Diocletian - Roman Emperor: 284-305 A.D.
Bronze Antoninianus 21mm (3.34 grams) Heraclea mint: 295-297 A.D.
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IMPCCVALDIOCLETIANVSPFAVG - Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right.
CONCORDIAMILITVM Exe: HЄ - Diocletian  standing right on left, receiving Victory
on globe  from Jupiter to right, holding scepter.

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Diocletian (Latin: Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Augustus;  c. 22 December 244  - 3 December 311), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305. Born to a family  of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia , Diocletian rose  through the ranks of the military to become cavalry commander to the Emperor Carus . After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on campaign in Persia, Diocletian was  proclaimed Emperor. The title was also claimed by Carus' other surviving son, Carinus , but Diocletian defeated him in the Battle of the Margus . Diocletian's reign  stabilized the Empire and marks the end of the Crisis of the Third Century . He appointed  fellow officer Maximian Augustus his senior co-emperor in 285.

Diocletian delegated further on 1 March 293, appointing Galerius and Constantius as Caesars , junior co-emperors. Under this "Tetrarchy",  or "rule of four", each emperor would rule over a quarter-division of the  Empire. Diocletian secured the Empire's borders and purged it of all threats to  his power. He defeated the Sarmatians and Carpi during several campaigns between 285 and  299, the Alamanni in 288, and usurpers in Egypt between 297 and 298. Galerius, aided by  Diocletian, campaigned successfully against Sassanid Persia , the Empire's traditional  enemy. In 299 he sacked their capital, Ctesiphon . Diocletian led the subsequent  negotiations and achieved a lasting and favorable peace. Diocletian separated  and enlarged the Empire's civil and military services and reorganized the  Empire's provincial divisions, establishing the largest and most bureaucratic government in the history of the  Empire. He established new administrative centers in Nicomedia , Mediolanum , Antioch , and Trier , closer to the Empire's frontiers than  the traditional capital at Rome had been. Building on third-century trends  towards absolutism , he styled himself an autocrat,  elevating himself above the Empire's masses with imposing forms of court  ceremonies and architecture. Bureaucratic and military growth, constant  campaigning, and construction projects increased the state's expenditures and  necessitated a comprehensive tax reform. From at least 297 on, imperial taxation  was standardized, made more equitable, and levied at generally higher rates.

Not all of Diocletian's plans were successful: the Edict on Maximum Prices (301), his attempt  to curb inflation via price controls , was counterproductive and  quickly ignored. Although effective while he ruled, Diocletian's Tetrarchic  system collapsed after his abdication under the competing dynastic claims of Maxentius and Constantine , sons of Maximian and Constantius  respectively. The Diocletianic Persecution (303-11), the Empire's  last, largest, and bloodiest official persecution of Christianity , did not destroy the Empire's  Christian community; indeed, after 324 Christianity became the empire's  preferred religion under its first Christian emperor, Constantine .

In spite of his failures, Diocletian's reforms fundamentally changed the  structure of Roman imperial government and helped stabilize the Empire  economically and militarily, enabling the Empire to remain essentially intact  for another hundred years despite being near the brink of collapse in  Diocletian's youth. Weakened by illness, Diocletian left the imperial office on  1 May 305, and became the only Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate the  position. He lived out his retirement in his palace on the Dalmatian coast, tending to  his vegetable gardens. His palace eventually became the core of the modern-day  city of Split .

Early life

Diocletian was probably born near Salona in Dalmatia (Solin  in modern Croatia ), some time around 244. His parents  named him Diocles, or possibly Diocles Valerius. The modern historian Timothy Barnes takes his official birthday, 22  December, as his actual birthdate. Other historians are not so certain. Diocles'  parents were of low status, and writers critical of him claimed that his father  was a scribe or a freedman of the senator Anullinus, or even that  Diocles was a freedman himself. The first forty years of his life are mostly  obscure. The Byzantine chronicler Joannes Zonaras states that he was Dux Moesiae , a commander of forces on the lower Danube . The often-unreliable Historia Augusta states that he served in  Gaul, but this account is not corroborated by other sources and is ignored by  modern historians of the period.

Death of Numerian

Emperor Carus ' death left his unpopular sons Numerian  and Carinus as the new Augusti. Carinus quickly made his way to Rome from  Gaul and arrived by January 284. Numerian lingered in the east. The Roman  withdrawal from Persia was orderly and unopposed. The Sassanid king Bahram II could not field an army against them  as he was still struggling to establish his authority. By March 284, Numerian  had only reached Emesa (Homs) in Syria ; by November, only Asia Minor. In Emesa  he was apparently still alive and in good health: he issued the only extant rescript in his name there, but after he left  the city, his staff, including the prefect Aper , reported that he suffered from an  inflammation of the eyes. He traveled in a closed coach from then on. When the  army reached Bithynia , some of the soldiers smelled an odor  emanating from the coach. They opened its curtains and inside they found  Numerian dead.

Aper officially broke the news in Nicomedia (İzmit)  in November. Numerianus' generals and tribunes called a council for the  succession, and chose Diocles as Emperor, in spite of Aper's attempts to garner  support. On 20 November 284, the army of the east gathered on a hill 5  kilometres (3.1 mi) outside Nicomedia. The army unanimously saluted Diocles as  their new Augustus, and he accepted the purple imperial vestments. He raised his  sword to the light of the sun and swore an oath disclaiming responsibility for  Numerian's death. He asserted that Aper had killed Numerian and concealed it. In  full view of the army, Diocles drew his sword and killed Aper. According to the Historia Augusta, he quoted from Virgil while doing so. Soon after Aper's death,  Diocles changed his name to the more Latinate "Diocletianus", in full Gaius  Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus.

Conflict with Carinus

After his accession, Diocletian and Lucius Caesonius Bassus were named as  consuls and assumed the fasces in place of Carinus and Numerianus.  Bassus was a member of a senatorial family from Campania , a former consul and proconsul of  Africa, chosen by Probus for signal distinction. He was skilled in areas of  government where Diocletian presumably had no experience. Diocletian's elevation  of Bassus as consul symbolized his rejection of Carinus' government in Rome, his  refusal to accept second-tier status to any other emperor, and his willingness  to continue the long-standing collaboration between the Empire's senatorial and  military aristocracies. It also tied his success to that of the Senate, whose  support he would need in his advance on Rome.

Diocletian was not the only challenger to Carinus' rule: the usurper M. Aurelius Julianus , Carinus' corrector  Venetiae, took control of northern Italy and Pannonia after Diocletian's accession. Julianus  minted coins from the mint at Siscia (Sisak,  Croatia) declaring himself as Emperor and promising freedom. It was all good  publicity for Diocletian, and it aided in his portrayal of Carinus as a cruel  and oppressive tyrant. Julianus' forces were weak, however, and were handily  dispersed when Carinus' armies moved from Britain to northern Italy. As leader  of the united East, Diocletian was clearly the greater threat. Over the winter  of 284-85, Diocletian advanced west across the Balkans . In the spring, some time before the  end of May, his armies met Carinus' across the river Margus (Great  Morava) in Moesia . In modern accounts, the site has been  located between the Mons Aureus (Seone, west of Smederevo ) and Viminacium , near modern Belgrade , Serbia.

Despite having the stronger army, Carinus held the weaker position. His rule  was unpopular, and it was later alleged that he had mistreated the Senate and  seduced his officers' wives. It is possible that Flavius Constantius , the governor of Dalmatia  and Diocletian's associate in the household guard, had already defected to  Diocletian in the early spring. When the Battle of the Margus began, Carinus' prefect  Aristobulus also defected. In the course of the battle, Carinus was killed by  his own men. Following Diocletian's victory, both the western and the eastern  armies acclaimed him Augustus. Diocletian exacted an oath of allegiance from the  defeated army and departed for Italy.

