Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/336

 2 88 The European Sky -God.

Dionysius,^ who calls him Alladius, says that " in con- tempt of the gods he contrived mock thunderbolts and noises like thunder, wherewith he thought to frighten men as though he were a god. But a storm fraught with rain and lightning falling upon his house, and the lake near which it stood swelling in an unusual manner, he was drowned with his whole family." Caeculus, the founder of Praeneste, where there was an oak-cult of Jupiter and Fortuna,'-^ had been conceived by his mother from a spark off the hearth, and proved his divine origin to an incredulous crowd by enveloping them with flame.^ Probably both Alladius and Caeculus, like Salmoneus in the Greek myth,^ claimed to be Jupiter incarnate.

In the first edition of his Golden Bough Dr. Frazer suggested that the rex Nemorensis or king of Diana's Wood at Nemi personated an oak-Jupiter.^ This sugges- tion, I confess, at the time failed to convince me. But by way of support for it I pointed out,^ in a review of Dr. Frazer's second edition, that at Aquileia Jupiter actually bore the title Dianus ; '' and at Aquileia, I may add, there was also a cult of Imperial Diana.^ Partly on the strength of this Jupiter Dianus Dr. Frazer amended his original suggestion, and towards the close of 1903 told me that, according to his revised theory, the partner of Diana at Nemi must have been Dianus or Janus, a collateral form of Jupiter. I am now satisfied that he was from the outset on the right track, and that a Dianus or Janus

1 Dionys. ant. Rom. I. 71. "^ Sitpra p. 280 f.

^Serv. in Verg. Aen. 7. 678. * Folk-lore xv. 300, 312.

^Frazer Golden Bough^ ii. 369 f., ib."^ iii. 450, 456 f.

^ Class. Rev. xvi. 372 n. i.

'' Corp. inscrr. Lai. v. 783 lovi Diano. C • Herren • nius • Candidus V ■ s • 1 ■ ni.

^Dessau 3245 f. prints in juxtaposition two very similar dedications to Diana, one to Diana Nemorensis now at Narona, the other to Diana Augusta found at Aquileia. The cult of Diana Augusta at Aquileia is also attested by Corp. inscrr. Lat. v. 771, 772.