – Zeus degli stranieri in quanto era il protettore degli ospiti e dell'accoglienza, sempre pronto a impedire che fosse fatto qualcosa di male ai forestieri.
• Zeus Horkios, il dio che si occupava della veridicità dei giuramenti: i bugiardi che venivano scoperti dovevano dedicare una statuetta votiva a Zeus, spesso al santuario di Olimpia.
• Zeus Agoraios, poiché vigilava sugli affari che si svolgevano nell'agorà e puniva i commercianti disonesti.
• Zeus Meilichios – Facile da invocare: Zeus aveva assunto su di sé il culto dell'antico daimon Meilichio che in precedenza gli Ateniesi erano adusi propiziarsi.
• Zeus Cronide – Figlio di Crono: patronimico di Zeus. Benché Crono (il Tempo) avesse avuto altri figli, il Cronide per antonomasia è Zeus.
• Zeus Egioco – Zeus possessore dell'egida, lo scudo ricoperto con la pelle della capra Amaltea che secondo il mito aveva nutrito con il suo latte Zeus da bambino.
• Zeus Soter – Zeus il salvatore, protettore, in quanto protettore e salvatore di tutta l'umanità.
• Zeus Erceo – Zeus protettore della casa.

Oltre alle forme presentate poco sopra, esistevano nel mondo greco anche epiteti tipicamente locali. Ne è un esempio l'epiteto Zeus Abretano, utilizzato nella regione della Misia e derivato dal nome della provincia Abretana. Inoltre esistevano anche alcuni culti locali dedicati a Zeus che mantenevano un loro proprio e singolare modo di concepire e adorare il re degli dèi. Seguono alcuni esempi.

Zeus a Creta

A Creta Zeus era adorato in alcune grotte che si trovano nei pressi di Cnosso, Ida e Palicastro. Le leggende di Minosse ed Epimenide suggeriscono che queste grotte anticamente fossero usate da re e sacerdoti come luogo per fare divinazioni. La suggestiva ambientazione delle Leggi di Platone, che si svolge lungo la strada che conduce i pellegrini verso uno di questi siti, sottolinea la conoscenza del filosofo dell'antica cultura cretese. Nelle rappresentazioni artistiche tipiche dell'isola Zeus compare, invece che come un uomo adulto, con l'aspetto di un giovane dai lunghi capelli e gli inni a lui dedicati cantano del ho megas kouros, ovvero "il grande giovane". Insieme ai Cureti, un gruppo di danzatori armati dediti a rituali estatici, sovrintendeva al duro addestramento atletico e militare, nonché ai segreti riti iniziatici, previsti dalla Paideia cretese.
Lo scrittore ellenistico Evemero sembra aver proposto una teoria con cui ipotizza che Zeus sia stato un grande re di Creta e che dopo la sua morte la sua fama abbia finito per trasformarlo in una divinità. Il testo di Evemero non è giunto integro fino a noi, ma in passato la patristica cristiana accolse l'ipotesi con molto favore.

Zeus Lykaios in Arcadia

L'epiteto Lykaios è morfologicamente connesso alla parola lyke (luminosità), ma a prima vista si può facilmente associare anche a lykos (lupo). Quest'ambiguità semantica si riflette sul singolare culto di Zeus Lykaios, celebrato nelle zone boscose e più remote dell'Arcadia, nel quale il dio assume caratteristiche sia di divinità lucente sia lupina. Il primo aspetto si evidenzia nel fatto che è il signore del monte Licaone (la montagna splendente), che è la cima più alta dell'Arcadia e sulla quale, secondo una leggenda, si trova una recinto sacro sul quale non si sono mai posate ombre. Il secondo invece si rifà al mito di Licaone (l'uomo lupo), il re dell'Arcadia i cui leggendari antichi atti di cannibalismo venivano ricordati per mezzo di bizzarri riti. Secondo Platone una setta si sarebbe riunita sul monte ogni otto anni per celebrare sacrifici in onore di Zeus Lykaios durante i quali si mescolava un singolo pezzo di interiora umane a interiora animali e poi si distribuiva il tutto ai presenti: chi avesse mangiato il pezzo di carne umana si sarebbe trasformato in un lupo e avrebbe potuto recuperare la propria forma umana solo se non ne avesse più mangiata fino alla conclusione del successivo ciclo di otto anni.

Zeus Etneo in Sicilia

Il culto di Zeus Aitnàios (etneo) è riportato nelle odi di Pindaro ed è attestato dalla produzione numismatica locale. Il tempio del dio era ubicato nella città di Áitna (Etna), fondata da Gerone I di Siracusa. Alcuni scoli di Pindaro riportano che Ierone I donò al tempio una statua di Zeus, che potrebbe essere quella rappresentata nel tetradramma di Aitna.

Lo Zeus del sottosuolo

Sebbene l'etimologia del nome indichi che Zeus originariamente era un dio del cielo, in diverse città greche si adorava una versione locale di Zeus che viveva nel mondo sotterraneo. Gli Ateniesi e i Sicelioti (Greci di Sicilia) veneravano Zeus Meilichios (dolce o mellifluo), mentre in altre città vigeva il culto di Zeus Chthonios (della terra), Katachthonios (del sottosuolo) e Plousios (portatore di ricchezza). Queste divinità nelle forme d'arte potevano essere visuale parimenti rappresentate sia come uomo sia come serpente. In loro onore si sacrificavano animali di colore nero che venivano affogati dentro a pozzi, come si faceva per divinità ctonie come Persefone e Demetra o sulla tomba degli eroi. Gli dèi olimpi, invece, ricevevano in olocausto animali di colore bianco che venivano uccisi sopra ad altari.
In alcuni casi gli abitanti di queste città non sapevano con certezza se il daimon in onore del quale effettuavano i sacrifici fosse un eroe oppure lo Zeus del sottosuolo. Così il santuario di Lebadea in Beozia potrebbe essere stato dedicato sia all'eroe Trofonio sia a Zeus Trephonius (colui che nutre), a seconda che si scelga di dare retta a Pausania oppure a Strabone. L'eroe Anfiarao era venerato come Zeus Amphiaraus a Oropo, nei pressi di Tebe, e pure a Sparta c'era un santuario di Zeus Agamennone.

Gli oracoli di Zeus

Anche se la maggior parte degli oracoli erano generalmente dedicati ad Apollo, a eroi oppure a dee come Temi, esistevano anche alcuni oracoli dedicati a Zeus.

L'oracolo di Dodona

Il culto di Zeus a Dodona nell'Epiro, località per la quale vi sono prove dello svolgersi di attività cerimoniali a partire dal II millennio a.C., era imperniato su una quercia sacra, memore del culto al dio a Tebe egizia. All'epoca in cui fu composta l'Odissea (circa il 750 a.C.) l'attività divinatoria era condotta da sacerdoti scalzi chiamati Selloi, che si stendevano a terra e osservavano lo stormire delle foglie e dei rami dell'albero. All'epoca in cui Erodoto scrisse a sua volta di Dodona i sacerdoti erano stati sostituiti da sacerdotesse chiamate Peleiadi (colombe). L'oracolo di Dodona è considerato da Erodoto il più antico della Grecia, precedente anche al tempo in cui i Pelasgi avessero dato un nome agli dei.

L'oracolo di Siwa

L'oracolo di Amon nell'Oasi di Siwa che si trovava nel lato occidentale del deserto egiziano non era situato entro i confini del mondo greco prima dell'epoca di Alessandro Magno, ma fin dall'età arcaica aveva esercitato una forte influenza sulla cultura greca: Erodoto nella sua descrizione della guerra greco-persiana dice che Zeus Amon fu consultato varie volte. Zeus Amon era tenuto in particolare considerazione a Sparta, dove fin dall'epoca della guerra del Peloponneso esisteva un tempio in suo onore.
Quando Alessandro Magno si avventurò nel deserto per consultare l'oracolo di Siwa, scoprì l'esistenza di una Sibilla libica.

Altri oracoli di Zeus

Si dice che entrambi gli Zeus ctonii Trofonio e Anfiarao dessero responsi di tipo oracolare nei santuari a loro dedicati.

Zeus e le divinità straniere

Zeus era l'equivalente del dio della mitologia romana Giove e nell'immaginario sincretico classico era associato con varie altre divinità, come l'egizio Amon, e l'etrusco Tinia. Insieme con Dioniso aveva assorbito su di sé il ruolo del principale dio frigio Sabazios dando vita alla divinità conosciuta nel sincretismo dell'antica Roma come Sabazio.

Zeus nella mitologia

La nascita

Il titano Crono ebbe molti figli da Rea: Estia, Demetra, Era, Ade e Poseidone, ma li divorò tutti appena nati, dal momento che aveva saputo da Gea e Urano che il suo destino era di essere spodestato da uno dei suoi figli così come lui stesso aveva spodestato suo padre. Quando però Zeus stava per nascere, Rea chiese a Gea di escogitare un piano per salvarlo, in modo che Crono ricevesse la giusta punizione per ciò che aveva fatto a Urano e ai suoi stessi figli. Rea partorì Zeus a Creta, consegnando al suo posto a Crono una pietra fasciata con dei panni che egli divorò immediatamente. La madre nascose Zeus in una cesta sospesa ad un albero, sorvegliato da una famiglia di pastori ai quali promise in cambio che le loro pecore non sarebbero state attaccate dai lupi. Il mito sarebbe, secondo Cicerone, un'allegoria: Krònos, che vale chrònos, cioè un periodo di tempo, si immagina che avesse l'abitudine di divorare i suoi figli perché il tempo divora i periodi di tempo e si riempie insaziabilmente degli anni passati. Fu poi incatenato da Zeus perché il suo corso non fosse illimitato.
Rea nascose quindi Zeus in una grotta sul Monte Ida a Creta e, a seconda delle varie versioni della leggenda:

• fu allevato ed educato da Gea.
• fu allevato da una capra di nome Amaltea, mentre un gruppo di Cureti gridavano, danzavano e battevano le loro lance contro gli scudi perché Crono non sentisse il pianto del bambino.
• fu allevato da una Ninfa di nome Adamantea. Dato che Crono dominava la Terra, i cieli e il mare, lo nascose appendendolo a una fune legata a un albero in modo che, sospeso fra i tre elementi, fosse invisibile al padre.
• fu allevato da una Ninfa di nome Cinosura. In segno di gratitudine Zeus, una volta cresciuto, la trasformò in una stella.
• fu allevato da Melissa, che lo nutrì con latte di capra.

L'ascesa al trono degli dei

Raggiunta l'età adulta, Zeus costrinse Crono a rigettare prima la pietra che l'aveva sostituito, poi i suoi fratelli e sorelle nell'ordine inverso rispetto a quello in cui erano stati ingeriti. Secondo alcune versioni della leggenda Metide diede un emetico a Crono per costringerlo a vomitare i figli, secondo altre ancora Zeus squarciò lo stomaco del padre. A questo punto Zeus liberò dalla loro prigione nel Tartaro anche i fratelli di Crono: gli Ecatonchiri e i Ciclopi. Insieme, Zeus e i suoi fratelli e sorelle, gli Ecatonchiri e i Ciclopi rovesciarono dal trono Crono e gli altri Titani grazie alla terribile battaglia chiamata Titanomachia. I Titani sconfitti furono da allora confinati nell'oscuro regno sotterraneo del Tartaro. Atlante, in quanto capo dei Titani che avevano combattuto contro Zeus, fu condannato a reggere il cielo sulle sue spalle.
Dopo la battaglia contro i Titani Zeus si spartì il mondo con i suoi fratelli maggiori Poseidone e Ade sorteggiando i tre regni: Zeus ebbe in sorte i cieli e l'aria, Poseidone le acque e ad Ade toccò il mondo dei morti. L'antica terra, Gaia, non poté essere concessa ad alcuno, ma venne condivisa da tutti e tre a seconda delle loro capacità.
I Giganti furibondi perché Zeus aveva confinato nel Tartaro i loro fratelli Titani si ribellarono agli dèi Olimpi e scatenarono a loro volta la Gigantomachia. Essi cominciarono a scagliare massi e tizzoni ardenti verso il cielo. Era profetizzò che « [...] i Giganti non sarebbero mai stati sconfitti da un dio, ma soltanto da un mortale che vestiva con pelli di leone, e solo con una certa erba che rendeva invulnerabili.». L'uomo fu identificato con Eracle, e Zeus, vagando in una regione indicatagli da Atena, trovò l'erba magica. Così furono sconfitti anche i Giganti.
Gaia si risentì per il modo in cui Zeus aveva trattato i Titani e i Giganti, dato che erano figli suoi. Così, poco dopo essersi impossessato del trono degli dèi, Zeus dovette affrontare anche il mostro Tifone, figlio di Gaia e del Tartaro. Zeus sconfisse Tifone e lo schiacciò sotto una montagna, secondo una versione sotto l'Etna.

Zeus ed Era

Zeus era sia il fratello sia il marito di Era. Con lei generò Ares, Ebe ed Efesto, anche se alcune leggende narrano che Era diede vita ai suoi figli da sola. Altri miti includono tra la loro discendenza anche Ilizia. Le numerose conquiste che Zeus fece tra le Ninfe e le mortali, che diedero inizio alle più importanti dinastie greche, sono proverbiali. La mitografia gli attribuisce relazioni tra le divinità con Demetra, Latona, Dione e Maia, mentre tra le mortali con Semele, Io, Europa e Leda. (Per maggiori dettagli si rimanda ai paragrafi successivi)
Molte leggende dipingono un'Era gelosissima delle conquiste amorose del marito e fiera nemica delle sue amanti e dei figli da loro generati. Una volta a una ninfa di nome Eco venne affidato il compito di distrarre Era dalle attività di Zeus, parlandole in continuazione: quando la dea se ne accorse, con un incantesimo costrinse Eco a ripetere le parole che udiva dagli altri.

Elenco delle amanti e dei figli di Zeus

Divinità

Madre Figli Calliope Coribanti Cibele Agdisti Climene Mirtilo Demetra Persefone Dione (secondo Omero) Afrodite Dino Ninfe Doride Scamandro Era Ares Efesto Ebe Eris Ilizia Echidna Agatirso Gelono Scite Eris Ate Lite Eos Ersa Eurinome Grazie Aglaia Eufrosine Talia Asopo Ferea Ecate Gea Mane Leto Apollo Artemide Leucotea Pattolo Maia Hermes Metide Atena Mnemosine Le Muse (Le tre muse originali) Aoide Melete Mneme Le Muse (Le altre nove) Calliope Clio Erato Euterpe Melpomene Polimnia Tersicore Talia Urania Nemesi Elena Ora Colasso Persefone Zagreo Sabazio Eubuleo Selene Ersa Il leone di Nemea Pandia Temi Astrea Nemesi Le ore Prima Generazione Auso Carpo Tallo Seconda Generazione Diche Irene Eunomia Terza Generazione Ferusa Euporia Ortosia Le Moire Atropo Cloto Lachesi *A seconda delle zone e delle leggende, i Greci pensavano che fossero figlie di Zeus con la Titanessa Temi oppure con esseri primordiali come Nyx, Chaos o Ananke.

Mortali/Ninfe/Madri diverse

Madre Figli Alcmena Eracle Anasitea Oleno Antiope Anfione Zeto Asteria Ecate Boetea Egipan Calice Endimione Callisto Arcade Carme Britomarti Cassiopea Atinnio Circe Fauno Danae Perseo Dia Piritoo Egina Eaco Elara Tizio Elettra Corito Dardano Iasione Armonia Emazione Eurimedusa Mirmidone Eurodia Arcesio Europa Minosse Radamante Sarpedonte Dodone Carno Garamantide Iarba Imalia Cronio Spartaio Chito Iodama Tebe Io Epafo Ceroessa Isonoe Orcomeno Lamia Scilla Sibilla Libica Laodamia Sarpedonte Claro Temone Leda Castore Polluce Elena di Troia Lisitoe Eracle Mera Locro Niobe Argo Pelasgo Olimpiade Alessandro Magno Otreide Meliteo Pandora Greco Latino Pasifae Ammone Pluto Tantalo Podarga Balio Xanto Pirra Elleno Protogenia Etlio Opo Semele Dioniso Taigete Lacedemone Talia Palici Tia Magnete Macedone Ninfa dell'Ida di Creta Creso Ninfa Saone Figlia di Boristene Targitao Da madre sconosciuta Ate Da madre sconosciuta Nefele Da madre sconosciuta I Litai Da madre sconosciuta Tiche Da madre sconosciuta Corinto Da madre sconosciuta Solimo Da madre sconosciuta Crinaco Da madre sconosciuta Oneso Da madre sconosciuta Trie Da madre sconosciuta Lamo Eurinome Talia

A questo stuolo di personaggi femminili, divini, semidivini e mortali amati e/o rapiti, il Signore dell'Olimpo ebbe anche un amasio maschio, il bel principe adolescente del popolo dei troiani Ganimede.