Early rule

Diocletian may have become involved in battles against the Quadi and Marcomanni immediately after the Battle of the  Margus. He eventually made his way to northern Italy and made an imperial  government, but it is not known whether he visited the city of Rome at this  time. There is a contemporary issue of coins suggestive of an imperial adventus (arrival) for the city, but some  modern historians state that Diocletian avoided the city, and that he did so on  principle, as the city and its Senate were no longer politically relevant to the  affairs of the Empire and needed to be taught as much. Diocletian dated his  reign from his elevation by the army, not the date of his ratification by the  Senate, following the practice established by Carus, who had declared the  Senate's ratification a useless formality. If Diocletian ever did enter Rome  shortly after his accession, he did not stay long; he is attested back in the  Balkans by 2 November 285, on campaign against the Sarmatians .

Diocletian replaced the prefect of Rome with his consular colleague  Bassus. Most officials who had served under Carinus, however, retained their  offices under Diocletian. In an act of clementia denoted by the  epitomator Aurelius Victor as unusual, Diocletian did not  kill or depose Carinus' traitorous praetorian prefect and consul Ti. Claudius  Aurelius Aristobulus, but confirmed him in both roles. He later gave him the  proconsulate of Africa and the rank of urban prefect. The other figures who  retained their offices might have also betrayed Carinus.

Maximian made  co-emperor

 

Maximian's consistent loyalty to Diocletian proved an important  component of the Tetrarchy's early successes.

The assassinations of Aurelian and Probus demonstrated that sole  rulership was dangerous to the stability of the Empire. Conflict boiled in every  province, from Gaul to Syria, Egypt to the lower Danube. It was too much for one  person to control, and Diocletian needed a lieutenant. At some time in 285 at Mediolanum (Milan),  Diocletian raised his fellow-officer Maximian to the office of Caesar , making him co-emperor.

The concept of dual rulership was nothing new to the Roman Empire. Augustus , the first Emperor, had nominally  shared power with his colleagues, and more formal offices of co-Emperor had  existed from Marcus Aurelius on. Most recently, the emperor  Carus and his sons had ruled together, albeit unsuccessfully. Diocletian was in  a less comfortable position than most of his predecessors, as he had a daughter,  Valeria, but no sons. His co-ruler had to be from outside his family, raising  the question of trust. Some historians state that Diocletian adopted Maximian as  his filius Augusti, his "Augustan son", upon his appointment to the  throne, following the precedent of some previous emperors. This argument has not  been universally accepted.

The relationship between Diocletian and Maximian was quickly couched in  religious terms. Around 287 Diocletian assumed the title Iovius, and  Maximian assumed the title Herculius. The titles were probably meant to  convey certain characteristics of their associated leaders. Diocletian, in Jovian style, would take on the dominating  roles of planning and commanding; Maximian, in Herculian mode, would act as Jupiter's heroic subordinate. For all their religious connotations, the  emperors were not "gods" in the tradition of the Imperial cult -although they may have been  hailed as such in Imperial panegyrics . Instead, they were seen as the  gods' representatives, effecting their will on earth. The shift from military  acclamation to divine sanctification took the power to appoint emperors away  from the army. Religious legitimization elevated Diocletian and Maximian above  potential rivals in a way military power and dynastic claims could not.

Conflict  with Sarmatia and Persia

After his acclamation, Maximian was dispatched to fight the rebel Bagaudae in Gaul. Diocletian returned to the  East, progressing slowly. By 2 November, he had only reached Citivas Iovia  (Botivo, near Ptuj , Slovenia ). In the Balkans during the autumn of  285, he encountered a tribe of Sarmatians who demanded assistance. The  Sarmatians requested that Diocletian either help them recover their lost lands  or grant them pasturage rights within the Empire. Diocletian refused and fought  a battle with them, but was unable to secure a complete victory. The nomadic  pressures of the European Plain remained and could not be solved  by a single war; soon the Sarmatians would have to be fought again.

Diocletian wintered in Nicomedia . There may have been a revolt in the  eastern provinces at this time, as he brought settlers from Asia to populate emptied farmlands in Thrace . He visited Syria Palaestina the following spring, His stay  in the East saw diplomatic success in the conflict with Persia: in 287, Bahram II granted him precious gifts, declared  open friendship with the Empire, and invited Diocletian to visit him. Roman  sources insist that the act was entirely voluntary.

Around the same time, perhaps in 287, Persia relinquished claims on Armenia and recognized Roman authority over  territory to the west and south of the Tigris. The western portion of Armenia  was incorporated into the Empire and made a province. Tiridates III , Arsacid claimant to the Armenian throne and  Roman client, had been disinherited and forced to take refuge in the Empire  after the Persian conquest of 252-53. In 287, he returned to lay claim to the  eastern half of his ancestral domain and encountered no opposition. Bahram II's  gifts were widely recognized as symbolic of a victory in the ongoing conflict with Persia , and Diocletian was hailed  as the "founder of eternal peace". The events might have represented a formal  end to Carus' eastern campaign, which probably ended without an acknowledged  peace. At the conclusion of discussions with the Persians, Diocletian  re-organized the Mesopotamian frontier and fortified the city of Circesium (Buseire, Syria) on the Euphrates .

Maximian made  Augustus

Maximian's campaigns were not proceeding as smoothly. The Bagaudae had been  easily suppressed, but Carausius , the man he had put in charge of  operations against Saxon and Frankish pirates on the Saxon Shore , had begun keeping the goods seized  from the pirates for himself. Maximian issued a death-warrant for his larcenous  subordinate. Carausius fled the Continent, proclaimed himself Augustus, and  agitated Britain and northwestern Gaul into open revolt against Maximian and  Diocletian. Spurred by the crisis, on 1 April 286, Maximian took up the title of Augustus . His appointment is unusual in that it  was impossible for Diocletian to have been present to witness the event. It has  even been suggested that Maximian usurped the title and was only later  recognized by Diocletian in hopes of avoiding civil war. This suggestion is  unpopular, as it is clear that Diocletian meant for Maximian to act with a  certain amount of independence.

Maximian realized that he could not immediately suppress the rogue commander,  so in 287 he campaigned solely against tribes beyond the Rhine instead. The following spring, as  Maximian prepared a fleet for an expedition against Carausius, Diocletian  returned from the East to meet Maximian. The two emperors agreed on a joint  campaign against the Alamanni . Diocletian invaded Germania through  Raetia while Maximian progressed from Mainz. Each emperor burned crops and food  supplies as he went, destroying the Germans' means of sustenance. The two men  added territory to the Empire and allowed Maximian to continue preparations  against Carausius without further disturbance. On his return to the East,  Diocletian managed what was probably another rapid campaign against the  resurgent Sarmatians. No details survive, but surviving inscriptions indicate  that Diocletian took the title Sarmaticus Maximus after 289.

In the East, Diocletian engaged in diplomacy with desert tribes in the  regions between Rome and Persia. He might have been attempting to persuade them  to ally themselves with Rome, thus reviving the old, Rome-friendly, Palmyrene sphere of influence , or simply attempting to  reduce the frequency of their incursions. No details survive for these events.  Some of the princes of these states were Persian client kings, a disturbing fact  in light of increasing tensions with the Sassanids. In the West, Maximian lost  the fleet built in 288 and 289, probably in the early spring of 290. The panegyrist who refers to the loss suggests that  its cause was a storm, but this might simply be the an attempt to conceal an  embarrassing military defeat. Diocletian broke off his tour of the Eastern  provinces soon thereafter. He returned with haste to the West, reaching Emesa by  10 May 290, and Sirmium on the Danube by 1 July 290.

