Domain: King of gods, sky, thunder, law, order Symbol: Thunderbolt, eagle, oak Greek Equivalent: Zeus
Overview
Jupiter is the king of the Roman gods and the god of the sky and thunder — the supreme deity of Roman state religion and the patron and protector of Rome itself. Where his lightning marked the limits of the possible and his weather governed the seasons, his deeper office was civic: he was the divine guarantor of law, oaths, treaties, and sovereign authority. Romans swore their most binding oaths by him, and the flight of birds and the fall of his thunderbolts were read by augurs as the will of the god sanctioning or forbidding the actions of the state.
He bore a series of great cult-titles that expressed his supremacy. As Jupiter Optimus Maximus, "Best and Greatest," he was worshipped in the vast temple on the Capitoline Hill that was the religious heart of Rome; as Jupiter Capitolinus, of that Capitol; as Jupiter Tonans, "the Thunderer"; and as Jupiter Feretrius, to whom victorious generals dedicated the spolia opima, the arms stripped from an enemy commander slain in single combat. A triumphing general rode to his temple dressed in the god's own likeness, his face painted red, to render the victory back to him. His sacred animals are the eagle — which bears his thunderbolt and served as the standard of the legions — and the bull; the oak tree and the scepter mark his sovereignty.
Together with Juno and Minerva he formed the Capitoline Triad, the three deities at the center of Roman public worship. His chief priest, the Flamen Dialis, lived hedged about by an extraordinary web of ritual restrictions befitting a man wholly given over to the god.
Where Zeus is a vivid, appetitive, story-telling deity — the philandering, quarrelsome king of Greek myth — Jupiter is more civic and institutional than personal, less a character in tales than the abiding divine authority standing behind Roman power, law, and empire.
Related
- Zeus - Greek equivalent
- Juno - Wife
- Minerva - Daughter, fellow member of the Capitoline Triad
- The Emperor - The Major Arcana archetype of law, order, and sovereign authority
- Roman Mythology Index