JUPITER (Iuppiter). — Supreme god of Roman religion. His name, linguistically VITA (v.), is of Indo-European origin and contains within itself the root *di- which denotes luminosity, particularly that of the daytime sky (cf. Lat. dies = day), and an original vocative “father!”: the same concepts, therefore, that survive in the Greek Zeus, which in its name contains the same root and is considered father of gods and men; even the Germanic Ziu and Tyr are divine names linguistically analogous.
The origins of the deity thus date back to a period prior to the migrations of the Indo-European peoples. The god of the sky, father and sovereign, is a primordial concept that is preserved in various forms in the religions of those peoples.
Although the documents of Italic religions do not date back, with few exceptions, beyond the period in which Rome dominated the entire peninsula, it is evident that the cult of J. did not need to be spread by Rome: its cults in the various Italic cities indeed display characteristics that could hardly derive from the Roman cult. In Latium, on the summit of Mons Albanus (Monte Cavo) was the cult site of Iuppiter Latiaris: annually, more than thirty peoples of the Prisci Latini would sacrifice there, and the meat would be distributed and consumed by representatives of all the individual towns; in the myth, this Iuppiter Latiaris was identified with the legendary progenitor of the Latins, Latinus. At Lavinium, the name of Iuppiter, like that of Aeneas and that of the Sun, was applied to the god Indiges of the Numicus river. At Palestrina, J. shares in the cult of the goddess Fortuna and, among other aspects, takes on the figure of a child, Iuppiter Puer. Similar seems to be the Iuppiter Anxur of the Volscian city of Terracina. Even in other areas, outside Latium, an autochthonous cult of J. can be recognized. The Iguvine Tables document it for Umbria. In Campania, under the Greek name of Iuppiter Milichius (Zeus Meilichios), there may be concealed an autochthonous J. of infernal character. These and similar traits are absent from the Roman figure of J., at least from that fixed by the classical tradition. Nevertheless, even at Rome J. has an extraordinary abundance of original characteristics that take second place only before the preponderant importance of his Capitoline cult and the Hellenizing character of the literary and artistic tradition.
It seems that before the unification of the city each