has his wine-festivals in the
state as in the country, and the household _daps_ becomes the more
elaborate _epulum Iovis_, in which the whole community, as it were,
entertained him at a banquet. As a sky-deity, too, he is particularly
concerned with the thunderbolt and the lightning-flash (_Iuppiter
Fulmen_, _Fulgur_), and to him are sacred the always ominous spots
which had been struck by lightning (_bidentalia_): with the more
alarming occurrence of lightning by night he has a special connection
under the cult-title _Iuppiter Summanus_. But as the little community
grew, and especially perhaps after the union of the two settlements,
the worship of Iuppiter Feretrius, associated with the sacred oak upon
the Capitol--the hill between Palatine and Quirinal--comes more and
more into prominence as a bond of union and the central point of the
state's religious life: it tends indeed to take the place of priority,
which had previously been occupied by Ianus. The community goes to war
with its neighbours, and after a signal victory the _spolia opima_ must
be dedicated on the sacred oak: indeed Iuppiter is in a special sense
with them in the battle and must now be worshipped as the 'stayer of
rout' (_Stator_) and the 'giver of victory' (_Victor_). War is a new
province of the state's activity, but, characteristically enough, it
does not evolve its own _numen_, but enlarges the sphere of the
somewhat elastic spirits already existing. So too in the internal
organisation of the state there is felt the need of a religious
sanction for public morality, and Iuppiter--though vaguely at
first--takes on him the character of a deity of justice. In this
connection he is primarily the god of oaths: we have seen how his
sacred _silex_ was used in the oath of treaty: it is also the most
solemn witness to the oath of the citizen. Iuppiter Lapis becomes
specially the Dius Fidius, a cult-title which subsequently sets up for
itself and produces a further offshoot in the abstract Fides. Finally,
towards the end of our period the Iuppiter of the Capitol emerges
triumphant, as it were, from his struggle with his rivals and, with the
new title of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus,--the 'best and greatest,' that
is, of all the Iuppiters--takes his place as the supreme deity of the
Roman state and the personification of the greatness and majesty of
Rome itself. To his temple hereafter the Roman youth will come to make
his offering when he takes the dress of man