Altri racconti su Zeus

• Sebbene Zeus si comportasse talvolta in modo severo e irascibile, era in lui presente anche un profondo senso di giustizia sacra, che probabilmente è esemplificato al meglio negli episodi in cui fulmina Capaneo per la sua arroganza e quando aiuta Atreo ingannato dal fratello. Inoltre proteggeva forestieri e viaggiatori da coloro che intendevano fare loro del male.
• Zeus trasformò Pandareo in una statua per punirlo del furto del cane di bronzo che, quando era un bimbo, lo aveva custodito nella grotta sacra a Creta.
• Zeus uccise Salmoneo con un fulmine per aver tentato di impersonarlo andando in giro con un carro di bronzo e gridando per imitare il rumore del tuono.
• Zeus trasformò Perifa in un'aquila, dopo la sua morte, come ricompensa per essere stato un uomo onesto e giusto.
• Una ninfa di nome Chelona rifiutò di presenziare al matrimonio di Zeus ed Era: per punirla Zeus la trasformò in una tartaruga.
• Zeus ed Era trasformarono il re Emo e la regina Rodope di Tracia in due montagne per punirli della loro vanità.
• Zeus condannò Tantalo a essere torturato in eterno nel Tartaro per aver indotto con l'inganno gli dèi a mangiare le carni di suo figlio.
• Zeus condannò Issione a essere legato in eterno a una ruota infuocata per aver tentato di fare sua Era.
• Zeus fece sprofondare i Telchini in fondo al mare per aver inaridito la terra con le loro terribili magie.
• Zeus accecò il veggente Fineo e mandò le Arpie a tormentarlo insozzando i suoi banchetti per punirlo di aver rivelato i segreti degli dèi.
• Zeus ricompensò Tiresia con una vita tre volte più lunga del normale per aver giudicato in suo favore la disputa sorta con Era su quale dei due sessi provasse più piacere durante l'amplesso.
• Zeus punì Era appendendola a testa in giù dal cielo quando aveva tentato di affogare Eracle mandandogli contro una tempesta.
• Tra i numerosi figli che aveva avuto, Eracle è stato spesso descritto come il preferito da Zeus. Infatti Eracle fu spesso chiamato sia dalla gente sia da vari dèi il figlio prediletto di Zeus: una leggenda narra come, quando una stirpe di Giganti nati dalla terra minacciava l'Olimpo e l'Oracolo di Delfi aveva detto che solo le forze riunite di un singolo mortale e di un dio potevano fermarli, Zeus scelse Eracle per combattere al suo fianco e, insieme, sconfissero i mostri.
• Zeus ebbe molti figli, la maggior parte da relazioni clandestine, ma si narra che la dea Atena, sua figlia, sia nata senza amplesso. Zeus mostrava gelosia nei confronti della moglie Era, che aveva generato da sola il dio Efesto, senza ricorrere ad atti sessuali, quindi Zeus, decise di generare a sua volta un figlio senza bisogno di un'altra donna. Così nacque Atena, uscendo dal cranio spaccato di Zeus.

Alberi genealogici di Zeus

Genealogia argiva

Inaco

Melia

Zeus

Io

Foroneo

Epafo

Menfi

Libia

Poseidone

Belo

Anchinoe

Agenore

Telefassa

Danao

Pieria

Egitto

Cadmo

Cilice

Europa

Fenice

Mantineo

Ipermnestra

Linceo

Armonia

Zeus

Polidoro

Sparta

Lacedemone

Ocalea

Abante

Agave

Sarpedonte

Radamanto

Autonoe

Euridice

Acrisio

Ino

Minosse

Zeus

Danae

Semele

Zeus

Perseo

Dioniso

     uomo
     donna
     divinità

Genealogia dei Perseidi

Zeus

Danae

Perseo

Andromeda

Perse

Alceo

Hipponome

Elettrione

Anasso

Stenelo

Nicippe

Mestore

Anaxo

Anfitrione

Alcmena

Zeus

Licimnio

Euristeo

Ificle

Megara

Eracle

Deianira

Ebe

Iolao

Tre figli

Illo

Macaria

Altri

Genealogia (Esiodo)

Urano

Gea

Genitali di  Urano

CRONO

Rea

Zeus

Era

Poseidone

Ade

Demetra

Estia

a

b

Ares

Efesto

Meti

Atena

Latona

Apollo

Artemide

Maia

Ermes

Semele

Dioniso

Dione

a

b

Afrodite

Nella cultura di massa

• Zeus è l'antagonista principale dei videogiochi God of War II e God of War III. In God of War II Zeus tradisce Kratos, uccidendolo. Questo, dopo essere stato salvato da Gaia, si dirige presso l'isola delle moire dove, dopo averle uccise, ritorna indietro nel tempo, nel momento in cui Zeus lo ha tradito. In God of War III, Zeus è l'ultima divinità olimpica a cadere per mano di Kratos. Infatti la sua morte riporta l'Antica Grecia al Caos Primordiale.
• Zeus compare anche nel nuovo videogioco del SIE Santa Monica Studio, God of War sotto forma di visione quando Kratos raggiunge il regno di Helheim.
• Zeus appare nel film Scontro di titani, nel suo Remake Scontro tra titani e in La furia dei titani, sequel del secondo.
• Compare anche nel film Hercules.
• Nel film Wonder Woman l'omonima protagonista è figlia di Zeus.
• Nei libri di "Percy Jackson e gli dei dell'Olimpo" di Rick Riordan, appare il padre divino della semidea greca Talia Grace.
• Nei libri di "Percy Jackson e gli eroi dell'Olimpo" di Rick Riordan, Zeus è fondamentale, insieme al resto degli dei, per la sconfitta dei giganti figli di Gea.
• Nel libro "le sfide di Apollo" sempre di Rick Riordan, il divino Zeus punisce Apollo rendendolo mortale, dopo i fatti degli eroi dell'Olimpo.

Citazioni di Zeus

• Ahimè, sempre gli uomini accusano gli dei: dicono che da noi provengono le sventure, mentre è per i loro errori che patiscono e soffrono oltre misura. (Odissea)
• Essere un guerriero non vuol dire solo essere in grado di colpire un tuo avversario, ma trovare innanzi tutto una buona ragione per sguainare la tua spada. (Immortals)
• Hermes – tu che sei il messaggero – alla ninfa dai bei capelli va ad annunciare la decisione immutabile, che l'intrepido Odisseo deve tornare. Tornerà senza avere compagni né dei né uomini: sopra una zattera di tronchi legati, dopo molto patire giungerà, nel ventesimo giorno, alla fertile Scheria, terra dei Feaci di srirpe divina, che come un dio lo onoreranno nel cuore e con una nave lo manderanno all'amata terra dei padri. (Odissea)
• Oh, Prometeo, tu non hai idea di quanto sia noioso essere il dio di un mondo perfetto. (Stephen Fry)
• Perché un vero eroe non si misura dalla forza che possiede, ma dalla forza del suo cuore. (Hercules)
• Puoi essergli amico quanto vuoi, Prometeo, e non dubito che anche Atena e tutti gli altri dei lo saranno. Però c'è una cosa che non dovranno avere. Mai. Ed è il fuoco. [...] Col fuoco potrebbero ribellarsi a noi. Col fuoco potrebbero credersi nostri pari. Lo sento, e lo so. Non bisogna mai dar loro il fuoco. Così ho parlato. (Stephen Fry)
• Ricorda, ciò che conta non è il mero vivere, Teseo, è vivere giustamente. (Immortals)
• Temo che essere famosi non sia lo stesso che essere un vero eroe. (Hercules)

Scontro di titani

• Cento buone azioni non potranno mai assolvere un solo omicidio. Mille templi o mille statue, che siano dedicati a me o a te, Era, mia moglie, o a Teti, bellissima dea del mare, o a te, Atena, sempre saggia e premurosa, o ad Afrodite, dea dell'amore, niente può obbliterare o perdonare questo unico, spregevole atto di sangue.
• Scatena il Kraken!
• La fortuna è alleata dei valorosi.
• Era: E se il coraggio e l'immaginazione dovessero diventare qualità mortali comuni, che sorte avremo noi?
  Zeus: Di noi non ci sarà più bisogno. Ma per il momento, per il momento c'è sufficiente codardia, mendacità e indolenza giù sulla terra da durare per sempre.
• Anche se noi dei saremo abbandonati o dimenticati, le stelle non si spegneranno mai. Mai. Splenderanno fino alla fine dei tempi.

Citazioni su Zeus

• Teti: E sì, ha avuto tante donne. E quante trasformazioni e travestimenti si inventa allo scopo di sedurle! Certe volte una pioggia d'oro o un toro, oppure un cigno. Ha perfino cercato di insediare me, camuffandosi da seppia.
  Era: E ci è riuscito?
  Teti: Ci mancherebbe!
  Atena: E come hai fatto?
  Teti: Ho fatto il suo stesso gioco. Mi sono trasformata in un enorme pescecane. (Scontro di titani)

Citazioni in prosa

• Dicono che quando era colto da desiderio erotico, Zeus assumeva ora le sembianze di toro, ora di aquila ora di cigno. Con tutti questi racconti gli antichi volevano dunque dimostrare l'onore che essi tributavano agli animali e ancor di più quando narrano che ad allevare Zeus fu una capra. (Porfirio)
• Dove Zeus non troneggia più, corona, scettro e confini perdono ogni senso; gli eroi si congedano con Ares, col grande Pan muore la natura. (Ernst Jünger)
• L'uno, il solo saggio non vuole e vuol essere chiamato col nome di Zeus. (Eraclito)

Citazioni in versi

• Senza il tuo nume nulla avviene sulla terra | né sotto il divino polo celeste e nemmeno nel mare, | tranne quanto compiono i malvagi nella loro demenza. | Ma tu sai rendere perfette anche le cose vane | e far belle le cose brutte, e pur le cose sgradevoli per te divengono grate: | tu infatti adattasti in uno tutte le cose buone con le cattive | così che diventassero la ragione unica di tutte le cose, sempre esistente, | che fuggendo abbandonano quanti mortali sono malvagi; | infelici!, che sempre di beni bramando il possesso | non vedono né ascoltano la legge universale di dio, | seguendo la quale avrebbero vita felice con senno. (Cleante)

Stephen Fry

• Egli possedeva la sicurezza, un'aria naturale di comando che contraddistingue chi è destinato a diventare un capo. Era più pronto alla risata che alla collera, ma quando si arrabbiava, era in grado di atterrire ogni creatura che vivesse nella sua orbita.
• Il fulmine e il lampo erano ai suoi ordini. L'aquila e la quercia i suoi emblemi, simbolo, ora come allora, di una fiera grazia e di un potere invincibile. La sua parola era legge, la sua autorità formidabile. Ma non era perfetto. Era molto, molto lontano dall'esserlo.
• Se è vero che in un orecchio era la saggezza a parlargli sotto forma di Meti, nell'altro Zeus sentiva sempre il bollente richiamo della passione. Quando gli passavano davanti una bella donna, una bella ragazza - e a volte un bel ragazzo -, niente poteva impedirgli di seguirli in capo al mondo, a costo di doversi trasformare in una quantità di animali diversi. Se veniva colto da un attacco di libidine, Meti non riusciva a dominarlo più di quanto un sussurro possa acquietare una tempesta; né Era, con le sue folli grida di rabbia e gelosia aveva più potere nel richiamarlo di quanto il battito d'ali di una farfalla possa mandare una nave fuori rotta.
• Zeus pareva aver ereditato lo sgradevole vizio paterno di mangiarsi chiunque, secondo i pronostici, minacciasse di sconfiggerlo.

Lo Zeus di Otricoli - marmo - Copia romana di un originale greco del IV secolo - Musei  Vaticani 

sconosciuto - Jastrow (2006) 

So-called “Zeus of Otricoli”. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek original from the 4th century.

Giove

Giove (latino Iupiter o Iuppiter, accusativo Iovem, o Diespiter) è il dio/divinità suprema (cioè il re di tutti gli dèi), della religione e della mitologia romana i cui simboli sono il fulmine e il tuono: dio latino simile alla divinità mitologica della religione greca Zeus o Tinia in quella etrusca. Viene indicato come figlio di Saturno e Opi.
Alla divinità romana è dedicato il gigante gassoso con il medesimo nome.

Epiteti

Questi sono gli epiteti conosciuti di Giove, secondo la lista compilata dallo storico svedese Carl Thulin e riportata dalla Paulys Realencyclopädie (1890), pagine 1142-1144. La sigla O. M. sta per Ottimo Massimo

Adventus O. M. ("arrivo, invasione") Aetetus O. M. Almus ("che conforta") Amaranus ("che amareggia?") Anxurus ("di Terracina") Appenninus ("dell'Appennino"; fusione con il dio ligure Penninus) Arcanus ("occulto") Balmarcodes O. M. Beellefarus Bronton Cacunus Caelestis O. M. Caelus O. M. Capitolinus O. M. ("del Campidoglio") Casius ("del Monte Casio"; adorato ad Antiochia) Ciminius Clitumnus Cohortalis O. M. Conservator ("difensore") Culminalis O. M. Cultor ("coltivatore") Custos ("custode, guardiano") Damascenus O. M. ("di Damasco") Dapalis Defensor O. M. Depulsor O. M. Depulsorius O. M. Dianus Dolichenus ("di Dolico"; è l'antico Teshub degli Ittiti) Domesticus Diovis Elicius Epulo (la festa di Epulum Iovis era celebrata il 13 settembre) Exsuperantissimus O. M. Fagutalis Farreus Feretrius (che "colpisce", "ferisce") Fidius (fusione con Dius Fidius)

Flagius (adorato a Cuma) Frugifer Fulgur Fulgurator Fulmen Fulminator Grabovius (fusione con il dio umbro Grabovio) Hammon O. M. (adorato nell'oasi di Siwa) Heliopolitanus (di Heliopolis, attuale Baalbek) Hercius Imbricitor Impulsor Indiges (identificazione divina di Enea) Inventor Invictus Iurarius Iutor Iuventas Lapis Latiaris Liber Liberator Libertas Lucetius Maius Maleciabrudes Monitor O. M. ("guida") Nundinarius Obsequens Opitulator o Opitulus ("soccorritore") Optimus Maximus (O. M.) Paganicus Pantheus Patronus Pecunia Pistor ("fornaio") Pluvialis Poeninus (trasformazione del dio Penn) Praedator

Praestes ("protettore") Prestabilis ("insigne") Prestitus Propagator O. M. Propugnator Puer Purgator Purpurio O. M. Quirinus (fusione con Quirino) Rector Redux Restitutor Ruminus Salutaris O. M. Savazios (fusione con Sabazio) Sempiternus Serapis (fusione con Serapide) Serenator ("che rasserena") Serenus ("sereno, calmo; felice") Servator O. M. ("salvatore, osservatore") Sospes ("salvatore") Stator ("che tiene fermo, che ferma") Striganus Succellus (fusione con il dio celtico Succellus) Summanus Tempestas Terminus Territor ("che spaventa") Tifatinus Tigillus Tonans ("tonante") Tonitrator ("che fa tuonare") Tutator Valens ("forte, sano, robusto, potente, efficace") Versor ("che modifica, che sconvolge, che travolge?") Vesuvius (adorato a Capua) Viminus Vindex ("protettore, difensore") Vircilinus Virgarius

A questi va poi aggiunto anche l'epiteto di Vector, come testimoniato dall'antico cippo di un tempio (dedicato a Giove, a Giunone e alle Parche) che sorgeva nella località di Monsignano di Predappio, presso Forlì.