Diocletian met Maximian in Milan in the winter of 290-91, either in late  December 290 or January 291. The meeting was undertaken with a sense of solemn  pageantry. The Emperors spent most of their time in public appearances. It has  been surmised that the ceremonies were arranged to demonstrate Diocletian's  continuing support for his faltering colleague. A deputation from the Roman  Senate met with the Emperors, renewing its infrequent contact with the Imperial  office. The choice of Milan over Rome further snubbed the capital's pride. But  then it was already a long established practice that Rome itself was only a  ceremonial capital, as the actual seat of the Imperial administration was  determined by the needs of defense. Long before Diocletian, Gallienus (r. 253-68) had chosen Milan as the  seat of his headquarters. If the panegyric detailing the ceremony implied that  the true center of the Empire was not Rome, but where the Emperor sat ("...the  capital of the Empire appeared to be there, where the two emperors met"), it  simply echoed what had already been stated by the historian Herodian in the early third century: "Rome is  where the emperor is". During the meeting, decisions on matters of politics and  war were probably made in secret. The Augusti would not meet again until 303.

Tetrarchy

Foundation of the  Tetrarchy

Triumphal Arch of the Tetrarchy, Sbeitla , Tunisia

Some time after his return, and before 293, Diocletian transferred command of  the war against Carausius from Maximian to Constantius Chlorus , a former governor of  Dalmatia and a man of military experience stretching back to Aurelian 's campaigns against Zenobia (272-73). He was Maximian's praetorian  prefect in Gaul, and the husband to Maximian's daughter, Theodora . On 1 March 293 at Milan, Maximian  gave Constantius the office of Caesar. In the spring of 293, in either  Philippopolis (Plovdiv, Bulgaria ) or Sirmium, Diocletian would do the  same for Galerius , husband to Diocletian's daughter  Valeria, and perhaps Diocletian's praetorian prefect. Constantius was assigned  Gaul and Britain. Galerius was assigned Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and  responsibility for the eastern borderlands.

This arrangement is called the Tetrarchy, from a Greek term meaning "rulership by four". The  Tetrarchic Emperors were more or less sovereign in their own lands, and they  travelled with their own imperial courts, administrators, secretaries, and  armies. They were joined by blood and marriage; Diocletian and Maximian now  styled themselves as brothers. The senior co-Emperors formally adopted Galerius  and Constantius as sons in 293. These relationships implied a line of  succession. Galerius and Constantius would become Augusti after the departure of  Diocletian and Maximian. Maximian's son Maxentius and Constantius' son Constantine would then become Caesars. In  preparation for their future roles, Constantine and Maxentius were taken to  Diocletian's court in Nicomedia.

Conflict in  the Balkans and Egypt

Diocletian spent the spring of 293 traveling with Galerius from Sirmium (Sremska  Mitrovica, Serbia ) to Byzantium (Istanbul, Turkey ). Diocletian then returned to Sirmium,  where he would remain for the following winter and spring. He campaigned against  the Sarmatians again in 294, probably in the autumn, and won a victory against  them. The Sarmatians' defeat kept them from the Danube provinces for a long  time. Meanwhile, Diocletian built forts north of the Danube, at Aquincum (Budapest, Hungary ), Bononia (Vidin,  Bulgaria), Ulcisia Vetera, Castra Florentium, Intercisa (Dunaújváros,  Hungary), and Onagrinum (Begeč,  Serbia). The new forts became part of a new defensive line called the Ripa  Sarmatica. In 295 and 296 Diocletian campaigned in the region again, and won  a victory over the Carpi in the summer of 296. Afterwards, during 299 and 302,  as Diocletian was then residing in the East, it was Galerius' turn to campaign  victoriously on the Danube. By the end of his reign, Diocletian had secured the  entire length of the Danube, provided it with forts, bridgeheads, highways, and  walled towns, and sent fifteen or more legions to patrol the region; an  inscription at Sexaginta Prista on the Lower Danube extolled  restored tranquilitas at the region. The defense came at a heavy cost,  but was a significant achievement in an area difficult to defend.

Galerius, meanwhile, was engaged during 291-293 in disputes in Upper Egypt , where he suppressed a regional  uprising. He would return to Syria in 295 to fight the revanchist Persian  Empire. Diocletian's attempts to bring the Egyptian tax system in line with  Imperial standards stirred discontent, and a revolt swept the region after  Galerius' departure. The usurper L. Domitius Domitianus declared himself  Augustus in July or August 297. Much of Egypt, including Alexandria , recognized his rule. Diocletian  moved into Egypt to suppress him, first putting down rebels in the Thebaid in the autumn of 297, then moving on to  besiege Alexandria. Domitianus died in December 297, by which time Diocletian  had secured control of the Egyptian countryside. Alexandria, whose defense was  organized under Diocletian's former corrector Aurelius Achilleus , held out until a later  date, probably March 298.

Bureaucratic affairs were completed during Diocletian's stay: a census took  place, and Alexandria, in punishment for its rebellion, lost the ability to mint  independently. Diocletian's reforms in the region, combined with those of Septimus Severus , brought Egyptian  administrative practices much closer to Roman standards. Diocletian travelled  south along the Nile the following summer, where he visited Oxyrhynchus and Elephantine . In Nubia, he made peace with the Nobatae and Blemmyes tribes. Under the terms of the peace  treaty Rome's borders moved north to Philae and the two tribes received an annual  gold stipend. Diocletian left Africa quickly after the treaty, moving from Upper  Egypt in September 298 to Syria in February 299. He met up with Galerius in  Mesopotamia.

War with Persia
Invasion, counterinvasion

In 294, Narseh , a son of Shapur who had been passed  over for the Sassanid succession, came to power in Persia. Narseh eliminated Bahram III , a young man installed in the wake  of Bahram II's death in 293. In early 294, Narseh sent Diocletian the customary  package of gifts between the empires, and Diocletian responded with an exchange  of ambassadors. Within Persia, however, Narseh was destroying every trace of his  immediate predecessors from public monuments. He sought to identify himself with  the warlike kings Ardashir (r. 226-41) and Shapur I (r. 241-72), who had sacked Roman  Antioch and skinned the Emperor Valerian (r. 253-260) to decorate his war  temple.

Narseh declared war on Rome in 295 or 296. He appears to have first invaded  western Armenia, where he seized the lands delivered to Tiridates in the peace  of 287. Narseh moved south into Roman Mesopotamia in 297, where he inflicted a  severe defeat on Galerius in the region between Carrhae (Harran,  Turkey) and Callinicum (Ar-Raqqah,  Syria) (and thus, the historian Fergus Millar notes, probably somewhere on the Balikh River ). Diocletian may or may not have  been present at the battle, but he quickly divested himself of all  responsibility. In a public ceremony at Antioch, the official version of events  was clear: Galerius was responsible for the defeat; Diocletian was not.  Diocletian publicly humiliated Galerius, forcing him to walk for a mile at the  head of the Imperial caravan, still clad in the purple robes of the Emperor.

Galerius was reinforced, probably in the spring of 298, by a new contingent  collected from the Empire's Danubian holdings. Narseh did not advance from  Armenia and Mesopotamia, leaving Galerius to lead the offensive in 298 with an  attack on northern Mesopotamia via Armenia. It is unclear if Diocletian was  present to assist the campaign; he might have returned to Egypt or Syria. Narseh  retreated to Armenia to fight Galerius' force, to Narseh's disadvantage; the  rugged Armenian terrain was favorable to Roman infantry, but not to Sassanid  cavalry. In two battles, Galerius won major victories over Narseh. During the second encounter , Roman forces seized Narseh's  camp, his treasury, his harem, and his wife. Galerius continued moving down the  Tigris, and took the Persian capital Ctesiphon before returning to Roman  territory along the Euphrates.

