Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/334

 286 The European Sky -God.

legends have come down to us which tell how the early king was after his death identified with Jupiter. Thus Festus^ says of Latinus, the eponymous king of the Latins, that " he vanished in a battle with Mezentius king of Caere, and was thought to have become Jupiter Latiaris." So too Aeneas, the founder of the Alban dynasty, disappeared in a battle with Mezentius or with Turnus, and was thenceforward worshipped under the title Jupiter Indiges.^ Romulus, according to the usual tradition, was caught up to heaven in a thunderstorm, but subsequently appeared in more than mortal beauty to Proculus Julius, and announced that he had become the god Ouirinus,^ i.e. " the oak-god." Nor was it only after death that the early Italian king claimed the attri- butes of divinity. Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, who fortified Alba Longa, was surnamed lulus ; ^ and lulus means "young Jupiter."^ The bright, but harmless flame, which is said to have played about his head, was appropriate to a representative of the sky-god : his grand- father on seeing it at once recognised the sign, and offered a prayer to Jupiter of the sky.^ Ascanius at his death left a son also called lulus ; '^ and the poets speak of

•* Fest. p. 193 Lindemann, cp. schol. Bob. m Cic. pro Plane, p. 256 Orelli.

^Liv. I. 2. 6, Plin. nat. hist. 3. 56, Serv. in Verg. Aen. i. 259, 4. 620.

^Liv. I. 16. I ff., Ov. fast. 2. 475 ff., Plut. vit. Rom. 27 f., Dionys. ant. Koin. 2. 56, alib.

^Verg. Aen. i. 267 ff., alib.

®[Aur. Vict.] orig. gent. Rom. 15. 5 igitur Latini Ascanium ob insignem virtutem non solum love ortum crediderunt, sed etiam per diminutionem, declinato paululum nomine, primo lobum, dein postea lulum appellarunt ; a quo lulia familia manavit, ut scribunt Caesar lib. ii. et Cato in Originibus. The name has been traced through the forms Diovilus, lovilus, lohilus, loihis, lulus: see Biicheler in Rhein. Mus. 1889 xliii. 135, 1890 xliv. 323, Stolz Hist. Grainfii. d. lat. Spr. i. 204, 460.

®Verg. Aen. 2. 680 ff.

"[Aur. Vict.] orig. gent. Rom. 17. 4, cp. Hieronym. ad ami. 870 Ascanius lulium procreavit, a (juo familia luliorum orta.