Giove Ottimo Massimo

Nume tutelare nell'epiteto di Giove Ottimo Massimo dello Stato romano aveva a Roma il suo santuario principale sul Campidoglio, dove era venerato in età arcaica nella triade Giove-Marte-Quirino, poi evolutasi in età repubblicana in Giove-Giunone-Minerva.
Al suo culto era consacrato il flamine maggiore chiamato Flamine diale, il quale rivestiva una particolare importanza e sacralità in quanto quasi personificazione vivente di Giove, di cui celebrava i riti, godeva di grandi onori, ma, proprio per la sua funzione, era sottoposto a molteplici limitazioni e tabù i più importanti dei quali erano che non poteva lasciare la città per più di un giorno, questo limite fu portato da Augusto a due giorni e non poteva dormire fuori dal proprio letto per più di tre notti.

Giove nell'arte

Nell'arte veniva sculturato in marmo dai romani, in bronzo dai commercianti greci.

Gli amori di Giove

Gli amori di Giove sono per lo più una versione latina delle amanti e dei figli di Zeus; fanno eccezione alcuni nomi, come Circe, da cui avrebbe avuto Fauno, e Iarba, il re africano, che avrebbe avuto da una ninfa, Garamantide. Secondariamente si raccontava dei suoi amori con la figlia Venere, con cui generò Cupido.

Pittura

• L'Origine della Via Lattea di Pieter Paul Rubens (1636-1638)
• L'Origine della Via Lattea di Tintoretto
• Venere e Giove di Paolo Veronese
• Giove e Giunone di Annibale Carracci
• Giove e Giunone di Agostino Carracci

Locuzioni e proverbi

• Il futuro è sulle ginocchia di Giove - Espressione tratta da poemi omerici; usata talvolta per indicare che il futuro è sconosciuto agli uomini.

Piante consacrate a Giove

I Romani consacrarono l'albero del Noce a Giove: infatti il suo nome scientifico "Juglans regia", utilizzato ancora oggi, deriva dalla contrazione dell'espressione latina "Iovis glans" (ghianda di Giove) e dall'epiteto specifico "regia" che ne sottolinea l'importanza.

Giove detto "tonante" in una scultura risalente al 100 a.C. circa

I, Sailko

Giove, I sec dc, con parti simulanti il bronzo moderne

Zeus

Zeus (/zjuːs/; Greek: Ζεύς, Zeús [zdeǔ̯s]) is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter. His mythologies and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Indo-European deities such as Indra, Jupiter, Perkūnas, Perun, Thor, and Odin.
Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, by whom the Iliad states that he fathered Aphrodite. Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses.
He was respected as an allfather who was chief of the gods and assigned the others to their roles: "Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence." He was equated with many foreign weather gods, permitting Pausanias to observe "That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men". Zeus' symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical "cloud-gatherer" (Greek: Νεφεληγερέτα, Nephelēgereta) also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.

Name

The god's name in the nominative is Ζεύς (Zeús). It is inflected as follows: vocative: Ζεῦ (Zeû); accusative: Δία (Día); genitive: Διός (Diós); dative: Διί (Dií). Diogenes Laertius quotes Pherecydes of Syros as spelling the name, Ζάς.
Zeus is the Greek continuation of *Di̯ēus, the name of the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called *Dyeus ph₂tēr ("Sky Father"). The god is known under this name in the Rigveda (Vedic Sanskrit Dyaus/Dyaus Pita), Latin (compare Jupiter, from Iuppiter, deriving from the Proto-Indo-European vocative *dyeu-ph₂tēr), deriving from the root *dyeu- ("to shine", and in its many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god"). Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology.
The earliest attested forms of the name are the Mycenaean Greek 𐀇𐀸, di-we and 𐀇𐀺, di-wo, written in the Linear B syllabic script.
Plato, in his Cratylus, gives a folk etymology of Zeus meaning "cause of life always to all things," because of puns between alternate titles of Zeus (Zen and Dia) with the Greek words for life and "because of." This etymology, along with Plato's entire method of deriving etymologies, is not supported by modern scholarship.

Mythology

Birth

Cronus sired several children by Rhea: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, but swallowed them all as soon as they were born, since he had learned from Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overthrown by his son as he had previously overthrown Uranus, his own father, an oracle that Rhea heard and wished to avert.
When Zeus was about to be born, Rhea sought Gaia to devise a plan to save him, so that Cronus would get his retribution for his acts against Uranus and his own children. Rhea gave birth to Zeus in Crete, handing Cronus a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he promptly swallowed.

Infancy

Varying versions of the story exist:

1. According to Hyginus (Fabulae, 139)) Zeus was raised by a nymph named Amalthea. Since Saturn (Cronus) ruled over the Earth, the heavens and the sea, she hid him by dangling him on a rope from a tree so he was suspended between earth, sea and sky and thus, invisible to his father.
2. According to Pseudo-Apollodorus (Bibliotheca, 1.1.5-7)) Zeus was raised by a goat named Amalthea in a cave called Dictaeon Antron (Psychro Cave). A a company of soldiers called Kouretes danced, shouted and clashed their spears against their shields so that Cronus would not hear the baby's cry.

King of the gods

After reaching manhood, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge first the stone (which was set down at Pytho under the glens of Parnassus to be a sign to mortal men, the Omphalos) then his siblings in reverse order of swallowing. In some versions, Metis gave Cronus an emetic to force him to disgorge the babies, or Zeus cut Cronus's stomach open. Then Zeus released the brothers of Cronus, the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes, from their dungeon in Tartarus, killing their guard, Campe.
As a token of their appreciation, the Cyclopes gave him thunder and the thunderbolt, or lightning, which had previously been hidden by Gaia. Together, Zeus, his brothers and sisters, Hecatonchires and Cyclopes overthrew Cronus and the other Titans, in the combat called the Titanomachy. The defeated Titans were then cast into a shadowy underworld region known as Tartarus. Atlas, one of the titans who fought against Zeus, was punished by having to hold up the sky.
After the battle with the Titans, Zeus shared the world with his elder brothers, Poseidon and Hades, by drawing lots: Zeus got the sky and air, Poseidon the waters, and Hades the world of the dead (the underworld). The ancient Earth, Gaia, could not be claimed; she was left to all three, each according to their capabilities, which explains why Poseidon was the "earth-shaker" (the god of earthquakes) and Hades claimed the humans who died (see also Penthus).
Gaia resented the way Zeus had treated the Titans, because they were her children. Soon after taking the throne as king of the gods, Zeus had to fight some of Gaia's other children, the monsters Typhon and Echidna. He vanquished Typhon and trapped him under Mount Etna, but left Echidna and her children alive.

Zeus and Hera

Zeus was brother and consort of Hera. By Hera, Zeus sired Ares, Hebe and Hephaestus, though some accounts say that Hera produced these offspring alone. Some also include Eileithyia, Eris, Enyo and Angelos as their daughters. In the section of the Iliad known to scholars as the Deception of Zeus, the two of them are described as having begun their sexual relationship without their parents knowing about it. The conquests of Zeus among nymphs and the mythic mortal progenitors of Hellenic dynasties are famous. Olympian mythography even credits him with unions with Leto, Demeter, Metis, Themis, Eurynome and Mnemosyne. Other relationships with immortals included Dione and Maia. Among mortals were Semele, Io, Europa and Leda (for more details, see below) and with the young Ganymede (although he was mortal Zeus granted him eternal youth and immortality).
Many myths render Hera as jealous of his amorous conquests and a consistent enemy of Zeus's mistresses and their children by him. For a time, a nymph named Echo had the job of distracting Hera from his affairs by talking incessantly, and when Hera discovered the deception, she cursed Echo to repeat the words of others.

Consorts and offspring

Divine offspring Mother Children Aega Aegipan Ananke or Themis Moirai/Fates1 Atropos Clotho Lachesis Aphrodite Tyche6 (possibly) Demeter Persephone Dione or Thalassa Aphrodite Eris Limos Eurynome/Eurydome/ Eurymedusa/Euanthe Charites/Graces2 Aglaea Euphrosyne Thalia Gaia Manes Hera Angelos Ares3 Eileithyia Enyo Eris Hebe3 Hephaestus3 Leto Apollo Artemis Maia Hermes Metis Athena4 Mnemosyne Muses (Original three) Aoide Melete Mneme Muses (Later nine) Calliope Clio Euterpe Erato Melpomene Polyhymnia Terpsichore Thalia Urania Nemesis Helen of Troy (possibly) Persephone Zagreus Melinoe Selene Ersa Nemean Lion Pandia Thalia Palici Themis Astraea Nymphs of Eridanos Nemesis Horae First Generation Auxo Carpo Thallo Second Generation Dike Eirene Eunomia Third generation Pherusa Euporie Orthosie Adikia Eos Carae Unknown mother Aletheia Unknown mother Ate Unknown mother Caerus Unknown mother Litae

Semi-divine/mortal offspring Mother Children Aegina Aeacus Damocrateia[33] Alcmene Heracles Antiope Amphion Zethus Anaxithea Olenus Asterope, Oceanid Acragas Callisto Arcas Calyce Aethlius (possibly) Callirhoe (daughter of Achelous) no known offspring Carme Britomartis Cassiopeia Atymnius Chaldene Solymus Milye Danaë Perseus Dia Pirithous Elara Tityos Electra Dardanus Iasion Harmonia Europa Minos Rhadamanthus Sarpedon Alagonia Carnus Dodon Eurymedousa Myrmidon Euryodeia Arcesius Himalia Kronios Spartaios Kytos Idaea, nymph Cres Iodame Thebe Io Epaphus Keroessa Isonoe Orchomenus Lamia Achilleus Lamia (daughter of Poseidon) Libyan Sibyl Laodamia Sarpedon Leda Pollux Helen of Troy5 Maera Locrus Niobe Argus Pelasgus Othreis Meliteus Pandora Graecus Phthia (daughter of Phoroneus) Achaeus (possibly) Plouto Tantalus Podarge Balius Xanthus Protogeneia Aethlius (possibly) Opus Pyrrha Hellen Semele Dionysus Taygete Lacedaemon Thyia Magnes Makednos Torrhebia Carius Nymph African Iarbas Nymph Samothracian Saon (possibly) Nymph Sithnid Megarus Unknown mother Calabrus Geraestus Taenarus Unknown mother Corinthus Unknown mother Crinacus

¹The Greeks variously claimed that the Moires/Fates were the daughters of Zeus and the Titaness Themis or of primordial beings like Chaos, Nyx, or Ananke.
²The Charites/Graces were usually considered the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome but they were also said to be daughters of Dionysus and Aphrodite or of Helios and the naiad Aegle.
³Some accounts say that Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus were born parthenogenetically.
⁴According to one version, Athena is said to be born parthenogenetically.
⁵Helen was either the daughter of Leda or Nemesis.
⁶Tyche is usually considered a daughter of Aphrodite and Hermes.

Roles and epithets

Zeus played a dominant role, presiding over the Greek Olympian pantheon. He fathered many of the heroes and was featured in many of their local cults. Though the Homeric "cloud collector" was the god of the sky and thunder like his Near-Eastern counterparts, he was also the supreme cultural artifact; in some senses, he was the embodiment of Greek religious beliefs and the archetypal Greek deity.
Aside from local epithets that simply designated the deity as doing something random at some particular place, the epithets or titles applied to Zeus emphasized different aspects of his wide-ranging authority:

• Zeus Aegiduchos or Aegiochos: Usually taken as Zeus as the bearer of the Aegis, the divine shield with the head of Medusa across it, although others derive it from "goat" (αἴξ) and okhē (οχή) in reference to Zeus's nurse, the divine goat Amalthea.
• Zeus Agoraeus: Zeus as patron of the marketplace (agora) and punisher of dishonest traders.
• Zeus Areius: either "warlike" or "the atoning one".
• Zeus Horkios: Zeus as keeper of oaths. Exposed liars were made to dedicate a votive statue to Zeus, often at the sanctuary at Olympia
• Zeus Olympios: Zeus as king of the gods and patron of the Panhellenic Games at Olympia
• Zeus Panhellenios ("Zeus of All the Greeks"): worshipped at Aeacus's temple on Aegina
• Zeus Xenios, Philoxenon, or Hospites: Zeus as the patron of hospitality (xenia) and guests, avenger of wrongs done to strangers

Additional names and epithets for Zeus are also:

• Abrettenus (Ἀβρεττηνός): surname of Zeus in Mysia
• Apemius: Zeus as the averter of ills
• Apomyius Zeus as one who dispels flies
• Astrapios ("Lightninger"): Zeus as a weather god
• Bottiaeus: Worshipped at Antioch
• Brontios ("Thunderer"): Zeus as a weather god
• Diktaios: Zeus as lord of the Dikte mountain range, worshipped from Mycenaean times on Crete
• Ithomatas: Worshipped at Mount Ithome in Messenia
• Zeus Adados: A Hellenization of the Canaanite Hadad and Assyrian Adad, particularly his solar cult at Heliopolis
• Zeus Bouleus: Worshipped at Dodona, the earliest oracle, along with Zeus Naos
• Zeus Georgos (Ζεὺς Γεωργός, "Zeus the Farmer"): Zeus as god of crops and the harvest, worshipped in Athens
• Zeus Helioupolites ("Heliopolite" or "Heliopolitan Zeus"): A Hellenization of the Canaanite Baʿal (probably Hadad) worshipped as a sun god at Heliopolis (modern Baalbek)
• Zeus Kasios ("Zeus of Mount Kasios" the modern Jebel Aqra): Worshipped at a site on the Syrian–Turkish border, a Hellenization of the Canaanite mountain and weather god Baal Zephon
• Zeus Labrandos ("Zeus of Labraunda"): Worshiped at Caria, depicted with a double-edged axe (labrys), a Hellenization of the Hurrian weather god Teshub
• Zeus Meilichios ("Zeus the Easily-Entreated"): Worshipped at Athens, a form of the archaic chthonic daimon Meilichios
• Zeus Naos: Worshipped at Dodona, the earliest oracle, along with Zeus Bouleus
• Zeus Tallaios ("Solar Zeus"): Worshipped on Crete

Cults of Zeus

Panhellenic cults

The major center where all Greeks converged to pay honor to their chief god was Olympia. Their quadrennial festival featured the famous Games. There was also an altar to Zeus made not of stone, but of ash, from the accumulated remains of many centuries' worth of animals sacrificed there.
Outside of the major inter-polis sanctuaries, there were no modes of worshipping Zeus precisely shared across the Greek world. Most of the titles listed below, for instance, could be found at any number of Greek temples from Asia Minor to Sicily. Certain modes of ritual were held in common as well: sacrificing a white animal over a raised altar, for instance.

Zeus Velchanos

With one exception, Greeks were unanimous in recognizing the birthplace of Zeus as Crete. Minoan culture contributed many essentials of ancient Greek religion: "by a hundred channels the old civilization emptied itself into the new", Will Durant observed, and Cretan Zeus retained his youthful Minoan features. The local child of the Great Mother, "a small and inferior deity who took the roles of son and consort", whose Minoan name the Greeks Hellenized as Velchanos, was in time assumed as an epithet by Zeus, as transpired at many other sites, and he came to be venerated in Crete as Zeus Velchanos ("boy-Zeus"), often simply the Kouros.
In Crete, Zeus was worshipped at a number of caves at Knossos, Ida and Palaikastro. In the Hellenistic period a small sanctuary dedicated to Zeus Velchanos was founded at the Hagia Triada site of a long-ruined Minoan palace. Broadly contemporary coins from Phaistos show the form under which he was worshiped: a youth sits among the branches of a tree, with a cockerel on his knees. On other Cretan coins Velchanos is represented as an eagle and in association with a goddess celebrating a mystic marriage. Inscriptions at Gortyn and Lyttos record a Velchania festival, showing that Velchanios was still widely venerated in Hellenistic Crete.
The stories of Minos and Epimenides suggest that these caves were once used for incubatory divination by kings and priests. The dramatic setting of Plato's Laws is along the pilgrimage-route to one such site, emphasizing archaic Cretan knowledge. On Crete, Zeus was represented in art as a long-haired youth rather than a mature adult and hymned as ho megas kouros, "the great youth". Ivory statuettes of the "Divine Boy" were unearthed near the Labyrinth at Knossos by Sir Arthur Evans. With the Kouretes, a band of ecstatic armed dancers, he presided over the rigorous military-athletic training and secret rites of the Cretan paideia.
The myth of the death of Cretan Zeus, localised in numerous mountain sites though only mentioned in a comparatively late source, Callimachus, together with the assertion of Antoninus Liberalis that a fire shone forth annually from the birth-cave the infant shared with a mythic swarm of bees, suggests that Velchanos had been an annual vegetative spirit. The Hellenistic writer Euhemerus apparently proposed a theory that Zeus had actually been a great king of Crete and that posthumously, his glory had slowly turned him into a deity. The works of Euhemerus himself have not survived, but Christian patristic writers took up the suggestion.