Narseh sent an ambassador to Galerius to plead for the return of his wives  and children in the course of the war, but Galerius had dismissed him. Serious  peace negotiations began in the spring of 299. The magister memoriae  (secretary) of Diocletian and Galerius, Sicorius Probus, was sent to Narseh to  present terms. The conditions of the resulting Peace of Nisibis were heavy: Armenia returned  to Roman domination, with the fort of Ziatha as its border; Caucasian Iberia would pay allegiance to Rome  under a Roman appointee; Nisibis, now under Roman rule, would become the sole  conduit for trade between Persia and Rome; and Rome would exercise control over  the five satrapies between the Tigris and Armenia: Ingilene, Sophanene (Sophene),  Arzanene (Aghdznik), Corduene (Carduene), and Zabdicene (near modern Hakkâri , Turkey). These regions included the  passage of the Tigris through the Anti-Taurus range; the Bitlis pass, the quickest southerly route into  Persian Armenia; and access to the Tur Abdin plateau.

A stretch of land containing the later strategic strongholds of Amida (Diyarbakır,  Turkey) and Bezabde came under firm Roman military occupation. With these  territories, Rome would have an advance station north of Ctesiphon, and would be  able to slow any future advance of Persian forces through the region. Many  cities east of the Tigris came under Roman control, including Tigranokert , Saird , Martyropolis , Balalesa , Moxos , Daudia , and Arzan - though under what status is  unclear. At the conclusion of the peace, Tiridates regained both his throne and  the entirety of his ancestral claim. Rome secured a wide zone of cultural  influence, which led to a wide diffusion of Syriac Christianity from a center at Nisibis in  later decades, and the eventual Christianization of Armenia.

Religious persecutions

Early persecutions

At the conclusion of the Peace of Nisibis , Diocletian and Galerius  returned to Syrian Antioch. At some time in 299, the Emperors took part in a  ceremony of sacrifice and divination in an attempt to predict the future.  The haruspices were unable to read the entrails of  the sacrificed animals and blamed Christians in the Imperial household. The  Emperors ordered all members of the court to perform a sacrifice to purify the  palace. The Emperors sent letters to the military command, demanding the entire  army perform the required sacrifices or face discharge. Diocletian was  conservative in matters of religion, a man faithful to the traditional Roman  pantheon and understanding of demands for religious purification, but Eusebius , Lactantius and Constantine state that it was Galerius, not  Diocletian, who was the prime supporter of the purge, and its greatest  beneficiary. Galerius, even more devoted and passionate than Diocletian, saw  political advantage in the politics of persecution. He was willing to break with  a government policy of inaction on the issue.

Antioch was Diocletian's primary residence from 299 to 302, while Galerius  swapped places with his Augustus on the Middle and Lower Danube. He visited  Egypt once, over the winter of 301-2, and issued a grain dole in Alexandria.  Following some public disputes with Manicheans , Diocletian ordered that the leading  followers of Mani be burnt alive along with their  scriptures. In a 31 March 302 rescript from Alexandria, he declared that  low-status Manicheans must be executed by the blade, and high-status Manicheans  must be sent to work in the quarries of Proconnesus (Marmara  Island, Turkey) or the mines of Phaeno in southern Palestine . All Manichean property was to be  seized and deposited in the imperial treasury. Diocletian found much to be  offended by in Manichean religion: its novelty, its alien origins, the way it  corrupted the morals of the Roman race, and its inherent opposition to  long-standing religious traditions. Manichaeanism was also supported by Persia  at the time, compounding religious dissent with international politics.  Excepting Persian support, the reasons he disliked Manichaenism were equally  applicable, if not more so, to Christianity, his next target.

Diocletian saw his work as that of a restorer, a figure of authority whose  duty it was to return the empire to peace, to recreate stability and justice  where barbarian hordes had destroyed it. He arrogated, regimented and  centralized political authority on a massive scale. In his policies, he enforced  an Imperial system of values on diverse and often unreceptive provincial  audiences. In the Imperial propaganda from the period, recent history was  perverted and minimized in the service of the theme of the Tetrarchs as  "restorers". Aurelian's achievements were ignored, the revolt of Carausius was  backdated to the reign of Gallienus, and it was implied that the Tetrarchs  engineered Aurelian's defeat of the Palmyrenes ; the period between Gallienus and  Diocletian was effectively erased. The history of the empire before the  Tetrarchy was portrayed as a time of civil war, savage despotism, and imperial  collapse. In those inscriptions that bear their names, Diocletian and his  companions are referred to as "restorers of the whole world", men who succeeded  in "defeating the nations of the barbarians, and confirming the tranquility of  their world". Diocletian was written up as the "founder of eternal peace". The  theme of restoration was conjoined to an emphasis on the uniqueness and  accomplishments of the Tetrarchs themselves.

The cities where Emperors lived frequently in this period-Milan, Trier , Arles , Sirmium, Serdica , Thessaloniki , Nicomedia, and Antioch -were treated as alternate imperial  seats, to the exclusion of Rome and its senatorial elite. A new style of  ceremony was developed, emphasizing the distinction of the Emperor from all  other persons. The quasi-republican ideals of Augustus' primus inter pares were abandoned for all  but the Tetrarchs themselves. Diocletian took to wearing a gold crown and  jewels, and forbade the use of purple cloth to all but the Emperors. His  subjects were required to prostrate themselves in his presence (adoratio);  the most fortunate were allowed the privilege of kissing the hem of his robe (proskynesis,  προσκύνησις). Circuses and basilicas were designed to keep the face of the  Emperor perpetually in view, and always in a seat of authority. The emperor  became a figure of transcendent authority, a man beyond the grip of the masses.  His every appearance was stage-managed. This style of presentation was not  new-many of its elements were first seen in the reigns of Aurelian and  Severus-but it was only under the Tetrarchs that it was refined into an explicit  system.

Legacy

The historian A.H.M. Jones observed that "It is perhaps  Diocletian's greatest achievement that he reigned twenty-one years and then  abdicated voluntarily, and spent the remaining years of his life in peaceful  retirement." Diocletian was one of the few Emperors of the third and fourth  centuries to die naturally, and the first in the history of the Empire to retire  voluntarily. Once he retired, however, his Tetrarchic system collapsed. Without  the guiding hand of Diocletian, the Empire fell into civil wars. Stability  emerged after the defeat of Licinius by Constantine in 324. Under the Christian  Constantine, Diocletian was maligned. Constantine's rule, however, validated  Diocletian's achievements and the autocratic principle he represented: the  borders remained secure, in spite of Constantine's large expenditure of forces  during his civil wars; the bureaucratic transformation of Roman government was  completed; and Constantine took Diocletian's court ceremonies and made them even  more extravagant.

Constantine ignored those parts of Diocletian's rule that did not suit him.  Diocletian's policy of preserving a stable silver coinage was abandoned, and the  gold solidus became the Empire's primary  currency instead. Diocletian's persecution of Christians was repudiated and  changed to a policy of toleration and then favoritism. Christianity eventually  became the official religion in 381. Constantine would claim to have the same  close relationship with the Christian God as Diocletian claimed to have with  Jupiter. Most importantly, Diocletian's tax system and administrative reforms  lasted, with some modifications, until the advent of the Muslims in the 630s.  The combination of state autocracy and state religion was instilled in much of  Europe, particularly in the lands which adopted Orthodox Christianity.

In addition to his administrative and legal impact on history, the Emperor  Diocletian is considered to be the founder of the city of Split in modern-day Croatia . The city itself grew around the  heavily fortified Diocletian's Palace the Emperor had built in  anticipation of his retirement.

