Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/310

 262 The European Sky-God.

Jupiter, who is so called from the light (a luce) that he is believed to bring to men." Macrobius ^ observes : " We hold that Jupiter is the author of light {lucis), whence also the Salii sing of him in their songs as Lucetius" His remark is borne out by a scrap of Salian verse quoted in a Latin grammar ^ dating from the reign of Hadrian:

When thou thunderest, Light-bringer (Leucesie), before thee quail all men and gods and the broad sea.

A. Gellius^ in the second century of our era writes of Jupiter: "He was called Diovis and Lticctiiis, because he furnished us and helped us with day {die) and light {luce), as it were with life itself. Jupiter is termed Lucetius by Cn. Naevius in his Punic War." Paulus Diaconus/ whose glossary goes back to an important work written by M. Verrius Flaccus in the reign of Augustus, similarly states that ''Lucetius was a name once given to Jupiter because men believed him to be the cause of light {lucis)!' Lastly, C. Marius Victorinus,^ a grammarian of the fourth century, has preserved the older form Loucetius^ The Latin scholars who discuss the word Lucetius commonly couple with it a second

lingua Oscorum dictus a luce, quam hominibus praestare putatur, luppiter Lucceius, a Latinis vero Diespiter, id est diei pater vocatur. A different corruption is found in a gloss cited by J. J. Pontanus {ad Macrob. Sat. I. 15. 14) : Lucerius, Zei/s, and in another cited by Fulvius Ursinus {ad Paul. exc. Fest. 10 . s.v. " Lucetium ") : AovKeptos Zei^s.

^ Macr. Sat. i. 15. 14.

-Terent. Scaur, de orthogr. p. 2261 Putsch = Grammatici Latini vii. 11, 28 Keil. Bahrens [Fragiiienta poctartt)n Romanoriitn p. 29) prints the lines thus:

quome tonas, Leucesie,

prae ted tremonti quot | ibet hemiinis, deui,

conctum mar6.

' Gell. 5. 12. 6 f. * Paul. exc. Fest. p. 85 Lindemann.

^ Victorin. p. 2459 Putsch = Grammatici Latini vi. 12, 18 Keil: inde scriptum legitis Loucetios nountios [et] loumen et cetera.

^ See further infra p. 320.