Zeus Lykaios

The epithet Zeus Lykaios ("wolf-Zeus") is assumed by Zeus only in connection with the archaic festival of the Lykaia on the slopes of Mount Lykaion ("Wolf Mountain"), the tallest peak in rustic Arcadia; Zeus had only a formal connection with the rituals and myths of this primitive rite of passage with an ancient threat of cannibalism and the possibility of a werewolf transformation for the ephebes who were the participants. Near the ancient ash-heap where the sacrifices took place was a forbidden precinct in which, allegedly, no shadows were ever cast.
According to Plato, a particular clan would gather on the mountain to make a sacrifice every nine years to Zeus Lykaios, and a single morsel of human entrails would be intermingled with the animal's. Whoever ate the human flesh was said to turn into a wolf, and could only regain human form if he did not eat again of human flesh until the next nine-year cycle had ended. There were games associated with the Lykaia, removed in the fourth century to the first urbanization of Arcadia, Megalopolis; there the major temple was dedicated to Zeus Lykaios.
There is, however, the crucial detail that Lykaios or Lykeios (epithets of Zeus and Apollo) may derive from Proto-Greek *λύκη, "light", a noun still attested in compounds such as ἀμφιλύκη, "twilight", λυκάβας, "year" (lit. "light's course") etc. This, Cook argues, brings indeed much new 'light' to the matter as Achaeus, the contemporary tragedian of Sophocles, spoke of Zeus Lykaios as "starry-eyed", and this Zeus Lykaios may just be the Arcadian Zeus, son of Aether, described by Cicero. Again under this new signification may be seen Pausanias' descriptions of Lykosoura being 'the first city that ever the sun beheld', and of the altar of Zeus, at the summit of Mount Lykaion, before which stood two columns bearing gilded eagles and 'facing the sun-rise'. Further Cook sees only the tale of Zeus' sacred precinct at Mount Lykaion allowing no shadows referring to Zeus as 'god of light' (Lykaios).

Additional cults of Zeus

Although etymology indicates that Zeus was originally a sky god, many Greek cities honored a local Zeus who lived underground. Athenians and Sicilians honored Zeus Meilichios ("kindly" or "honeyed") while other cities had Zeus Chthonios ("earthy"), Zeus Katachthonios ("under-the-earth") and Zeus Plousios ("wealth-bringing"). These deities might be represented as snakes or in human form in visual art, or, for emphasis as both together in one image. They also received offerings of black animal victims sacrificed into sunken pits, as did chthonic deities like Persephone and Demeter, and also the heroes at their tombs. Olympian gods, by contrast, usually received white victims sacrificed upon raised altars.
In some cases, cities were not entirely sure whether the daimon to whom they sacrificed was a hero or an underground Zeus. Thus the shrine at Lebadaea in Boeotia might belong to the hero Trophonius or to Zeus Trephonius ("the nurturing"), depending on whether you believe Pausanias, or Strabo. The hero Amphiaraus was honored as Zeus Amphiaraus at Oropus outside of Thebes, and the Spartans even had a shrine to Zeus Agamemnon. Ancient Molossian kings sacrificed to Zeus Areius. Strabo mention that at Tralles there was the Zeus Larisaeus.

Non-panhellenic cults

In addition to the Panhellenic titles and conceptions listed above, local cults maintained their own idiosyncratic ideas about the king of gods and men. With the epithet Zeus Aetnaeus he was worshiped on Mount Aetna, where there was a statue of him, and a local festival called the Aetnaea in his honor. Other examples are listed below. As Zeus Aeneius or Zeus Aenesius, he was worshiped in the island of Cephalonia, where he had a temple on Mount Aenos.

Oracles of Zeus

Although most oracle sites were usually dedicated to Apollo, the heroes, or various goddesses like Themis, a few oracular sites were dedicated to Zeus. In addition, some foreign oracles, such as Baʿal's at Heliopolis, were associated with Zeus in Greek or Jupiter in Latin.

The Oracle at Dodona

The cult of Zeus at Dodona in Epirus, where there is evidence of religious activity from the second millennium BC onward, centered on a sacred oak. When the Odyssey was composed (circa 750 BC), divination was done there by barefoot priests called Selloi, who lay on the ground and observed the rustling of the leaves and branches. By the time Herodotus wrote about Dodona, female priestesses called peleiades ("doves") had replaced the male priests.
Zeus's consort at Dodona was not Hera, but the goddess Dione — whose name is a feminine form of "Zeus". Her status as a titaness suggests to some that she may have been a more powerful pre-Hellenic deity, and perhaps the original occupant of the oracle.

The Oracle at Siwa

The oracle of Ammon at the Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt did not lie within the bounds of the Greek world before Alexander's day, but it already loomed large in the Greek mind during the archaic era: Herodotus mentions consultations with Zeus Ammon in his account of the Persian War. Zeus Ammon was especially favored at Sparta, where a temple to him existed by the time of the Peloponnesian War.
After Alexander made a trek into the desert to consult the oracle at Siwa, the figure arose in the Hellenistic imagination of a Libyan Sibyl.

Zeus and foreign gods

Zeus was identified with the Roman god Jupiter and associated in the syncretic classical imagination  with various other deities, such as the Egyptian Ammon and the Etruscan Tinia. He, along with Dionysus, absorbed the role of the chief Phrygian god Sabazios in the syncretic deity known in Rome as Sabazius. The Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes erected a statue of Zeus Olympios in the Judean Temple in Jerusalem. Hellenizing Jews referred to this statue as Baal Shamen (in English, Lord of Heaven).

Zeus and the sun

Zeus is occasionally conflated with the Hellenic sun god, Helios, who is sometimes either directly referred to as Zeus' eye, or clearly implied as such. Hesiod, for instance, describes Zeus's eye as effectively the sun. This perception is possibly derived from earlier Proto-Indo-European religion, in which the sun is occasionally envisioned as the eye of *Dyḗus Pḥ_atḗr (see Hvare-khshaeta).
The Cretan Zeus Tallaios had solar elements to his cult. "Talos" was the local equivalent of Helios.

Zeus in philosophy

In Neoplatonism, Zeus's relation to the gods familiar from mythology is taught as the Demiurge or Divine Mind. Specifically within Plotinus's work the Enneads and the Platonic Theology of Proclus.

Zeus in the Bible

Zeus is mentioned in the New Testament twice, first in Acts 14:8–13: When the people living in Lystra saw the Apostle Paul heal a lame man, they considered Paul and his partner Barnabas to be gods, identifying Paul with Hermes and Barnabas with Zeus, even trying to offer them sacrifices with the crowd. Two ancient inscriptions discovered in 1909 near Lystra testify to the worship of these two gods in that city. One of the inscriptions refers to the "priests of Zeus", and the other mentions "Hermes Most Great"" and "Zeus the sun-god".
The second occurrence is in Acts 28:11: the name of the ship in which the prisoner Paul set sail from the island of Malta bore the figurehead "Sons of Zeus" aka Castor and Pollux.
The deuterocanonical book of 2 Maccabees 6:1, 2 talks of King Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), who in his attempt to stamp out the Jewish religion, directed that the temple at Jerusalem be profaned and rededicated to Zeus (Jupiter Olympius).

Zeus in the Iliad

The Iliad is a poem by Homer about the Trojan war and the battle over the City of Troy. As God of the sky, lightning, thunder, law, order, justice, Zeus controlled ancient Greece and all of the mortals and immortals living there. The Iliad covers the Trojan War, in which Zeus plays a major part.
Notable Scenes that include Zeus

• Book 2: Zeus sends Agamemnon a dream and is able to partially control his decisions because of the effects of the dream
• Book 4: Zeus promises Hera to ultimately destroy the City of Troy at the end of the war
• Book 7: Zeus and Poseidon ruin the Achaeans fortress
• Book 8: Zeus prohibits the other Gods from fighting each other and has to return to Mount Ida where he can think over his decision that the Greeks will lose the war
• Book 14: Zeus is seduced by Hera and becomes distracted while she helps out the Greeks
• Book 15: Zeus wakes up and realizes that Poseidon his own brother has been helping out the Greeks, while also sending Hector and Apollo to help fight the Trojans ensuring that the City of Troy will fall
• Book 16: Zeus is upset that he couldn't help save Sarpedon's life because it would then contradict his previous decisions
• Book 17: Zeus is emotionally hurt by the fate of Hector
• Book 20: Zeus lets the other Gods help out their respective sides in the war
• Book 24: Zeus demands that Achilles release the corpse of Hector to be buried honourably

Zeus's notable conflicts

The most notable conflict in Zeus's history was his struggle for power. Zeus's parents Cronus and Rhea ruled the Ancient World after taking control from Uranus, Cronus's father. When Cronus realized that he wanted power for the rest of time he started to eat his children, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. When Rhea realized what was going on, she quickly saved their youngest child, Zeus. Having escaped, Zeus was spared because of the swiftness of Rhea tricking Cronus into thinking she consumed Zeus. She wrapped a stone in a blanket, and Cronus swallowed it thinking he was swallowing his last child. As a result of this, Zeus was shipped off to live on the island of Crete.
When Zeus was atop Mount Olympus he grew upset with mankind and the sacrifices they were performing on one another. Furiously, he decided it would be smart to wipe out mankind with a gigantic flood using the help of his brother Poseidon, King of the Seas. Killing every human except Deucalion and Pyrrha, Zeus flooded the entire planet but then realized he then had to restore society with new people. After clearing all the water, he had Deucalion and Pyrrah create humans to repopulate the earth using stones that became humans. These stones represented the "hardness" of mankind and the man life. This story has been told different ways and in different time periods between Ancient Greek Mythology and The Bible, although the base of the story remains true.
Throughout history Zeus has used violence to get his way, or even terrorize humans. As god of the sky he has the power to hurl lightning bolts as his weapon of choice. Since lightning is quite powerful and sometimes deadly, it is a bold sign when lightning strikes because it is known that Zeus most likely threw the bolt.

In modern culture

Depictions of Zeus as a bull, the form he took when abducting Europa, are found on the Greek 2-euro coin and on the United Kingdom identity card for visa holders. Mary Beard, professor of Classics at Cambridge University, has criticised this for its apparent celebration of rape.

Genealogy of the Olympians

Olympians' family tree
Uranus Gaia Uranus' genitals Cronus Rhea ZEUS Hera Poseidon Hades Demeter Hestia     a      b Ares Hephaestus Metis Athena Leto Apollo Artemis Maia Hermes Semele Dionysus Dione     a      b Aphrodite

Argive genealogy

Argive genealogy in Greek mythology

v t e

Inachus Melia Zeus Io Phoroneus Epaphus Memphis Libya Poseidon Belus Achiroë Agenor Telephassa Danaus Pieria Aegyptus Cadmus Cilix Europa Phoenix Mantineus Hypermnestra Lynceus Harmonia Zeus Polydorus Sparta Lacedaemon Ocalea Abas Agave Sarpedon Rhadamanthus Autonoë Eurydice Acrisius Ino Minos Zeus Danaë Semele Zeus Perseus Dionysus

Colour key:      Male      Female      Deity

Quotes

• Zeus, who guided mortals to be wise,
  has established his fixed law—
  wisdom comes through suffering.
  Trouble, with its memories of pain,
  drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
  so men against their will
  learn to practice moderation.
  Favours come to us from gods
  seated on their solemn thrones—
  such grace is harsh and violent.
  • Aeschylus, in The Oresteia, as translated by Ian Johnston (2007)

• ὦ Ζεῦ͵ πάτερ Ζεῦ͵ σὸν μὲν οὐρανοῦ κράτος͵ σὺ δ΄ ἔργ΄ ἐπ΄ ἀνθρώπων ὁρᾶις λεωργὰ καὶ θεμιστά͵ σοὶ δὲ θηρίων ὕβρις τε καὶ δίκη μέλει.
  • Oh Zeus, father Zeus, Yours is the Kingdom of Heaven, and you watch men's deeds, the crafty and the right, and You are who cares for beasts' transgression and justice.
    • Archilochus, Fragment 177

• Nothing can be surprising any more or impossible or miraculous, now that Zeus, father of the Olympians has made night out of noonday, hiding the bright sunlight, and . . . fear has come upon mankind. After this, men can believe anything, expect anything. Don't any of you be surprised in future if land beasts change places with dolphins and go to live in their salty pastures, and get to like the sounding waves of the sea more than the land, while the dolphins prefer the mountains.
  • Archilochus, as quoted in Eclipse (1999) by James Turrell
  • Variant translation: Zeus, the father of the Olympic Gods, turned mid-day into night, hiding the light of the dazzling Sun; and sore fear came upon men.

• Zeus, n. The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance to the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he worships under many sacred names.
  • Ambrose Bierce , in The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
  
  
  
  Zeus di Smirne 250 d.C., Museo del Louvre, Parigi

Jupiter

Jupiter (from Latin: Iūpiter [ˈjuːpɪtɛr] or Iuppiter [ˈjʊppɪtɛr], from Proto-Italic *djous "day, sky" + *patēr "father", thus "sky father"), also known as Jove (gen. Iovis [ˈjɔwɪs]), was the god of the sky and thunder and king of the gods in Ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering, or sacrifice.
Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as an aerial god. His identifying implement is the thunderbolt and his primary sacred animal is the eagle, which held precedence over other birds in the taking of auspices and became one of the most common symbols of the Roman army . The two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins. As the sky-god, he was a divine witness to oaths, the sacred trust on which justice and good government depend. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline Hill, where the citadel was located. In the Capitoline Triad, he was the central guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva. His sacred tree was the oak.
The Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune and Pluto, the Roman equivalents of Poseidon and Hades respectively. Each presided over one of the three realms of the universe: sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who manifested himself in the daylight, usually identified with Jupiter. Tinia is usually regarded as his Etruscan counterpart.

Role in the state

The Romans believed that Jupiter granted them supremacy because they had honoured him more than any other people had. Jupiter was "the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested." He personified the divine authority of Rome's highest offices, internal organization, and external relations. His image in the Republican and Imperial Capitol bore regalia associated with Rome's ancient kings and the highest consular and Imperial honours.


The consuls swore their oath of office in Jupiter's name, and honoured him on the annual feriae of the Capitol in September. To thank him for his help (and to secure his continued support), they offered him a white ox (bos mas) with gilded horns. A similar offering was made by triumphal generals, who surrendered the tokens of their victory at the feet of Jupiter's statue in the Capitol. Some scholars have viewed the triumphator as embodying (or impersonating) Jupiter in the triumphal procession.
Jupiter's association with kingship and sovereignty was reinterpreted as Rome's form of government changed. Originally, Rome was ruled by kings; after the monarchy was abolished and the Republic established, religious prerogatives were transferred to the patres, the patrician ruling class. Nostalgia for the kingship (affectatio regni) was considered treasonous. Those suspected of harbouring monarchical ambitions were punished, regardless of their service to the state. In the 5th century BC, the triumphator Camillus was sent into exile after he drove a chariot with a team of four white horses (quadriga)—an honour reserved for Jupiter himself. When Marcus Manlius, whose defense of the Capitol against the invading Gauls had earned him the name Capitolinus, was accused of regal pretensions, he was executed as a traitor by being cast from the Tarpeian Rock. His house on the Capitoline Hill was razed, and it was decreed that no patrician should ever be allowed to live there. Capitoline Jupiter found himself in a delicate position: he represented a continuity of royal power from the Regal period, and conferred power on the magistrates who paid their respects to him; at the same time he embodied that which was now forbidden, abhorred, and scorned.
During the Conflict of the Orders, Rome's plebeians demanded the right to hold political and religious office. During their first secessio (similar to a general strike), they withdrew from the city and threatened to found their own. When they agreed to come back to Rome they vowed the hill where they had retreated to Jupiter as symbol and guarantor of the unity of the Roman res publica. Plebeians eventually became eligible for all the magistracies and most priesthoods, but the high priest of Jupiter (Flamen Dialis) remained the preserve of patricians.