In ancient Roman religion and myth , Jupiter (Latin: Iuppiter) or Jove is the king of the gods and the god of sky and thunder . Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman  state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until the Empire came under Christian rule . In Roman mythology , he negotiates with Numa Pompilius , the second king of Rome , to establish principles of Roman  religion such as sacrifice.

Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god. His identifying  implement is the thunderbolt , and his primary sacred animal is  the eagle, which held precedence over other birds in the taking of auspices and became one of the most common  symbols of the Roman army (see Aquila ). The two emblems were often combined to  represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt,  frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins. As the sky-god, he was a divine  witness to oaths, the sacred trust on which justice and good government depend.  Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline ("Capitol Hill"), where the citadel was located. He was the chief deity of  the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus . In the later Capitoline Triad , he was the central  guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva . His sacred tree was the oak.

The Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art , the myths and iconography of Zeus  are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition,  Jupiter was the brother of Neptune and Pluto . Each presided over one of the three  realms of the universe: sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who  manifested himself in the daylight, usually but not always identified with  Jupiter. The Etruscan counterpart was Tinia and Hindu counterpart is Indra .

Jupiter and the state

The Romans believed that Jupiter granted them supremacy because they had  honoured him more than any other people had. Jupiter was "the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the  city with the gods rested." He personified the divine authority of Rome's  highest offices, internal organization, and external relations. His image in the Republican and Imperial Capitol bore regalia associated with Rome's ancient kings and the highest consular and Imperial honours .

The consuls swore their oath of office in Jupiter's name, and honoured him on  the annual feriae of the Capitol in September. To  thank him for his help (and to secure his continued support), they offered him a  white ox (bos mas) with gilded horns. A similar offering was made by triumphal generals , who surrendered the tokens  of their victory at the feet of Jupiter's statue in the Capitol. Some scholars  have viewed the triumphator as embodying (or impersonating) Jupiter in  the triumphal procession.

Jupiter's association with kingship and sovereignty was reinterpreted as  Rome's form of government changed. Originally, Rome was ruled by kings ; after the monarchy was  abolished and the Republic established, religious prerogatives  were transferred to the patres, the patrician ruling class . Nostalgia for the  kingship (affectatio regni) was considered treasonous. Those suspected of  harbouring monarchical ambitions were punished, regardless of their service to  the state. In the 5th century BC, the triumphator Furius Camillus was sent into exile after he  drove a chariot with a team of four white horses (quadriga)-an  honour reserved for Jupiter himself. After the Gallic occupation ended and self-rule was  restored, Manlius Capitolinus took on regal pretensions  and was executed as a traitor by being cast from the Tarpeian Rock . His house on the Capitoline was  razed, and it was decreed that no patrician should ever be allowed to live  there. Capitoline Jupiter finds himself in a delicate position: he represents a  continuity of royal power from the Regal period , and confers power on the magistrates who pay their respects to him; at  the same time he embodies that which is now forbidden, abhorred, and  scorned.During the Conflict of the Orders , Rome's plebeians demanded the right to hold political  and religious office. During their first secessio (similar to a general strike ), they withdrew from the city  and threatened to found their own. When they agreed to came back to Rome they  vowed the hill where they had retreated to Jupiter as symbol and guarantor of  the unity of the Roman res publica. Plebeians eventually became eligible  for all the magistracies and most priesthoods, but the high  priest of Jupiter (Flamen  Dialis) remained the preserve of patricians.

Flamen and  Flaminica Dialis

Jupiter was served by the patrician Flamen Dialis, the highest-ranking member  of the flamines , a college of fifteen priests in the official  public cult of Rome, each of whom was devoted to a particular deity. His wife,  the Flaminica Dialis, had her own duties, and presided over the sacrifice of a  ram to Jupiter on each of the nundinae , the "market" days of a calendar  cycle, comparable to a week. The couple were required to marry by the exclusive  patrician ritual confarreatio , which included a sacrifice of spelt bread to Jupiter Farreus (from far,  "wheat, grain").

The office of Flamen Dialis was circumscribed by several unique ritual  prohibitions, some of which shed light on the sovereign nature of the god  himself. For instance, the flamen may remove his clothes or apex (his pointed hat) only when under a  roof, in order to avoid showing himself naked to the sky-that is, "as if under  the eyes of Jupiter" as god of the heavens. Every time the Flaminica saw a  lightningbolt or heard a clap of thunder (Jupiter's distinctive instrument), she  was prohibited from carrying on with her normal routine until she placated the  god.

Some privileges of the flamen of Jupiter may reflect the regal nature  of Jupiter: he had the use of the curule chair , and was the only priest (sacerdos)  who was preceded by a lictor and had a seat in the senate . Other regulations concern his ritual  purity and his separation from the military function; he was forbidden to ride a  horse or see the army outside the sacred boundary of Rome (pomerium).  Although he served the god who embodied the sanctity of the oath, it was not  religiously permissible (fas)  for the Dialis to swear an oath. He could not have contacts with anything dead  or connected with death: corpses, funerals, funeral fires, raw meat. This set of  restrictions reflects the fulness of life and absolute freedom that are features  of Jupiter.

Augurs

The augures publici, augurs were a college of sacerdotes who  were in charge of all inaugurations and of the performing of ceremonies known as auguria. Their creation was traditionally ascribed to Romulus. They were  considered the only official interprets of Jupiter's will, thence they were  essential to the very existence of the Roman State as Romans saw in Jupiter the  only source of statal authority.

Fetials

The fetials were a college of 20 men devoted to the  religious administration of international affairs of state. Their task was to  preserve and apply the fetial law (ius fetiale), a complex set of  procedures aimed at ensuring the protection of the gods in Rome's relations with  foreign states. Iuppiter Lapis is the god under whose  protection they act, and whom the chief fetial (pater patratus) invokes  in the rite concluding a treaty. If a declaration of war ensues, the fetial calls  upon Jupiter and Quirinus , the heavenly, earthly and chthonic gods as witnesses of any potential  violation of the ius. He can then declare war within 33 days.

The action of the fetials falls under Jupiter's jurisdiction as the divine  defender of good faith. Several emblems of the fetial office pertain to Jupiter.  The silex was the stone used for the fetial sacrifice, housed in the  Temple of Iuppiter Feretrius , as was their sceptre.  Sacred herbs (sagmina), sometimes identified as vervain , had to be taken from the nearby (arx)citadel  for their ritual use.

Jupiter and religion in the secessions of the plebs

The role of Jupiter in the conflict of the orders is a reflection of the  religiosity of the Romans. Whereas the patricians were able to claim the support  of the supreme god quite naturally being the holders of the auspices of the State, the plebeians argued  that as Jupiter was the source of justice he was on their side since their cause  was just.

The first secession was caused by the excessive burden of debts that weighed  on the plebs. Because of the legal institute of the nexum a debtor could become a slave of his  creditor. The plebeians argued the debts had become unsustainable because of the  expenses of the wars wanted by the patricians. As the senate did not acceed to  the proposal of a total debt remission advanced by dictator and augur Manius  Valerius the plebs retired on the Mount Sacer, a hill located three Roman miles  to the North-northeast of Rome, past the the Nomentan bridge on river Anio . The place is windy and was usually the  site of rites of divination performed by haruspices. The senate in the end sent  a delegation composed of ten members with full powers of making a deal with the  plebs, of which were part Menenius Agrippa and Manius Valerius. It was  Valerius, according to the inscription found at Arezzo in 1688 and written on  the order of Augustus as well as other literary sources, that brought the plebs  down from the Mount, after the secessionists had consecrated it to Jupiter  Territor and built an altar (ara) on its summit. The fear of the  wrath of Jupiter was an important element in the solution of the crisis. The  consecration of the Mount probably referred to its summit only. The ritual  requested the participation of both an augur (presumably Manius Valerius  himself) and a pontifex.

