of Jupiter, was taken by the priests[1] in procession up the Capitoline Hill, and solemnly drenched with water as a magical or quasi-magical cure for drought. The stone normally stood outside the Porta Capena, near the temple of Mars;[2] but, for reasons which will subsequently appear,[3] this circumstance does not militate against its connexion with Jupiter.
It has been plausibly maintained[4] that the Jupiter worshipped when the rain was charmed forth (elicitur) was Jupiter Elicius, who had an altar on the Aventine.[5] If so, it may have been thought that Jupiter himself came down in the form of a shower—a conception voiced by Virgil in a passage already quoted.[6] But Jupiter Elicius was a thunder-god as well as a rain-god; for it was he who, when the people was panic-stricken by continual lightnings and rain, showed King Numa how the storms might be stayed,[7] and at a later date slew with a thunderbolt Numa's successor, Tullus Hostilius.[8] We have, therefore, also to reckon with the belief that Jupiter might fall as a lightning-flash or a thunderbolt,[9] appropriate manifestations
- ↑ So Serv. in Verg. Aen. 3. 175.
- ↑ Paul exc. Fest. p. 95 Lindemann.
- ↑ Infra p. 320 f.
- ↑ By O. Gilbert Geschichte und Topographic der Stadt Rom ii. 154 and E. Aust in Roscher Lex. ii. 656 ff.
- ↑ Varr. de ling. Lat. 6. 94 sic Elicii lovis ara in Aventino ab eliciendo, cp. Liv. 1. 20. 7 ad ea elicienda ex mentibus divinis Iovi Elicio aram in Aventino dicavit (sc. Numa), Ov. fast. 3. 327 ff. eliciunt caelo te, Iuppiter. unde minores | nunc quoque te celebrant, Eliciumque vocant. | constat Aventinae tremuisse cacumina silvae, | terraque subsedit pondere pressa Iovis, Valerius Antias ap. Arnob. adv. nat. 5. 1 accepta regem (sc. Numam) scientia rem in Aventino fecisse divinam, elexisse ad terras Iovem.
- ↑ Verg. georg. 2. 325 f., quoted on p. 265.
- ↑ Ov. fajst. 3. 285 ff., Plut. vit. Num. 15, alib.
- ↑ Liv. 1. 31. 8, Aur. Vict, de viris illustr. 4. 4, cp. Plin. nat. hist. 2. 140 and 28. 14.
- ↑ See the passages collected by P. Burmann senior in his(
Greek characters) sive Jupiter Fulgerator, in Cyrrhestarum nummis. Leidae 1734.