Flamen and Flaminica Dialis

Jupiter was served by the patrician Flamen Dialis, the highest-ranking member of the flamines, a college of fifteen priests in the official public cult of Rome, each of whom was devoted to a particular deity. His wife, the Flaminica Dialis, had her own duties, and presided over the sacrifice of a ram to Jupiter on each of the nundinae, the "market" days of a calendar cycle, comparable to a week. The couple were required to marry by the exclusive patrician ritual confarreatio, which included a sacrifice of spelt bread to Jupiter Farreus (from far, "wheat, grain").
The office of Flamen Dialis was circumscribed by several unique ritual prohibitions, some of which shed light on the sovereign nature of the god himself. For instance, the flamen may remove his clothes or apex (his pointed hat) only when under a roof, in order to avoid showing himself naked to the sky—that is, "as if under the eyes of Jupiter" as god of the heavens. Every time the Flaminica saw a lightning bolt or heard a clap of thunder (Jupiter's distinctive instrument), she was prohibited from carrying on with her normal routine until she placated the god.
Some privileges of the flamen of Jupiter may reflect the regal nature of Jupiter: he had the use of the curule chair, and was the only priest (sacerdos) who was preceded by a lictor and had a seat in the senate. Other regulations concern his ritual purity and his separation from the military function; he was forbidden to ride a horse or see the army outside the sacred boundary of Rome (pomerium). Although he served the god who embodied the sanctity of the oath, it was not religiously permissible (fas) for the Dialis to swear an oath. He could not have contacts with anything dead or connected with death: corpses, funerals, funeral fires, raw meat. This set of restrictions reflects the fulness of life and absolute freedom that are features of Jupiter.

Augurs

The augures publici, augurs were a college of sacerdotes who were in charge of all inaugurations and of the performing of ceremonies known as auguria. Their creation was traditionally ascribed to Romulus. They were considered the only official interpreters of Jupiter's will, thence they were essential to the very existence of the Roman State as Romans saw in Jupiter the only source of state authority.

Fetials

The fetials were a college of 20 men devoted to the religious administration of international affairs of state. Their task was to preserve and apply the fetial law (ius fetiale), a complex set of procedures aimed at ensuring the protection of the gods in Rome's relations with foreign states. Iuppiter Lapis is the god under whose protection they act, and whom the chief fetial (pater patratus) invokes in the rite concluding a treaty. If a declaration of war ensues, the fetial calls upon Jupiter and Quirinus, the heavenly, earthly and chthonic gods as witnesses of any potential violation of the ius. He can then declare war within 33 days.
The action of the fetials falls under Jupiter's jurisdiction as the divine defender of good faith. Several emblems of the fetial office pertain to Jupiter. The silex was the stone used for the fetial sacrifice, housed in the Temple of Iuppiter Feretrius, as was their sceptre. Sacred herbs (sagmina), sometimes identified as vervain, had to be taken from the nearby citadel (arx) for their ritual use.

Jupiter and religion in the secessions of the plebs

The role of Jupiter in the conflict of the orders is a reflection of the religiosity of the Romans. On one side, the patricians were able to naturally claim the support of the supreme god as they held the auspices of the State. On the other side, the plebs (plebeians) argued that, as Jupiter was the source of justice, they had his favor because their cause was just.
The first secession was caused by the excessive debt burden on the plebs. The legal institute of the nexum permitted a debtor to become a slave of his creditor. The plebs argued the debts had become unsustainable because of the expenses of the wars wanted by the patricians. As the senate did not accede to the proposal of a total debt remission advanced by dictator and augur Manius Valerius Maximus the plebs retired on the Mount Sacer, a hill located three Roman miles to the North-northeast of Rome, past the Nomentan bridge on river Anio. The place is windy and was usually the site of rites of divination performed by haruspices. The senate in the end sent a delegation composed of ten members with full powers of making a deal with the plebs, of which were part Menenius Agrippa and Manius Valerius. It was Valerius, according to the inscription found at Arezzo in 1688 and written on the order of Augustus as well as other literary sources, that brought the plebs down from the Mount, after the secessionists had consecrated it to Jupiter Territor and built an altar (ara) on its summit. The fear of the wrath of Jupiter was an important element in the solution of the crisis. The consecration of the Mount probably referred to its summit only. The ritual requested the participation of both an augur (presumably Manius Valerius himself) and a pontifex.
The second secession was caused by the autocratic and arrogant behaviour of the decemviri, who had been charged by the Roman people with writing down the laws in use till then kept secret by the patrician magistrates and the sacerdotes. All magistracies and the tribunes of the plebs had resigned in advance. The task resulted in the XII Tables, which though concerned only private law. The plebs once again retreated to the Sacer Mons: this act besides recalling the first secession was meant to seek the protection of the supreme god. The secession ended with the resignation of the decemviri and an amnesty for the rebellious soldiers who had deserted from their camp near Mount Algidus while warring against the Volscians, abandoning the commanders. The amnesty was granted by the senate and guaranteed by the pontifex maximus Quintus Furius (in Livy's version) (or Marcus Papirius) who also supervised the nomination of the new tribunes of the plebs, then gathered on the Aventine Hill. The role played by the pontifex maximus in a situation of vacation of powers is a significant element underlining the religious basis and character of the tribunicia potestas.

Myths and legends

A dominant line of scholarship has held that Rome lacked a body of myths in its earliest period, or that this original mythology has been irrecoverably obscured by the influence of the Greek narrative tradition. After the Hellenization of Roman culture, Latin literature and iconography reinterpreted the myths of Zeus in depictions and narratives of Jupiter. In the legendary history of Rome, Jupiter is often connected to kings and kingship.

Birth

Jupiter is depicted as the twin of Juno in a statue at Praeneste that showed them nursed by Fortuna Primigenia. An inscription that is also from Praeneste, however, says that Fortuna Primigenia was Jupiter's first-born child. Jacqueline Champeaux sees this contradiction as the result of successive different cultural and religious phases, in which a wave of influence coming from the Hellenic world made Fortuna the daughter of Jupiter. The childhood of Zeus is an important theme in Greek religion, art and literature, but there are only rare (or dubious) depictions of Jupiter as a child.

Numa

Faced by a period of bad weather endangering the harvest during one early spring, King Numa resorted to the scheme of asking the advice of the god by evoking his presence. He succeeded through the help of Picus and Faunus, whom he had imprisoned by making them drunk. The two gods (with a charm) evoked Jupiter, who was forced to come down to earth at the Aventine (hence named Iuppiter Elicius, according to Ovid). After Numa skilfully avoided the requests of the god for human sacrifices, Jupiter agreed to his request to know how lightning bolts are averted, asking only for the substitutions Numa had mentioned: an onion bulb, hairs and a fish. Moreover, Jupiter promised that at the sunrise of the following day he would give to Numa and the Roman people pawns of the imperium. The following day, after throwing three lightning bolts across a clear sky, Jupiter sent down from heaven a shield. Since this shield had no angles, Numa named it ancile; because in it resided the fate of the imperium, he had many copies made of it to disguise the real one. He asked the smith Mamurius Veturius to make the copies, and gave them to the Salii. As his only reward, Mamurius expressed the wish that his name be sung in the last of their carmina. Plutarch gives a slightly different version of the story, writing that the cause of the miraculous drop of the shield was a plague and not linking it with the Roman imperium.

Tullus Hostilius

Throughout his reign, King Tullus had a scornful attitude towards religion. His temperament was warlike, and he disregarded religious rites and piety. After conquering the Albans with the duel between the Horatii and Curiatii, Tullus destroyed Alba Longa and deported its inhabitants to Rome. As Livy tells the story, omens (prodigia) in the form of a rain of stones occurred on the Alban Mount because the deported Albans had disregarded their ancestral rites linked to the sanctuary of Jupiter. In addition to the omens, a voice was heard requesting that the Albans perform the rites. A plague followed and at last the king himself fell ill. As a consequence, the warlike character of Tullus broke down; he resorted to religion and petty, superstitious practices. At last, he found a book by Numa recording a secret rite on how to evoke Iuppiter Elicius. The king attempted to perform it, but since he executed the rite improperly the god threw a lightning bolt which burned down the king's house and killed Tullus.

Tarquin the Elder

When approaching Rome (where Tarquin was heading to try his luck in politics after unsuccessful attempts in his native Tarquinii), an eagle swooped down, removed his hat, flew screaming in circles, replaced the hat on his head and flew away. Tarquin's wife Tanaquil interpreted this as a sign that he would become king based on the bird, the quadrant of the sky from which it came, the god who had sent it and the fact it touched his hat (an item of clothing placed on a man's most noble part, the head).
The Elder Tarquin is credited with introducing the Capitoline Triad to Rome, by building the so-called Capitolium Vetus. Macrobius writes this issued from his Samothracian mystery beliefs.

Cult

Sacrifices

Sacrificial victims (hostiae) offered to Jupiter were the ox (castrated bull), the lamb (on the Ides, the ovis idulis) and the wether (on the Ides of January). The animals were required to be white. The question of the lamb's gender is unresolved; while a lamb is generally male, for the vintage-opening festival the flamen Dialis sacrificed a ewe. This rule seems to have had many exceptions, as the sacrifice of a ram on the Nundinae by the flaminica Dialis demonstrates. During one of the crises of the Punic Wars, Jupiter was offered every animal born that year.

Temples

Temple of Capitoline Jupiter

The temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus stood on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. Jupiter was worshiped there as an individual deity, and with Juno and Minerva as part of the Capitoline Triad. The building was supposedly begun by king Tarquinius Priscus, completed by the last king (Tarquinius Superbus) and inaugurated in the early days of the Roman Republic (September 13, 509 BC). It was topped with the statues of four horses drawing a quadriga, with Jupiter as charioteer. A large statue of Jupiter stood within; on festival days, its face was painted red.  In (or near) this temple was the Iuppiter Lapis: the Jupiter Stone, on which oaths could be sworn.
Jupiter's Capitoline Temple probably served as the architectural model for his provincial temples. When Hadrian built Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem, a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus was erected in the place of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem.

Other temples in Rome

There were two temples in Rome dedicated to Iuppiter Stator; the first one was built and dedicated in 294 BC by Marcus Atilius Regulus after the third Samnite War. It was located on the Via Nova, below the Porta Mugonia, ancient entrance to the Palatine. Legend has attributed its founding to Romulus. There may have been an earlier shrine (fanum), since the Jupiter's cult is attested epigraphically. Ovid places the temple's dedication on June 27, but it is unclear whether this was the original date, or the rededication after the restoration by Augustus.

A second temple of Iuppiter Stator was built and dedicated by Quintus Caecilus Metellus Macedonicus after his triumph in 146 BC near the Circus Flaminius. It was connected to the restored temple of Iuno Regina with a portico (porticus Metelli).
Iuppiter Victor had a temple dedicated by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges during the third Samnite War in 295 BC. Its location is unknown, but it may be on the Quirinal, on which an inscription reading D]iovei Victore has been found, or on the Palatine according to the Notitia in the Liber Regionum (regio X), which reads: aedes Iovis Victoris. Either might have been dedicated on April 13 or June 13 (days of Iuppiter Victor and of Iuppiter Invictus, respectively, in Ovid's Fasti). Inscriptions from the imperial age have revealed the existence of an otherwise-unknown temple of Iuppiter Propugnator on the Palatine.

Iuppiter Latiaris and Feriae Latinae

The cult of Iuppiter Latiaris was the most ancient known cult of the god: it was practised since very remote times near the top of the Mons Albanus on which the god was venerated as the high protector of the Latin League 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 Roman senate to inquire was also greeted by a rain of stones and heard a loud voice from the grove on the summit of the mount requesting the Albans 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). Nonetheless 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 the battle against Mezentius king of Caere: the rite symbolised 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 absynth. This competition has been compared to the Vedic rite of the vajapeya: in it seventeen chariots run a phoney 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, originally on the Ides of March: the Feriae usually took place in early April. They could not start campaigning before its end and if any part of the games had been neglected or performed unritually 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.

Religious calendar

Ides

The Ides (the midpoint of the month, with a full moon) was sacred to Jupiter, because on that day heavenly light shone day and night. Some (or all) Ides were Feriae Iovis, sacred to Jupiter. On the Ides, a white lamb (ovis idulis) was led along Rome's Sacred Way to the Capitoline Citadel and sacrificed to him. Jupiter's two epula Iovis festivals fell on the Ides, as did his temple foundation rites as Optimus Maximus, Victor, Invictus and (possibly) Stator.

Nundinae

The nundinae recurred every ninth day, dividing the calendar into a market cycle analogous to a week. Market days gave rural people (pagi) the opportunity to sell in town and to be informed of religious and political edicts, which were posted publicly for three days. According to tradition, these festival days were instituted by the king Servius Tullius. The high priestess of Jupiter (Flaminica Dialis) sanctified the days by sacrificing a ram to Jupiter.

Festivals

During the Republican era, more fixed holidays on the Roman calendar were devoted to Jupiter than to any other deity.

Viniculture and wine

Festivals of viniculture and wine were devoted to Jupiter, since grapes were particularly susceptible to adverse weather. Dumézil describes wine as a "kingly" drink with the power to inebriate and exhilarate, analogous to the Vedic Soma.
Three Roman festivals were connected with viniculture and wine.
The rustic Vinalia altera on August 19 asked for good weather for ripening the grapes before harvest. When the grapes were ripe, a sheep was sacrificed to Jupiter and the flamen Dialis cut the first of the grape harvest.
The Meditrinalia on October 11 marked the end of the grape harvest; the new wine was pressed, tasted and mixed with old wine to control fermentation. In the Fasti Amiternini, this festival is assigned to Jupiter. Later Roman sources invented a goddess Meditrina, probably to explain the name of the festival.
At the Vinalia urbana on April 23, new wine was offered to Jupiter. Large quantities of it were poured into a ditch near the temple of Venus Erycina, which was located on the Capitol.

Regifugium and Poplifugium

The Regifugium ("King's Flight") on February 24 has often been discussed in connection with the Poplifugia on July 5, a day holy to Jupiter. The Regifugium followed the festival of Iuppiter Terminus (Jupiter of Boundaries) on February 23. Later Roman antiquarians misinterpreted the Regifugium as marking the expulsion of the monarchy, but the "king" of this festival may have been the priest known as the rex sacrorum who ritually enacted the waning and renewal of power associated with the New Year (March 1 in the old Roman calendar). A temporary vacancy of power (construed as a yearly "interregnum") occurred between the Regifugium on February 24 and the New Year on March 1 (when the lunar cycle was thought to coincide again with the solar cycle), and the uncertainty and change during the two winter months were over. Some scholars emphasize the traditional political significance of the day.
The Poplifugia ("Routing of Armies"), a day sacred to Jupiter, may similarly mark the second half of the year; before the Julian calendar reform, the months were named numerically, Quintilis (the fifth month) to December (the tenth month). The Poplifugia was a "primitive military ritual" for which the adult male population assembled for purification rites, after which they ritually dispelled foreign invaders from Rome.

Epula Iovis

There were two festivals called epulum Iovis ("Feast of Jove"). One was held on September 13, the anniversary of the foundation of Jupiter's Capitoline temple. The other (and probably older) festival was part of the Plebeian Games (Ludi Plebei), and was held on November 13. In the 3rd century BC, the epulum Iovis became similar to a lectisternium.