The second secession was caused by the autocratic and arrogant behaviour of  the decemviri who had been charged by the Roman  people with writing down the laws in use til then kept secret by the patrician  magistrates and the sacerdotes. All magistracies and the tribunes of the  plebs had resigned in advance. Their work resulted in the XII Tables, which  though concerned only private law. The plebs once again retreated to the Sacer  Mons: this act besides recalling the first secession was meant to seek the  protection of the supreme god. The secession ended with the resignation of the decemviri and an amnesty for the rebellious soldiers who had deserted  from their camp near Mount Algidus abandoning the commanders. The amnesty was  granted by the senate and guaranteed by the pontifex maximus Quintus  Furius (Livy) (or Marcus Papirius) who also supervised the nomination of the new  tribunes of the plebs then gathered on the Aventine Hill. The role played by the  pontifex maximus in a situation of vacation of powers is a significant element  underlining the religious basis and character of the tribunicia potestas.

Myths and legends

A dominant line of scholarship has held that Rome lacked a body of myths in  its earliest period, or that this original mythology has been irrecoverably  obscured by the influence of the Greek narrative tradition .^[29]  After the Hellenization of Roman culture, Latin  literature and iconography reinterpreted the myths of Zeus in depictions and  narratives of Jupiter. In the legendary history of Rome, Jupiter is often  connected to kings and kingship.

Birth

Jupiter was depicted as the twin of Juno in a statue at Praeneste that showed them nursed by Fortuna Primigenia . An inscription that is also  from Praeneste, however, says that Fortuna Primigenia was Jupiter's first-born  child. Jacqueline Champeaux sees this contradiction as the result of successive  different cultural and religious phases, in which a wave of influence coming  from the Hellenic world made Fortuna the daughter of Jupiter.^[32]  The childhood of Zeus is an important theme in Greek religion, art and  literature, but there are only rare (or dubious) depictions of Jupiter as a  child.

Numa

Faced by a period of bad weather endangering the harvest during one early  spring, King Numa resorted to the scheme of asking the  advice of the god by evoking his presence.He succeeded through the help of Picus  and Faunus, whom he had imprisoned by making them drunk. The two gods (with a  charm) evoked Jupiter, who was forced to come down to earth at the Aventine  (hence named Iuppiter Elicius, according to Ovid). After Numa skilfully  avoided the requests of the god for human sacrifices, Jupiter agreed to his  request to know how lightning bolts are averted, asking only for the  substitutions Numa had mentioned: an onion bulb, hairs and a fish. Moreover,  Jupiter promised that at the sunrise of the following day he would give to Numa  and the Roman people pawns of the imperium. The following day, after  throwing three lightning bolts across a clear sky, Jupiter sent down from heaven  a shield. Since this shield had no angles, Numa named it ancile; because  in it resided the fate of the imperium, he had many copies made of it to  disguise the real one. He asked the smith Mamurius Veturius to make the copies, and gave  them to the Salii . As his only reward, Mamurius expressed  the wish that his name be sung in the last of their carmina.^[35]  Plutarch gives a slightly different version of the story, writing that the cause  of the miraculous drop of the shield was a plague and not linking it with the  Roman imperium.

Tullus Hostilius

Throughout his reign, King Tullus had a scornful attitude towards  religion. His temperament was warlike, and he disregarded religious rites and  piety. After conquering the Albans with the duel between the Horatii and Curiatii , Tullus destroyed Alba Longa and deported its inhabitants to  Rome. As Livy tells the story, omens (prodigia)  in the form of a rain of stones occurred on the Alban Mount because the deported Albans had  disregarded their ancestral rites linked to the sanctuary of Jupiter. In  addition to the omens, a voice was heard requesting that the Albans perform the  rites. A plague followed and at last the king himself fell ill. As a  consequence, the warlike character of Tullus broke down; he resorted to religion  and petty, superstitious practices. At last, he found a book by Numa recording a  secret rite on how to evoke Iuppiter Elicius. The king attempted to  perform it, but since he executed the rite improperly the god threw a lightning  bolt which burned down of the king's house and killed Tullus.

Tarquinius the Elder

When approaching Rome (where Tarquin was heading to try his luck in politics  after unsuccessful attempts in his native Tarquinii ), an eagle swooped down, removed his  hat, flew screaming in circles, replaced the hat on his head and flew away.  Tarquin's wife Tanaquil interpreted this as a sign that he  would become king based on the bird, the quadrant of the sky from which it came,  the god who had sent it and the fact it touched his hat (an item of clothing  placed on a man's most noble part, the head).^[38]

Cult

Emperor Marcus Aurelius , attended by his  family, offers sacrifice outside the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus  after his victories in Germany (late 2nd century AD). Capitoline Museum , Rome

Sacrifices

Sacrificial victims (hostiae)  offered to Jupiter were the oxen (castrated bull), the lamb (on the Ides, the ovis idulis) and the wether (on the Ides of January).The animals  were required to be white. The question of the lamb's gender is unresolved;  while a lamb is generally male, for the vintage-opening festival the flamen  Dialis sacrificed a ewe . This rule seems to have had many  exceptions, as the sacrifice of a ram on the Nundinae by the flaminica Dialis  demonstrates. During one of the crises of the Punic Wars , Jupiter was offered every animal  born that year.

Temples

The temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus stood on the Capitoline Hill . Jupiter was worshiped there as  an individual deity, and with Juno and Minerva as part of the Capitoline Triad . The building was supposedly  begun by king Tarquinius Priscus , completed by the last king  (Tarquinius  Superbus) and inaugurated in the early days of the Roman Republic  (September 13, 509 BC). It was topped with the statues of four horses drawing a quadriga , with Jupiter as charioteer. A large  statue of Jupiter stood within; on festival days, its face was painted red.  In  (or near) this temple was the Iuppiter Lapis: the Jupiter Stone , on which oaths could be sworn.

Jupiter's Capitoline Temple probably served as the architectural model for  his provincial temples. When Hadrian built Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem , a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus was  erected in the place of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem .

There were two temples in Rome dedicated to Iuppiter Stator; the first  one was built and dedicated in 294 BC by Marcus Atilius Regulus after the third Samnite  War. It was located on the Via Nova, below the Porta Mugonia,  ancient entrance to the Palatine. Legend has attributed its founding to Romulus.  There may have been an earlier shrine (fanum),  since the Jupiter's cult is attested epigraphically. Ovid places the temple's dedication on June 27, but it is unclear  whether this was the original date, or the rededication after the restoration by  Augustus.

A second temple of Iuppiter Stator was built and dedicated by Quintus  Caecilus Metellus Macedonicus after his triumph in 146 BC near the Circus Flaminius . It was connected to the  restored temple of Iuno Regina with a portico (porticus Metelli).

Iuppiter Victor had a temple dedicated by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges during the third  Samnite War in 295 BC. Its location is unknown, but it may be on the Quirinal,  on which an inscription reading D]iovei Victore has been found, or on the  Palatine according to the Notitia in the Liber Regionum (regio X),  which reads: aedes Iovis Victoris. Either might have been dedicated on  April 13 or June 13 (days of Iuppiter Victor and of Iuppiter Invictus,  respectively, in Ovid's Fasti). Inscriptions from the imperial age have  revealed the existence of an otherwise-unknown temple of Iuppiter Propugnator  on the Palatine.Iuppiter  Latiaris and Feriae Latinae

The cult of Iuppiter Latiaris was the most ancient known cult of the  god:: it was practised since very remote times near the top of the Mons  Albanus on which the god was venerated as the high protector of the Latin  League under the hegemony of Alba Longa .

