Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/315

 The European Sky -God. 267

Statius makes Adrastus pray to Hypsipyle —

In place of Winds and Rainy Jupiter,'^

And a poet in the Latin Anthology, describing the month of December, writes :

All things reek of Rainy Jove.'^

At Naples was found the following inscription :

lOVI I PLVVIA //

To Jupiter of the Rain.^

Similarly Jupiter was known as Imbncitor, " the Showerer." * The bearded head of Jupiter on a denarius of L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus (consul in 49 B.C.) is, according to some numismatists, intended for a likeness of Jupiter Pluvius-> Far more convincing is the representation of this god still to be seen on the Antonine Column at Rome.^ It will be remembered that the army of M. Aurelius was rescued from the surrounding Ouadi by the interposition of a god, who refreshed the fainting legionaries with a down- pour of rain, while he blasted their opponents with hail and thunderbolts.^ This god, in whom all modern scholars have seen Jupiter Pluvius,^ appears in the bas-relief as a bearded man with outstretched wings and arms \^ rain

^Stat. Tlieb. 4. 758 f. tu nunc ventis pluvioque rogaris | pro love.

' Anth. Lat. 395. 46 Pluvio de love cuncta madent.

"H. Dessau Inscriptiones Latinae selectae 3043 = Cc;^. inscj-r. Lat. ix. 324.

^Apul. de 7nimdo yj dicitur. . . etiam Imbricitor.

^So E. Babelon Mommies de la Rdpublique Romaine i. 426, no. 66 after Eckhel Doctrina numorum vetertim ii. 514. See, however, for other interpretations A. Morell Thesaurus p. 120 f., pL 3, 6 Cornelia.

^P, S. Bartoli and J. P. Bellori Columna Antoniniana pL 15.

^Dio Cass. 71. 8ff., Oros. 7. 15. 7 ff., alib.

8 The identification is confirmed by the analogy of Trajan's Column, which similarly shows Jupiter in defence of the Romans hurling his thunderbolt at the Dacians: cp. V. Duruy Hist, of Rome iv. 767 with v. 195.

^S. Reinach Rt'pertoire de la Statuaire ii. 172, 7 shows a bronze figure of a nude bearded man with outstretched wings and arms, who has also small wings on his feet and is represented as flying through the air. Reinach suggests, though with a query, that he is an Orphic deity. May he not rather be Jupiter Pluvius? — unless indeed he is Dnedalus.