Ludi

The most ancient Roman games followed after one day (considered a dies ater, or "black day", i. e. a day which was traditionally considered unfortunate even though it was not nefas, see also article Glossary of ancient Roman religion) the two Epula Iovis of September and November.
The games of September were named Ludi Magni; originally they were not held every year, but later became the annual Ludi Romani and were held in the Circus Maximus after a procession from the Capitol. The games were attributed to Tarquinius Priscus, and linked to the cult of Jupiter on the Capitol. Romans themselves acknowledged analogies with the triumph, which Dumézil thinks can be explained by their common Etruscan origin; the magistrate in charge of the games dressed as the triumphator and the pompa circensis resembled a triumphal procession. Wissowa and Mommsen argue that they were a detached part of the triumph on the above grounds (a conclusion which Dumézil rejects).
The Ludi Plebei took place in November in the Circus Flaminius. Mommsen argued that the epulum of the Ludi Plebei was the model of the Ludi Romani, but Wissowa finds the evidence for this assumption insufficient. The Ludi Plebei were probably established in 534 BC. Their association with the cult of Jupiter is attested by Cicero.

Larentalia

The feriae of December 23 were devoted to a major ceremony in honour of Acca Larentia (or Larentina), in which some of the highest religious authorities participated (probably including the Flamen Quirinalis and the pontiffs). The Fasti Praenestini marks the day as feriae Iovis, as does Macrobius. It is unclear whether the rite of parentatio was itself the reason for the festival of Jupiter, or if this was another festival which happened to fall on the same day. Wissowa denies their association, since Jupiter and his flamen would not be involved with the underworld or the deities of death (or be present at a funeral rite held at a gravesite).

Name and epithets

The Latin name Iuppiter originated as a vocative compound of the Old Latin vocative *Iou and pater ("father") and came to replace the Old Latin nominative case *Ious. Jove is a less common English formation based on Iov-, the stem of oblique cases of the Latin name. Linguistic studies identify the form *Iou-pater as deriving from the Indo-European vocative compound *Dyēu-pəter (meaning "O Father Sky-god"; nominative: *Dyēus-pətēr).Older forms of the deity's name in Rome were Dieus-pater ("day/sky-father"), then Diéspiter. The 19th-century philologist Georg Wissowa asserted these names are conceptually- and linguistically-connected to Diovis and Diovis Pater; he compares the analogous formations Vedius-Veiove and fulgur Dium, as opposed to fulgur Summanum (nocturnal lightning bolt) and flamen Dialis (based on Dius, dies). The Ancient later viewed them as entities separate from Jupiter. The terms are similar in etymology and semantics (dies, "daylight" and Dius, "daytime sky"), but differ linguistically. Wissowa considers the epithet Dianus noteworthy. Dieus is the etymological equivalent of ancient Greece's Zeus and of the Teutonics' Ziu (genitive Ziewes). The Indo-European deity is the god from which the names and partially the theology of Jupiter, Zeus and the Indo-Aryan Vedic Dyaus Pita derive or have developed.
The Roman practice of swearing by Jove to witness an oath in law courts is the origin of the expression "by Jove!"—archaic, but still in use. The name of the god was also adopted as the name of the planet Jupiter; the adjective "jovial" originally described those born under the planet of Jupiter (reputed to be jolly, optimistic, and buoyant in temperament).
Jove was the original namesake of Latin forms of the weekday now known in English as Thursday (originally called Iovis Dies in Latin). These became jeudi in French, jueves in Spanish, joi in Romanian, giovedì in Italian, dijous in Catalan, Xoves in Galician, Joibe in Friulian, Dijóu in Provençal.

Major epithets

The epithets of a Roman god indicate his theological qualities. The study of these epithets must consider their origins (the historical context of an epithet's source).
Jupiter's most ancient attested forms of cult belong to the State cult: these include the mount cult (see section above note n. 22). In Rome this cult entailed the existence of particular sanctuaries the most important of which were located on Mons Capitolinus (earlier Tarpeius). The mount had two tops that were both destined to the discharge of acts of cult related to Jupiter. The northern and higher top was the arx and on it was located the observation place of the augurs (auguraculum) and to it headed the monthly procession of the sacra Idulia. On the southern top was to be found the most ancient sanctuary of the god: the shrine of Iuppiter Feretrius allegedly built by Romulus, restored by Augustus. The god here had no image and was represented by the sacred flintstone (silex).The most ancient known rites, those of the spolia opima and of the fetials which connect Jupiter with Mars and Quirinus are dedicated to Iuppiter Feretrius or Iuppiter Lapis. The concept of the sky god was already overlapped with the ethical and political domain since this early time. According to Wissowa and Dumézil Iuppiter Lapis seems to be inseparable from Iuppiter Feretrius in whose tiny templet on the Capitol the stone was lodged.
Another most ancient epithet is Lucetius: although the Ancients, followed by some modern scholars such as Wissowa, interpreted it as referring to sunlight, the carmen Saliare shows that it refers to lightning. A further confirmation of this interpretation is provided by the sacred meaning of lightning which is reflected in the sensitivity of the flaminica Dialis to the phenomenon. 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 rervoirs 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, referred to lightning, Fulgur, Fulgur Fulmen, later as nomen agentis Fulgurator, Fulminator: the high antiquity of the cult is testified by the neutre form Fulgur and the use of the term for the bidental, the lightning well dug on the spot hit by a lightning bolt.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. 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 (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. 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. 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.
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 of s 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 regality 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 had prayed the god for his almighty help at a difficult time the battle with the Sabines of king Titus Tatius. 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 victouriously 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. The religious meaning of the vow is in both cases an appeal to the supreme god by a Roman chief at a time of need for divine help from the supreme god, albeit for different reasons: Fabius had remained the only political and military responsible of the Roman State after the devotio of P. Decius Mus, Papirius had to face an enemy who had acted with impious rites and vows, i.e. was religiously reprehensible.
More recently Dario Sabbatucci has given a different interpretation of the meaning of Stator within the frame of his structuralistic 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 (the most ancient calendar had only ten months, from March to December). 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 (also named Antevorta and Porrima), 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, i.e. of moderator of the action of Janus.

Epithets denoting functionality

Some epithets describe a particular aspect of the god, or one of his functions:

• Jove Aegiochus, Jove "Holder of the Goat or Aegis", as the father of Aegipan.
• Jupiter Caelus, Jupiter as the sky or heavens; see also Caelus.
• Jupiter Caelestis, "Heavenly" or "Celestial Jupiter".
• Jupiter Elicius, Jupiter "who calls forth [celestial omens]" or "who is called forth [by incantations]"; "sender of rain".
• Jupiter Feretrius, who carries away the spoils of war". Feretrius was called upon to witness solemn oaths. The epithet or "numen" is probably connected with the verb ferire, "to strike," referring to a ritual striking of ritual as illustrated in foedus ferire, of which the silex, a quartz rock, is evidence in his temple on the Capitoline hill, which is said to have been the first temple in Rome, erected and dedicated by Romulus to commemorate his winning of the spolia opima from Acron, king of the Caeninenses, and to serve as a repository for them. Iuppiter Feretrius was therefore equivalent to Iuppiter Lapis, the latter used for a specially solemn oath. According to Livy I 10, 5 and Plutarch Marcellus 8 though, the meaning of this epithet is related to the peculiar frame used to carry the spolia opima to the god, the feretrum, itself from verb fero,
• Jupiter Centumpeda, literally, "he who has one hundred feet"; that is, "he who has the power of establishing, of rendering stable, bestowing stability on everything", since he himself is the paramount of stability.
• Jupiter Fulgur ("Lightning Jupiter"), Fulgurator or Fulgens
• Jupiter Lucetius ("of the light"), an epithet almost certainly related to the light or flame of lightningbolts and not to daylight, as indicated by the Jovian verses of the carmen Saliare.
• Jupiter Optimus Maximus (" the best and greatest"). Optumus because of the benefits he bestows, Maximus because of his strength, according to Cicero Pro Domo Sua.
• Jupiter Pluvius, "sender of rain".
• Jupiter Ruminus, "breastfeeder of every living being", according to Augustine.
• Jupiter Stator, from stare, "to stand": "he who has power of founding, instituting everything", thence also he who bestows the power of resistance, making people, soldiers, stand firm and fast.
• Jupiter Summanus, sender of nocturnal thunder
• Jupiter Terminalus or Iuppiter Terminus, patron and defender of boundaries
• Jupiter Tigillus, "beam or shaft that supports and holds together the universe."
• Jupiter Tonans, "thunderer"
• Jupiter Victor, "he who has the power of conquering everything."

Syncretic or geographical epithets

Some epithets of Jupiter indicate his association with a particular place. Epithets found in the provinces of the Roman Empire may identify Jupiter with a local deity or site (see syncretism).

• Jupiter Ammon, Jupiter equated with the Egyptian deity Amun after the Roman conquest of Egypt
• Jupiter Brixianus, Jupiter equated with the local god of the town of Brescia in Cisalpine Gaul (modern North Italy)
• Jupiter Capitolinus, also Jupiter Optimus Maximus, venerated throughout the Roman Empire at sites with a Capitol (Capitolium)
• Jupiter Dolichenus, from Doliche in Syria, originally a Baal weather and war god. From the time of Vespasian, he was popular among the Roman legions as god of war and victory, especially on the Danube at Carnuntum. He is depicted as standing on a bull, with a thunderbolt in his left hand, and a double ax in the right.
• Jupiter Indiges, "Jupiter of the country," a title given to Aeneas after his death, according to Livy
• Jupiter Ladicus, Jupiter equated with a Celtiberian mountain-god and worshipped as the spirit of Mount Ladicus in Gallaecia, northwest Iberia, preserved in the toponym Codos de Ladoco.
• Jupiter Laterius or Latiaris, the god of Latium
• Jupiter Parthinus or Partinus, under this name was worshiped on the borders of northeast Dalmatia and Upper Moesia, perhaps associated with the local tribe known as the Partheni.
• Jupiter Poeninus, under this name worshipped in the Alps, around the Great St Bernard Pass, where he had a sanctuary.
• Jupiter Solutorius, a local version of Jupiter worshipped in Spain; he was syncretised with the local Iberian god Eacus.
• Jupiter Taranis, Jupiter equated with the Celtic god Taranis.
• Jupiter Uxellinus, Jupiter as a god of high mountains.

In addition, many of the epithets of Zeus can be found applied to Jupiter, by interpretatio romana. Thus, since the hero Trophonius (from Lebadea in Boeotia) is called Zeus Trophonius, this can be represented in English (as it would be in Latin) as Jupiter Trophonius. Similarly, the Greek cult of Zeus Meilichios appears in Pompeii as Jupiter Meilichius. Except in representing actual cults in Italy, this is largely 19th-century usage; modern works distinguish Jupiter from Zeus.

Theology

Sources

Marcus Terentius Varro and Verrius Flaccus were the main sources on the theology of Jupiter and archaic Roman religion in general. Varro was acquainted with the libri pontificum ("books of the Pontiffs") and their archaic classifications. On these two sources depend other ancient authorities, such as Ovid, Servius, Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, patristic texts, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch.
One of the most important sources which preserve the theology of Jupiter and other Roman deities is The City of God against the Pagans by Augustine of Hippo. Augustine's criticism of traditional Roman religion is based on Varro's lost work, Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum. Although a work of Christian apologetics, The City of God provides glimpses into Varro's theological system and authentic Roman theological lore in general. According to Augustine, Varro drew on the pontiff Mucius Scaevola's tripartite theology:

• The mythic theology of the poets (useful for the theatre)
• The physical theology of the philosophers (useful for understanding the natural world)
• The civil theology of the priests (useful for the state)

Jovian theology

Georg Wissowa stressed Jupiter's uniqueness as the only case among Indo-European religions in which the original god preserved his name, his identity and his prerogatives. In this view, Jupiter is the god of heaven and retains his identification with the sky among the Latin poets (his name is used as a synonym for "sky".) In this respect, he differs from his Greek equivalent Zeus (who is considered a personal god, warden and dispenser of skylight). His name reflects this idea; it is a derivative of the Indo-European word for "bright, shining sky". His residence is found atop the hills of Rome and of mountains in general; as a result, his cult is present in Rome and throughout Italy at upper elevations. Jupiter assumed atmospheric qualities; he is the wielder of lightning and the master of weather. However, Wissowa acknowledges that Jupiter is not merely a naturalistic, heavenly, supreme deity; he is in continual communication with man by means of thunder, lightning and the flight of birds (his auspices). Through his vigilant watch he is also the guardian of public oaths and compacts and the guarantor of good faith in the State cult. The Jovian cult was common to the Italic people under the names Iove, Diove (Latin) and Iuve, Diuve (Oscan, in Umbrian only Iuve, Iupater in the Iguvine Tables).
Wissowa considered Jupiter also a god of war and agriculture, in addition to his political role as guarantor of good faith (public and private) as Iuppiter Lapis and Dius Fidius, respectively. His view is grounded in the sphere of action of the god (who intervenes in battle and influences the harvest through weather).Wissowa (1912), pp. 103–108
In Georges Dumézil's view, Jovian theology (and that of the equivalent gods in other Indo-European religions) is an evolution from a naturalistic, supreme, celestial god identified with heaven to a sovereign god, a wielder of lightning bolts, master and protector of the community (in other words, of a change from a naturalistic approach to the world of the divine to a socio-political approach).
In Vedic religion, Dyaus Pitar remained confined to his distant, removed, passive role and the place of sovereign god was occupied by Varuna and Mitra. In Greek and Roman religion, instead, the homonymous gods *Diou- and Διϝ- evolved into atmospheric deities; by their mastery of thunder and lightning, they expressed themselves and made their will known to the community. In Rome, Jupiter also sent signs to the leaders of the state in the form of auspices in addition to thunder. The art of augury was considered prestigious by ancient Romans; by sending his signs, Jupiter (the sovereign of heaven) communicates his advice to his terrestrial colleague: the king (rex) or his successor magistrates. The encounter between the heavenly and political, legal aspects of the deity are well represented by the prerogatives, privileges, functions and taboos proper to his flamen (the flamen Dialis and his wife, the flaminica Dialis).
Dumézil maintains that Jupiter is not himself a god of war and agriculture, although his actions and interest may extend to these spheres of human endeavour. His view is based on the methodological assumption that the chief criterion for studying a god's nature is not to consider his field of action, but the quality, method and features of his action. Consequently, the analysis of the type of action performed by Jupiter in the domains in which he operates indicates that Jupiter is a sovereign god who may act in the field of politics (as well as agriculture and war) in his capacity as such, i.e. in a way and with the features proper to a king. Sovereignty is expressed through the two aspects of absolute, magic power (epitomised and represented by the Vedic god Varuna) and lawful right (by the Vedic god Mitra). However, sovereignty permits action in every field; otherwise, it would lose its essential quality. As a further proof, Dumézil cites the story of Tullus Hostilius (the most belligerent of the Roman kings), who was killed by Jupiter with a lightning bolt (indicating that he did not enjoy the god's favour). Varro's definition of Jupiter as the god who has under his jurisdiction the full expression of every being (penes Iovem sunt summa) reflects the sovereign nature of the god, as opposed to the jurisdiction of Janus (god of passages and change) on their beginning (penes Ianum sunt prima).

Relation to other gods

Capitoline Triad

The Capitoline Triad was introduced to Rome by the Tarquins. Dumézil thinks it might have been an Etruscan (or local) creation based on Vitruvius' treatise on architecture, in which the three deities are associated as the most important. It is possible that the Etruscans paid particular attention to Menrva (Minerva) as a goddess of destiny, in addition to the royal couple Uni (Juno) and Tinia (Jupiter). In Rome, Minerva later assumed a military aspect under the influence of Athena Pallas (Polias). Dumézil argues that with the advent of the Republic, Jupiter became the only king of Rome, no longer merely the first of the great gods.

Archaic Triad

The Archaic Triad is a hypothetical theological structure (or system) consisting of the gods Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus. It was first described by Wissowa, and the concept was developed further by Dumézil. The three-function hypothesis of Indo-European society advanced by Dumézil holds that in prehistory, society was divided into three classes (priests, warriors and craftsmen) which had as their religious counterparts the divine figures of the sovereign god, the warrior god and the civil god. The sovereign function (embodied by Jupiter) entailed omnipotence; thence, a domain extended over every aspect of nature and life. The colour relating to the sovereign function is white.
The three functions are interrelated with one another, overlapping to some extent; the sovereign function, although essentially religious in nature, is involved in many ways in areas pertaining to the other two. Therefore, Jupiter is the "magic player" in the founding of the Roman state and the fields of war, agricultural plenty, human fertility and wealth.
This hypothesis has not found widespread support among scholars.