After the destruction of Alba by king Tullus Hostilius the cult was forsaken.  The god manifested his discontent through the prodigy of a rain of stones: the  commission sent by the Roman senate to inquire into it was also greeted by a  rain of stones and heard a loud voice from the grove on the summit of the mount  that requested the Albans to perform the religious service to the god according  to the rites of their country. In consequence of this event the Romans  instituted a festival of nine days (nundinae). However a plague ensued:  in the end Tullus Hostilius himself was affected and lastly killed by the god  with a lightningbolt. The festival was reestablished on its primitive site by  the last Roman king Tarquin the Proud under the leadership of Rome.

The feriae Latinae , or Latiar as they were known originally, were  the common festival (panegyris) of the so-called Priscan Latins and of  the Albans. Their restoration aimed at grounding Roman hegemony in this  ancestral religious tradition of the Latins. The original cult was reinstated  unchanged as is testified by some archaic features of the ritual: the exclusion  of wine from the sacrifice the offers of milk and cheese and the ritual use of  rocking among the games. Rocking is one of the most ancient rites mimicking  ascent to Heaven and is very widespread. At the Latiar the rocking took  place on a tree and the winner was of course the one who had swung the highest.  This rite was said to have been instituted by the Albans to commemorate the  disappearance of king Latinus , in the battle against Mezentius king of Caere : the rite symbolised a search for him  both on earth and in heaven. The rocking as well as the customary drinking of  milk was also considered to commemorate and ritually reinstate infancy.^[58]  The Romans in the last form of the rite brought the sacrificial ox from Rome and  every participant was bestowed a portion of the meat, rite known as carnem  petere. Other games were held in every participant borough. In Rome a race  of chariots (quadrigae) was held starting from the Capitol: the winner  drank a liquor made with absynth. This competition has been compared to the  Vedic rite of the vajapeya : in it seventeen chariots run a phoney  race which must be won by the king in order to allow him to drink a cup of madhu, i. e. soma. The feasting lasted for at least four days,  possibly six according to Niebuhr , one day for each of the six Latin and  Alban decuriae. According to different records 47 or 53 boroughs took  part in the festival (the listed names too differ in Pliny NH III 69 and  Dionysius of Halicarnassus AR V 61). The Latiar became an important  feature of Roman political life as they were feriae conceptivae , i. e. their date varied  each year: the consuls and the highest magistrates were required to attend  shortly after the beginning of the adminitration, originally on the Ides of  March: the Feriae usually took place in early April. They could not start  campaigning before its end and if any part of the games had been neglected or  performed unritually the Latiar had to be wholly repeated. The  inscriptions from the imperial age record the festival back to the time of the decemvirs . Wissowa remarks the inner linkage of  the temple of the Mons Albanus with that of the Capitol apparent in the common  association with the rite of the triumph : since 231 BC some triumphing  commanders had triumphed there first with the same legal features as in Rome.

Religious calendar

Ides

The Ides (the midpoint of the month, with a full  moon) was sacred to Jupiter, because on that day heavenly light shone day and  night. Some (or all) Ides were Feriae Iovis, sacred to Jupiter. On the  Ides, a white lamb (ovis idulis) was led along Rome's Sacred Way to the Capitoline Citadel and sacrificed to him.  Jupiter's two epula Iovis festivals fell on the Ides, as  did his temple foundation rites as Optimus Maximus, Victor, Invictus and (possibly) Stator.

Nundinae

The nundinae recurred every ninth day, dividing  the calendar into a market cycle analogous to a week. The market days gave the  rural people (pagi)  the opportunity to sell in town and to be informed of religious and political  edicts, which were posted publicly for three days. According to tradition, these  festival days were instituted by the king Servius Tullius . The high priestess of Jupiter (Flaminica  Dialis) sanctified the days by sacrificing a ram to Jupiter.

Festivals

During the Republican era , more fixed holidays on the Roman calendar were  devoted to Jupiter than to any other deity.

Festivals of viniculture and wine were devoted to Jupiter,  since grapes were particularly susceptible to adverse weather.Dumézil describes  wine as a "kingly" drink with the power to inebriate and exhilarate, analogous  to the Vedic Soma .

Three Roman festivals were connected with viniculture and wine.

The rustic Vinalia altera on August 19 asked for good  weather for ripening the grapes before harvest. When the grapes were ripe, a  sheep was sacrificed to Jupiter and the flamen Dialis cut the first of  the grape harvest.

The Meditrinalia on October 11 marked the end of  the grape harvest; the new wine was pressed , tasted and mixed with old wine^[78]  to control fermentation. In the Fasti Amiternini, this festival is  assigned to Jupiter. Later Roman sources invented a goddess Meditrina,  probably to explain the name of the festival.

At the Vinalia urbana on April 23, new wine was  offered to Jupiter Large quantities of it were poured into a ditch near the  temple of Venus Erycina , which was located on the  Capitol.

The Regifugium ("King's Flight") on February 24  has often been discussed in connection with the Poplifugia on July 5, a day holy to  Jupiter. The Regifugium followed the festival of Iuppiter Terminus (Jupiter of Boundaries) on  February 23. Later Roman antiquarians misinterpreted the Regifugium  as marking the expulsion of the monarchy, but the "king" of this festival may  have been the priest known as the rex sacrorum who ritually enacted the  waning and renewal of power associated with the New Year (March 1 in the old Roman calendar). A  temporary vacancy of power (construed as a yearly "interregnum")  occurred between the Regifugium on February 24 and the New Year on March  1 (when the lunar cycle was thought to coincide again with the solar cycle), and  the uncertainty and change during the two winter months were over. Some scholars  emphasize the traditional political significance of the day.

The Poplifugia ("Routing of Armies"), a day sacred to Jupiter, may  similarly mark the second half of the year; before the Julian calendar reform , the months were named  numerically, Quintilis (the fifth month) to December  (the tenth month).The Poplifugia was a "primitive military ritual" for  which the adult male population assembled for purification rites, after which  they ritually dispelled foreign invaders from Rome.

There were two festivals called epulum Iovis ("Feast of Jove"). One  was held on September 13, the anniversary of the foundation of Jupiter's  Capitoline temple. The other (and probably older) festival was part of the Plebeian Games (Ludi Plebei), and was  held on November 13.^[90]  In the 3rd century BC, the epulum Iovis became similar to a lectisternium .

The most ancient Roman games followed after one day (considered a dies  ater, or "black day", i. e. a day which was traditionally considered  unfortunate even though it was not nefas, see also article Glossary of ancient Roman religion ) the two Epula Iovis of September and November.

The games of September were named Ludi Magni; originally they were not  held every year, but later became the annual Ludi Romani  and were held  in the Circus Maximus after a procession from the  Capitol. The games were attributed to Tarquinius Priscus, and linked to the cult  of Jupiter on the Capitol. Romans themselves acknowledged analogies with the triumph , which Dumézil thinks can be explained  by their common Etruscan origin; the magistrate in charge of the games dressed  as the triumphator and the pompa circensis resembled a triumphal  procession. Wissowa and Mommsen argue that they were a detached part of the  triumph on the above grounds (a conclusion which Dumézil rejects).

The Ludi Plebei took place in November in the Circus Flaminius . Mommsen argued that the epulum of the  Ludi Plebei was the model of the Ludi Romani, but Wissowa finds the evidence for  this assumption insufficient.The Ludi Plebei were probably established in  534 BC. Their association with the cult of Jupiter is attested by Cicero.