Jupiter and Minerva

Apart from being protectress of the arts and craft as Minerva Capta, who was brought from Falerii, Minerva's association to Jupiter and relevance to Roman state religion is mainly linked to the Palladium, a wooden statue of Athena that could move the eyes and wave the spear. It was stored in the penus interior, inner penus of the aedes Vestae, temple of Vesta and considered the most important among the pignora imperii, pawns of dominion, empire. In Roman traditional lore it was brought from Troy by Aeneas. Scholars though think it was last taken to Rome in the third or second century BC.

Juno and Fortuna

The divine couple received from Greece its matrimonial implications, thence bestowing on Juno the role of tutelary goddess of marriage (Iuno Pronuba).
The couple itself though cannot be reduced to a Greek apport. The association of Juno and Jupiter is of the most ancient Latin theology. Praeneste offers a glimpse into original Latin mythology: the local goddess Fortuna is represented as milking two infants, one male and one female, namely Jove (Jupiter) and Juno. It seems fairly safe to assume that from the earliest times they were identified by their own proper names and since they got them they were never changed through the course of history: they were called Jupiter and Juno. These gods were the most ancient deities of every Latin town. Praeneste preserved divine filiation and infancy as the sovereign god and his paredra Juno have a mother who is the primordial goddess Fortuna Primigenia. Many terracotta statuettes have been discovered which represent a woman with a child: one of them represents exactly the scene described by Cicero of a woman with two children of different sex who touch her breast. Two of the votive inscriptions to Fortuna associate her and Jupiter: " Fortunae Iovi puero..." and "Fortunae Iovis puero..."
In 1882 though R. Mowat published an inscription in which Fortuna is called daughter of Jupiter, raising new questions and opening new perspectives in the theology of Latin gods. Dumezil has elaborated an interpretative theory according to which this aporia would be an intrinsic, fundamental feature of Indoeuropean deities of the primordial and sovereign level, as it finds a parallel in Vedic religion. The contradiction would put Fortuna both at the origin of time and into its ensuing diachronic process: it is the comparison offered by Vedic deity Aditi, the Not-Bound or Enemy of Bondage, that shows that there is no question of choosing one of the two apparent options: as the mother of the Aditya she has the same type of relationship with one of his sons, Dakṣa, the minor sovereign. who represents the Creative Energy, being at the same time his mother and daughter, as is true for the whole group of sovereign gods to which she belongs. Moreover, Aditi is thus one of the heirs (along with Savitr) of the opening god of the Indoiranians, as she is represented with her head on her two sides, with the two faces looking opposite directions. The mother of the sovereign gods has thence two solidal but distinct modalities of duplicity, i.e. of having two foreheads and a double position in the genealogy. Angelo Brelich has interpreted this theology as the basic opposition between the primordial absence of order (chaos) and the organisation of the cosmos.

Janus

The relation of Jupiter to Janus is problematic. Varro defines Jupiter as the god who has potestas (power) over the forces by which anything happens in the world. Janus, however, has the privilege of being invoked first in rites, since in his power are the beginnings of things (prima), the appearance of Jupiter included.

Saturn

The Latins considered Saturn the predecessor of Jupiter. Saturn reigned in Latium during a mythical Golden Age reenacted every year at the festival of Saturnalia. Saturn also retained primacy in matters of agriculture and money. Unlike the Greek tradition of Cronus and Zeus, the usurpation of Saturn as king of the gods by Jupiter was not viewed by the Latins as violent or hostile; Saturn continued to be revered in his temple at the foot of the Capitol Hill, which maintained the alternative name Saturnius into the time of Varro. A. Pasqualini has argued that Saturn was related to Iuppiter Latiaris, the old Jupiter of the Latins, as the original figure of this Jupiter was superseded on the Alban Mount, whereas it preserved its gruesome character in the ceremony held at the sanctuary of the Latiar Hill in Rome which involved a human sacrifice and the aspersion of the statue of the god with the blood of the victim.

Fides

The abstract personification Fides ("Faith, Trust") was one of the oldest gods associated with Jupiter. As guarantor of public faith, Fides had her temple on the Capitol (near that of Capitoline Jupiter).
Dius Fidius is considered a theonym for Jupiter, and sometimes a separate entity also known in Rome as Semo Sancus Dius Fidius. Wissowa argued that while Jupiter is the god of the Fides Publica Populi Romani as Iuppiter Lapis (by whom important oaths are sworn), Dius Fidius is a deity established for everyday use and was charged with the protection of good faith in private affairs. Dius Fidius would thus correspond to Zeus Pistios. The association with Jupiter may be a matter of divine relation; some scholars see him as a form of Hercules. Both Jupiter and Dius Fidius were wardens of oaths and wielders of lightning bolts; both required an opening in the roof of their temples.
The functionality of Sancus occurs consistently within the sphere of fides, oaths and respect for contracts and of the divine-sanction guarantee against their breach. Wissowa suggested that Semo Sancus is the genius of Jupiter, but the concept of a deity's genius is a development of the Imperial period.
Some aspects of the oath-ritual for Dius Fidius (such as proceedings under the open sky or in the compluvium of private residences), and the fact the temple of Sancus had no roof, suggest that the oath sworn by Dius Fidius predated that for Iuppiter Lapis or Iuppiter Feretrius.

Genius

Augustine quotes Varro who explains the genius as "the god who is in charge and has the power to generate everything" and "the rational spirit of all (therefore, everyone has their own)". Augustine concludes that Jupiter should be considered the genius of the universe.
G. Wissowa advanced the hypothesis that Semo Sancus is the genius of Jupiter. W. W. Fowler has cautioned that this interpretation looks to be an anachronism and it would only be acceptable to say that Sancus is a Genius Iovius, as it appears from the Iguvine Tables.
Censorinus cites Granius Flaccus as saying that "the Genius was the same entity as the Lar" in his lost work De Indigitamentis. probably referring to the Lar Familiaris. Mutunus Tutunus had his shrine at the foot of the Velian Hill near those of the Di Penates and of Vica Pota, who were among the most ancient gods of the Roman community of according to Wissowa.
Dumézil opines that the attribution of a Genius to the gods should be earlier than its first attestation of 58 BC, in an inscription which mentions the Iovis Genius.
A connection between Genius and Jupiter seems apparent in Plautus' comedy Amphitryon, in which Jupiter takes up the looks of Alcmena's husband in order to seduce her: J. Hubeaux sees there a reflection of the story that Scipio Africanus' mother conceived him with a snake that was in fact Jupiter transformed. Scipio himself claimed that only he would rise to the mansion of the gods through the widest gate.
Among the Etruscan Penates there is a Genius Iovialis who comes after Fortuna and Ceres and before Pales. Genius Iovialis is one of the Penates of the humans and not of Jupiter though, as these were located in region I of Martianus Capella' s division of Heaven, while Genius appears in regions V and VI along with Ceres, Favor (possibly a Roman approximation to an Etruscan male manifestation of Fortuna) and Pales. This is in accord with the definition of the Penates of man being Fortuna, Ceres, Pales and Genius Iovialis and the statement in Macrobius that the Larentalia were dedicated to Jupiter as the god whence the souls of men come from and to whom they return after death.

Summanus

The god of nighttime lightning has been interpreted as an aspect of Jupiter, either a chthonic manifestation of the god or a separate god of the underworld. A statue of Summanus stood on the roof of the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, and Iuppiter Summanus is one of the epithets of Jupiter. Dumézil sees the opposition Dius Fidius versus Summanus as complementary, interpreting it as typical to the inherent ambiguity of the sovereign god exemplified by that of Mitra and Varuna in Vedic religion. The complementarity of the epithets is shown in inscriptions found on puteals or bidentals reciting either fulgur Dium conditum or fulgur Summanum conditum in places struck by daytime versus nighttime lightning bolts respectively. This is also consistent with the etymology of Summanus, deriving from sub and mane (the time before morning).

Liber

Iuppiter was associated with Liber through his epithet of Liber (association not yet been fully explained by scholars, due to the scarcity of early documentation). In the past, it was maintained that Liber was only a progressively-detached hypostasis of Jupiter; consequently, the vintage festivals were to be attributed only to Iuppiter Liber. Such a hypothesis was rejected as groundless by Wissowa, although he was a supporter of Liber's Jovian origin. Olivier de Cazanove contends that it is difficult to admit that Liber (who is present in the oldest calendars—those of Numa—in the Liberalia and in the month of Liber at Lavinium) was derived from another deity. Such a derivation would find support only in epigraphic documents, primarily from the Osco-Sabellic area. Wissowa sets the position of Iuppiter Liber within the framework of an agrarian Jupiter. The god also had a temple in this name on the Aventine in Rome, which was restored by Augustus and dedicated on September 1. Here, the god was sometimes named Liber and sometimes Libertas. Wissowa opines that the relationship existed in the concept of creative abundance through which the supposedly-separate Liber might have been connected to the Greek god Dionysos, although both deities might not have been originally related to viticulture.
Other scholars assert that there was no Liber (other than a god of wine) within historical memory. O. de Cazanove argues that the domain of the sovereign god Jupiter was that of sacred, sacrificial wine (vinum inferium), while that of Liber and Libera was confined to secular wine (vinum spurcum); these two types were obtained through differing fermentation processes. The offer of wine to Liber was made possible by naming the mustum (grape juice) stored in amphoras sacrima. Sacred wine was obtained by the natural fermentation of juice of grapes free from flaws of any type, religious (e. g. those struck by lightning, brought into contact with corpses or wounded people or coming from an unfertilised grapeyard) or secular (by "cutting" it with old wine). Secular (or "profane") wine was obtained through several types of manipulation (e.g. by adding honey, or mulsum; using raisins, or passum; by boiling, or defrutum). However, the sacrima used for the offering to the two gods for the preservation of grapeyards, vessels and wine was obtained only by pouring the juice into amphors after pressing. The mustum was considered spurcum (dirty), and thus unusable in sacrifices. The amphor (itself not an item of sacrifice) permitted presentation of its content on a table or could be added to a sacrifice; this happened at the auspicatio vindamiae for the first grape and for ears of corn of the praemetium on a dish (lanx) at the temple of Ceres.
Dumézil, on the other hand, sees the relationship between Jupiter and Liber as grounded in the social and political relevance of the two gods (who were both considered patrons of freedom). The Liberalia of March were, since earliest times, the occasion for the ceremony of the donning of the toga virilis or libera (which marked the passage into adult citizenship by young people). Augustine relates that these festivals had a particularly obscene character: a phallus was taken to the fields on a cart, and then back in triumph to town. In Lavinium they lasted a month, during which the population enjoyed bawdy jokes. The most honest matronae were supposed to publicly crown the phallus with flowers, to ensure a good harvest and repeal the fascinatio (evil eye). In Rome representations of the sex organs were placed in the temple of the couple Liber Libera, who presided over the male and female components of generation and the "liberation" of the semen. This complex of rites and beliefs shows that the divine couple's jurisdiction extended over fertility in general, not only that of grapes. The etymology of Liber (archaic form Loifer, Loifir) was explained by Émile Benveniste as formed on the IE theme *leudh- plus the suffix -es-; its original meaning is "the one of germination, he who ensures the sprouting of crops"
The relationship of Jupiter with freedom was a common belief among the Roman people, as demonstrated by the dedication of the Mons Sacer to the god after the first secession of the plebs. Later inscriptions also show the unabated popular belief in Jupiter as bestower of freedom in the imperial era.

Veiove

Scholars have been often puzzled by Ve(d)iove (or Veiovis, or Vedius) and unwilling to discuss his identity, claiming our knowledge of this god is insufficient. Most, however, agree that Veiove is a sort of special Jupiter or anti-Iove, or even an underworld Jupiter. In other words, Veiove is indeed the Capitoline god himself, who takes up a different, diminished appearance (iuvenis and parvus, young and gracile), in order to be able to discharge sovereign functions over places, times and spheres that by their own nature are excluded from the direct control of Jupiter as Optimus Maximus. This conclusion is based on information provided by Gellius, who states his name is formed by adding prefix ve (here denoting "deprivation" or "negation") to Iove (whose name Gellius posits as rooted in the verb iuvo "I benefit"). D. Sabbatucci has stressed the feature of bearer of instability and antithesis to cosmic order of the god, who threatens the kingly power of Jupiter as Stator and Centumpeda and whose presence occurs side by side to Janus' on January 1, but also his function of helper to the growth of the young Jupiter. In 1858 Ludwig Preller suggested that Veiovis may be the sinister double of Jupiter.
In fact, the god (under the name Vetis) is placed in the last case (number 16) of the outer rim of the Piacenza Liver—before Cilens (Nocturnus), who ends (or begins in the Etruscan vision) the disposition of the gods. In Martianus Capella's division of heaven, he is found in region XV with the dii publici; as such, he numbers among the infernal (or antipodal) gods. The location of his two temples in Rome—near those of Jupiter (one on the Capitoline Hill, in the low between the arx and the Capitolium, between the two groves where the asylum founded by Romulus stood, the other on the Tiber Island near that of Iuppiter Iurarius, later also known as temple of Aesculapius)—may be significant in this respect, along with the fact that he is considered the father of Apollo, perhaps because he was depicted carrying arrows. He is also considered to be the unbearded Jupiter. The dates of his festivals support the same conclusion: they fall on January 1, March 7 and May 21, the first date being the recurrence of the Agonalia, dedicated to Janus and celebrated by the king with the sacrifice of a ram. The nature of the sacrifice is debated; Gellius states capra, a female goat, although some scholars posit a ram. This sacrifice occurred rito humano, which may mean "with the rite appropriate for human sacrifice". Gellius concludes by stating that this god is one of those who receive sacrifices so as to persuade them to refrain from causing harm.
The arrow is an ambivalent symbol; it was used in the ritual of the devotio (the general who vowed had to stand on an arrow). It is perhaps because of the arrow and of the juvenile looks that Gellius identifies Veiove with Apollo and as a god who must receive worship in order to obtain his abstention from harming men, along with Robigus and Averruncus. The ambivalence in the identity of Veiove is apparent in the fact that while he is present in places and times which may have a negative connotation (such as the asylum of Romulus in between the two groves on the Capitol, the Tiberine island along with Faunus and Aesculapius, the kalends of January, the nones of March, and May 21, a statue of his nonetheless stands in the arx. Moreover, the initial particle ve- which the ancient supposed were part of his name is itself ambivalent as it may have both an accrescitive and diminutive value.
Maurice Besnier has remarked that a temple to Iuppiter was dedicated by praetor Lucius Furius Purpureo before the battle of Cremona against the Celtic Cenomani of Cisalpine Gaul. An inscription found at Brescia in 1888 shows that Iuppiter Iurarius was worshipped there and one found on the south tip of Tiber Island in 1854 that there was a cult to the god on the spot too. Besnier speculates that Lucius Furius had evoked the chief god of the enemy and built a temple to him in Rome outside the pomerium. On January 1, the Fasti Praenestini record the festivals of Aesculapius and Vediove on the Island, while in the Fasti Ovid speaks of Jupiter and his grandson. Livy records that in 192 BC, duumvir Q. Marcus Ralla dedicated to Jupiter on the Capitol the two temples promised by L. Furius Purpureo, one of which was that promised during the war against the Gauls. Besnier would accept a correction to Livy's passage (proposed by Jordan) to read aedes Veiovi instead of aedes duae Iovi. Such a correction concerns the temples dedicated on the Capitol: it does not address the question of the dedication of the temple on the Island, which is puzzling, since the place is attested epigraphically as dedicated to the cult of Iuppiter Iurarius, in the Fasti Praenestini of Vediove and to Jupiter according to Ovid. The two gods may have been seen as equivalent: Iuppiter Iurarius is an awesome and vengeful god, parallel to the Greek Zeus Orkios, the avenger of perjury.
A. Pasqualini has argued that Veiovis seems related to Iuppiter Latiaris, as the original figure of this Jupiter would have been superseded on the Alban Mount, whereas it preserved its gruesome character in the ceremony held on the sanctuary of the Latiar Hill, the southernmost hilltop of the Quirinal in Rome, which involved a human sacrifice. The gens Iulia had gentilician cults at Bovillae where a dedicatory inscription to Vediove has been found in 1826 on an ara. According to Pasqualini it was a deity similar to Vediove, wielder of lightningbolts and chthonic, who was connected to the cult of the founders who first inhabited the Alban Mount and built the sanctuary. Such a cult once superseded on the Mount would have been taken up and preserved by the Iulii, private citizens bound to the sacra Albana by their Alban origin.

Victoria

Victoria was connected to Iuppiter Victor in his role as bestower of military victory. Jupiter, as a sovereign god, was considered as having the power to conquer anyone and anything in a supernatural way; his contribution to military victory was different from that of Mars (god of military valour). Victoria appears first on the reverse of coins representing Venus (driving the quadriga of Jupiter, with her head crowned and with a palm in her hand) during the first Punic War. Sometimes, she is represented walking and carrying a trophy.
A temple was dedicated to the goddess afterwards on the Palatine, testifying to her high station in the Roman mind. When Hieron of Syracuse presented a golden statuette of the goddess to Rome, the Senate had it placed in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter among the greatest (and most sacred) deities. Although Victoria played a significant role in the religious ideology of the late Republic and the Empire, she is undocumented in earlier times. A function similar to hers may have been played by the little-known Vica Pota.

Terminus

Juventas and Terminus were the gods who, according to legend, refused to leave their sites on the Capitol when the construction of the temple of Jupiter was undertaken. Therefore, they had to be reserved a sacellum within the new temple. Their stubbornness was considered a good omen; it would guarantee youth, stability and safety to Rome on its site. This legend is generally thought by scholars to indicate their strict connection with Jupiter. An inscription found near Ravenna reads Iuppiter Ter., indicating that Terminus is an aspect of Jupiter.
Terminus is the god of boundaries (public and private), as he is portrayed in literature. The religious value of the boundary marker is documented by Plutarch, who ascribes to king Numa the construction of temples to Fides and Terminus and the delimitation of Roman territory. Ovid gives a vivid description of the rural rite at a boundary of fields of neighbouring peasants on February 23 (the day of the Terminalia. On that day, Roman pontiffs and magistrates held a ceremony at the sixth mile of the Via Laurentina (ancient border of the Roman ager, which maintained a religious value). This festival, however, marked the end of the year and was linked to time more directly than to space (as attested by Augustine's apologia on the role of Janus with respect to endings). Dario Sabbatucci has emphasised the temporal affiliation of Terminus, a reminder of which is found in the rite of the regifugium. G. Dumézil, on the other hand, views the function of this god as associated with the legalistic aspect of the sovereign function of Jupiter. Terminus would be the counterpart of the minor Vedic god Bagha, who oversees the just and fair division of goods among citizens.

Iuventas

Along with Terminus, Iuventas (also known as Iuventus and Iuunta) represents an aspect of Jupiter (as the legend of her refusal to leave the Capitol Hill demonstrates. Her name has the same root as Juno (from Iuu-, "young, youngster"); the ceremonial litter bearing the sacred goose of Juno Moneta stopped before her sacellum on the festival of the goddess. Later, she was identified with the Greek Hebe. The fact that Jupiter is related to the concept of youth is shown by his epithets Puer, Iuuentus and Ioviste (interpreted as "the youngest" by some scholars). Dumézil noted the presence of the two minor sovereign deities Bagha and Aryaman beside the Vedic sovereign gods Varuna and Mitra (though more closely associated with Mitra); the couple would be reflected in Rome by Terminus and Iuventas. Aryaman is the god of young soldiers. The function of Iuventas is to protect the iuvenes (the novi togati of the year, who are required to offer a sacrifice to Jupiter on the Capitol) and the Roman soldiers (a function later attributed to Juno). King Servius Tullius, in reforming the Roman social organisation, required that every adolescent offer a coin to the goddess of youth upon entering adulthood.
In Dumézil's analysis, the function of Iuventas (the personification of youth), was to control the entrance of young men into society and protect them until they reach the age of iuvenes or iuniores (i.e. of serving the state as soldiers). A temple to Iuventas was promised in 207 BC by consul Marcus Livius Salinator and dedicated in 191 BC.

Penates

The Romans considered the Penates as the gods to whom they owed their own existence. As noted by Wissowa Penates is an adjective, meaning "those of or from the penus" the innermost part, most hidden recess; Dumézil though refuses Wissowa's interpretation of penus as the storeroom of a household. As a nation the Romans honoured the Penates publici: Dionysius calls them Trojan gods as they were absorbed into the Trojan legend. They had a temple in Rome at the foot of the Velian Hill, near the Palatine, in which they were represented as a couple of male youth. They were honoured every year by the new consuls before entering office at Lavinium, because the Romans believed the Penates of that town were identical to their own.
The concept of di Penates is more defined in Etruria: Arnobius (citing a Caesius) states that the Etruscan Penates were named Fortuna, Ceres, Genius Iovialis and Pales; according to Nigidius Figulus, they included those of Jupiter, of Neptune, of the infernal gods and of mortal men. According to Varro the Penates reside in the recesses of Heaven and are called Consentes and Complices by the Etruscans because they rise and set together, are twelve in number and their names are unknown, six male and six females and are the cousellors and masters of Jupiter. Martianus states they are always in agreement among themselves. While these last gods seem to be the Penates of Jupiter, Jupiter himself along with Juno and Minerva is one of the Penates of man according to some authors.
This complex concept is reflected in Martianus Capella's division of heaven, found in Book I of his De Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae, which places the Di Consentes Penates in region I with the Favores Opertanei; Ceres and Genius in region V; Pales in region VI; Favor and Genius (again) in region VII; Secundanus Pales, Fortuna and Favor Pastor in region XI. The disposition of these divine entities and their repetition in different locations may be due to the fact that Penates belonging to different categories (of Jupiter in region I, earthly or of mortal men in region V) are intended. Favor(es) may be the Etruscan masculine equivalent of Fortuna.

Statue of Jupiter, Vatican, Rome.

Biser Todorov - Own work

Zeus, at the Getty Villa, A.D. 1 – 100 by unknown.

Sdwelch1031, unknown artist - Own work

King of the Gods, Zeus, at the Getty Villa. Roman, Italy, A.D. 1 - 100.

 Zeus with eagle and lightning, Athenian red-figure amphora C5th B.C., Musée du Louvre

 Zeus, Athenian red-figure Panathenaic amphora C5th B.C., Staatliche Antikensammlungen

 Zeus and the giant Porphyrion, Athenian red-figure kylix C5th B.C., Antikensammlung Berlin

 Zeus-Amon seduto sul trono - statua risalente al III secolo a.C. rinvenuta a Cipro - Museo del Louvre - Parigi

sconosciuto - Jastrow (2007)

Zeus Ammon seated on a throne flanked by rams. Limestone, Hellenistic Era (early 3rd century BC). From Cyprus.

 Laurel-wreathed head of Zeus on a gold stater, Lampsacus, c 360–340 BC (Cabinet des Médailles).

Jastrow (2010)

Zeus with a laurel crown. Gold stater from Lampsacus, Mysia (ca. 360–340 BC), obverse.

Evolution of Zeus Nikephoros ("Zeus holding Nike") on Indo-Greek coinage: from the Classical motif of Nike handing the wreath of victory to Zeus himself (left, coin of Heliocles I 145-130 BC), then to a baby elephant (middle, coin of Antialcidas 115-95 BC), and then to the Wheel of the Law, symbol of Buddhism (right, coin of Menander II 90–85 BC).

Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com

Evolution of Zeus Nikephoros on Indo-Greek coinage

 Roman cast terracotta of ram-horned Jupiter Ammon, 1st century AD (Museo Barracco, Rome).

Lalupa - Own work

Roma, Museo Barracco: Giove Ammone. Frammento di lastra di terracotta del sec. 1 d.C. con cospicui resti della policromia originale

 Arte romana, triade capitolina, 160-180 dc (guidonia montecelio, museo civico archeologico) 

 Zeus as Vajrapāni, the protector of the Buddha. 2nd century, Greco-Buddhist art.

 Neo-Attic bas-relief sculpture of Jupiter, holding a thunderbolt in his right hand; detail from the Moncloa Puteal (Roman, 2nd century), National Archaeological Museum, Madrid 

Luis García (Zaqarbal), 14 May 2006.

Coin with laureate head of Jupiter (obverse) and (reverse) Victory, standing ("ROMA" below in relief)

Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com

Anonymous After 211 BC. AR Victoriatus (2.98 g). Laureate head of Jupiter right Victory standing right, crowning trophy, ROMA below, in relief. Crawford 53/1; Sydenham 83; Kestner 455; RSC 9.

 Head of Zeus or Poseidon. Roman copy, c. 320-330 CE of 5th century BCE Greek bronze. Porphyry. The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, UK

 One interpretation of the lightning in Giorgione's Tempest is that it represents the presence of Jupiter.

 Giorgione - Gallerie dell'Accademia

circa 1507- 1508

 Giove, travestito da Satiro, e Antiope, dipinto di Correggio, 1528 circa, Parigi, Museo del Louvre.

  Giulio Romano - Jupiter Seducing Olympias

between 1526 and 1528

 Giove rende incinta Leda, dipinto da un originale di Michelangelo, circa 1530, Londra, National Gallery.

Dopo Michelangelo Buonarroti

copy of a lost painting by Michelangelo

 Giove seduce Leda sotto forma di cigno, dipinto del Correggio, Berlino, Staatliche Museen.

1531 

Vincent sellaer, giove e antiope coi gemelli anfione e zeto, 1535-45 ca.

 La statua di Zeus Olimpio, a Olimpia - stampa antica

Maarten van Heemskerck - Please, put da source here

Socha Dia na Olympii, kterou Feidiás zhotovil z desátku kořisti uloupené Peršanům. Rekonstrukci sochy vyryl Philippe Galle v roce 1572, podle kresby Maartena van Heemskerckeho.

 Jacopo Tintoretto - The Origin of the Milky Way1575

Aegina wacht op de komst van Zeus

Ferdinand Bol - Meininger Museen

17th century 

Giove seduce Antiope, dipinto di Hendrick Goltzius, 1616, Parigi, Museo del Louvre.

 "Jupiter and Antiope" by Anthony Van Dyck, c. 1620

 El nacimiento de la Vía Láctea 1636

Pieter Paul Rubens

 Giove rapisce Ganimede, 1650 circa, dipinto di Eustache Le Sueur, Parigi, Museo del Louvre

 Gli amori di Giove e Antiope, dipinto di Antoine Watteau, 1715 circa, Parigi, Museo del Louvre.

Antoine Watteau - sconosciuta

Nymph and Satyr, also known as Jupiter and Antiope, detail. olio su tela

Semele is Consumed by Jupiter's Fire by Bernard Picart

1731 

 Giovanni Battista Tiepolo - Jupiter and Danaë

1736 

 Giove, travestito da Diana, seduce Callisto, grafico di Jacopo Amigoni.

Jacopo Amigoni - sconosciuta

Jacopo Amigoni (1675-1752), Giove e Callisto [ca. 1740/1750]. (Giove ha preso l'aspetto di Diana). incisione.

 Jean-Baptiste Greuze - Aegina Visited by Jupiter, 1767-69

 Sesso tra Giove e Giunone sul monte Ida, dipinto di James Barry, Sheffield, Art Galleries.

tra il 1790 e il 1799

 Júpiter y Tetis, por Dominique Ingres

1811 

This copper plate by Johann Heinrich Meyer (1760-1832) and Carl August Schwerdgeburth (1785-1878) (from Winckelmann's Gesammelte Werke, plates vol. 5, no. 7, Dresden, 1812) shows the fresco painted by Anton Raphael Mengs and Giacomo Casanova ca. 1758. An imitation of an ancient Roman fresco, it was created to fool archeologist and art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who regarded it as an original.

Dopo Anton Raphael Mengs - Goodbye to Berlin? 100 Jahre Schwulenbewegung (Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel, 1997), p. 25.

 Leda e il cigno, marmo di Auguste Clésinger, Amiens, Musée Picardie.

Jean Baptiste Clésinger - Opera propria Vassil

1864 

Zeus et les Géants (tiré d'une gemme napolitaine). Illustration de "Histoires des météores", p. 108

Jean Edouard Dargent - Gallica

1870

Giove e Leda, dipinto di Gustave Moreau, Parigi, Musée Gustave Moreau.

tra il 1865 e il 1875

The Chariot of Zeus, from an 1879 Stories from the Greek Tragedians by Alfred Church.

 Illustration from Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1890—1907)

Paul Bransom - Cooper, F. T. (ed.) Bransom, P. (ill.) An argosy of fables; a representative selection from the fable literature of every age and land, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. 1921 

Giove (Museo nazionale del Bardo, Tunisi)

Giorces - Opera propria

Giove, testa colossale, scultura romana III sec., ex Museo nazionale del Bardo,Tunisi.

 Jupiter's head crowned with laurel and ivy. Sardonyx cameo (Louvre)

Unknown - Jastrow (2006)

Jupiter's head crowned with laurel and ivy. Sardonyx cameo.

 Statua di Zeus rinvenuta a Nicomedia in Bitinia - Museo archeologico di Istanbul

A representation of the god Zeus (Jupiter) from Nicomedia in Bithynia, now at the İstanbul Archaeological Museum. QuartierLatin1968 17:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

 Giove procrea in Giunone, disegno erotico di Agostino Carracci

Agostino Carracci

Jupiter et Junon

 Jupiter in a wall painting from Pompeii, with eagle and globe

Olivierw - Own work

Zeus, Museo archeologico nazionale di Napoli (inv. nr.9551). Da Pompei, Casa dei Dioscuri.

 Zeus Aitnàios (tetradracma di Áitna)

 "Cave of Zeus", Mount Ida (Crete).

Olaf Tausch - Own work

Idäische Grotte an der Nida-Hochebene, Gemeinde Anogia, Regionalbezirk Rethymno, Kreta, Griechenland

 Giove seduce Giunone, dipinto di Annibale Carracci, Roma, Galleria Farnese.

 Colossal seated Marnas from Gaza portrayed in the style of Zeus. Roman period Marnas was the chief divinity of Gaza (Istanbul Archaeology Museum).

Nevit Dilmen (talk) - Own work

Colossal seated Zeus from Gaza, Roman period. Statue of Zeus, Istanbul Archaeology Museum, last room of the ground floor. The king of the gods, ruler of Mount Olympus, and god of the sky and thunder in Greek mythology.

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

QuartierLatin1968 - Own work

Une statue en bronze de Jupiter, en provenance de la région trévire.

Il Tempio di Zeus Olimpio ad Atene

A.Savin (Wikimedia Commons · WikiPhotoSpace) - Opera propria

Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens (Attica, Greece)

 Altes Museum - Antikensammlung 

 Bronze disk, Wt. 5.707 kg, Diam. 34 cm, H. 5–13 mm. Replica of an ex-voto dedicated to Zeus by Asklepiades of Corinth, winner of the pentathlon in the 255th Olympiad. Glytothek Munich, original in the Archaeological Museum of Olympia (Inv. 7567).

User:MatthiasKabel - uploader's own work

 Età antoniniana, testa colossale di zeus, da un originale ellenistico

 Giove e Callisto, incisione di Gérard Lairesse.

Ile aux Roses : L'aigle Zeus nourri à l'Ambrosia (nourriture divine des Dieux de la mythologie grecque qui leur assure l'imortalité )

Arnaud 25 - Opera propria

 Zeus

Jupiter God Marble Mosaic

Ramy El-Desouki (Rashley Tisdale)

Zeus (God of All the Gods) - Scott Herman

 Jupiter

 Zeus

 GIOVE

Zeus (Jupiter) Greek God - Art Picture by ArcosArt

Zeus (Jupiter) Greek God - Art Picture also by GenzoMan

Zeus (Jupiter) Greek God in his Golden Throne - Art Picture  

Zeus (Jupiter) Greek God - Art Picture by GenzoMan

Zeus (Jupiter) Greek God - Art Picture by davidap

Zeus (Jupiter) Greek God - Art Picture by donquijote10   

Zeus (Jupiter) Greek God - Art Picture by dariojart