The feriae of December 23 were devoted to a major ceremony in honour  of Acca Larentia (or Larentina), in which  some of the highest religious authorities participated (probably including the Flamen Quirinalis and the pontiffs ). The Fasti Praenestini marks the day as feriae  Iovis, as does Macrobius. It is unclear whether the rite of parentatio  was itself the reason for the festival of Jupiter, or if this was another  festival which happened to fall on the same day. Wissowa denies their  association, since Jupiter and his flamen would not be involved with the underworld or the deities of death (or be  present at a funeral rite held at a gravesite).

Name and epithets

The Latin name Iuppiter originated as a vocative compound of the Old Latin vocative *Iou and pater  ("father") and came to replace the Old Latin nominative case *Ious. Jove is a less  common English formation based on Iov-, the  stem of oblique cases of the Latin name. Linguistic studies identify the form *Iou-pater  as deriving from the Indo-European vocative compound *Dyēu-pəter  (meaning "O Father Sky-god"; nominative: *Dyēus-pətēr).

Older forms of the deity's name in Rome were Dieus-pater  ("day/sky-father"), then Diéspiter. The 19th-century philologist Georg Wissowa asserted these names are  conceptually- and linguistically-connected to Diovis and Diovis Pater;  he compares the analogous formations Vedius-Veiove and fulgur  Dium, as opposed to fulgur Summanum (nocturnal lightning bolt) and flamen Dialis (based on Dius, dies). The Ancient later viewed  them as entities separate from Jupiter. The terms are similar in etymology and  semantics (dies, "daylight" and Dius, "daytime sky"), but differ  linguistically. Wissowa considers the epithet Dianus noteworthy.^[105][106] Dieus is the etymological equivalent of ancient Greece 's Zeus and of the Teutonics' Ziu (genitive Ziewes). The  Indo-European deity is the god from which the names and partially the theology  of Jupiter, Zeus and the Indo-Aryan Vedic Dyaus Pita derive or have developed.

The Roman practice of swearing by Jove to witness an oath in law courts is  the origin of the expression "by Jove!"-archaic, but still in use. The name of  the god was also adopted as the name of the planet Jupiter ; the adjective "jovial"  originally described those born under the planet of Jupiter (reputed to be jolly, optimistic, and  buoyant in temperament ).

Jove was the original namesake of Latin forms of the weekday now known in English as Thursday (originally called Iovis Dies in Latin ). These became jeudi in French , jueves in Spanish , joi in Romanian , giovedì in Italian , dijous in Catalan , Xoves in Galcian , Joibe in Friulian , Dijóu in Provençal .

Major epithets

The epithets of a Roman god indicate his theological qualities. The study of  these epithets must consider their origins (the historical context of an  epithet's source).

Jupiter's most ancient attested forms of cult belong to the State cult: these  include the mount cult (see section above note n. 22). In Rome this cult  entailed the existence of particular sanctuaries the most important of which  were located on Mons Capitolinus (earlier Tarpeius). The mount had  two tops that were both destined to the discharge of acts of cult related to  Jupiter. The northern and higher top was the arx and on it was located the observation  place of the augurs (auguraculum)  and to it headed the monthly procession of the sacra Idulia.On the  southern top was to be found the most ancient sanctuary of the god: the shrine  of Iuppiter Feretrius allegedly built by Romulus, restored by Augustus.  The god here had no image and was represented by the sacred flintstone (silex).  The most ancient known rites, those of the spolia opima and of the fetials which connect Jupiter with Mars and  Quirinus are dedicated to Iuppiter Feretrius or Iuppiter Lapis.The  concept of the sky god was already overlapped with the ethical and political  domain since this early time. According to Wissowa and Dumézi Iuppiter Lapis  seems to be inseparable from Iuppiter Feretrius in whose tiny templet on  the Capitol the stone was lodged.

Another most ancient epithet is Lucetius: although the Ancient,  followed by some modern scholars as e. g. Wissowa,interpreted it as referred to  sunlight, the carmen Saliare shows that it refers to lightning.A further  confirmation of this interpretation is provided by the sacred meaning of  lightning which is reflected in the sensitivity of the flaminica Dialis  to the phenomenon. To the same atmospheric complex belongs the epithet Elicius: while the ancient erudites thought it was connected to lightning,  it is in fact related to the opening of the rervoirs of rain, as is testified by  the ceremony of the Nudipedalia, meant to propitiate rainfall and devoted  to Jupiter. and the ritual of the lapis manalis , the stone which was brought  into the city through the Porta Capena and carried around in times of  draught, which was named Aquaelicium.^[119]  Other early epithets connected with the atmospheric quality of Jupiter are Pluvius, Imbricius, Tempestas, Tonitrualis, tempestatium divinarum potens, Serenator, Serenus and,  referred to lightning, Fulgur, Fulgur Fulmen, later as nomen  agentis Fulgurator, Fulminator: the high antiquity of the cult is  testified by the neutre form Fulgur and the use of the term for the bidental, the lightningwell digged on the spot hit by a lightningbolt.

A bronze statue of Jupiter, from the territory of the Treveri

A group of epithets has been interpreted by Wissowa (and his followers) as a  reflection of the agricultural or warring nature of the god, some of which are  also in the list of eleven preserved by Augustine.The agricultural ones include Opitulus, Almus, Ruminus, Frugifer, Farreus, Pecunia, Dapalis, Epulo.Augustine gives an explanation of  the ones he lists which should reflect Varro's: Opitulus because he  brings opem (means, relief) to the needy, Almus because he  nourishes everything, Ruminus because he nourishes the living beings by  breastfeeding them, Pecunia because everything belongs to him. Dumézil  maintains the cult usage of these epithets is not documented and that the  epithet Ruminus, as Wissowa and Latte remarked, may not have the meaning given  by Augustine but it should be understood as part of a series including Rumina, Ruminalis ficus, Iuppiter Ruminus, which bears the name of Rome  itself with an Etruscan vocalism preserved in inscriptions, series that would be  preserved in the sacred language (cf. Rumach Etruscan for Roman). However  many scholars have argued that the name of Rome, Ruma, meant in fact  woman's breast. Diva Rumina , as Augustine testifies in the  cited passage, was the goddess of suckling babies: she was venerated near the ficus ruminalis and was offered only libations of milk. Here moreover  Augustine cites the verses devoted to Jupiter by Quintus Valerius Soranus , while hypothesising Iuno (more adept in his view as a breastfeeder), i. e. Rumina instead of  Ruminus, might be nothing else than Iuppiter: "Iuppiter omnipotens  regum rerumque deumque Progenitor genetrixque deum...".

In Dumézil's opinion Farreus should be understood as related to the  rite of the confarreatio the most sacred form of marriage, the name of  which is due to the spelt cake eaten by the spouses, rather than surmising an  agricultural quality of the god: the epithet means the god was the guarantor of  the effects of the ceremony, to which the presence of his flamen is necessary  and that he can interrupt with a clap of thunder.^[133]

The epithet Dapalis is on the other hand connected to a rite described  by Cato and mentioned by Festus.^[134]  Before the sowing of autumn or spring the peasant offered a banquet of roast  beef and a cup of wine to Jupiter : it is natural that on such occasions he  would entreat the god who has power over the weather, however Cato' s prayer of  s one of sheer offer and no request. The language suggests another attitude:  Jupiter is invited to a banquet which is supposedly abundant and magnificent.  The god is honoured as summus. The peasant may hope he shall receive a  benefit, but he does not say it. This interpretation finds support in the  analogous urban ceremony of the epulum Iovis, from which the god derives  the epithet of Epulo and which was a magnificent feast accompanied by  flutes.

Epithets related to warring are in Wissowa' s view Iuppiter Feretrius, Iuppiter Stator, Iuppiter Victor and Iuppiter Invictus. Feretrius would be connected with war by the rite of the first type of spolia opima which is in fact a dedication  to the god of the arms of the defeated king of the enemy that happens whenever  he has been killed by the king of Rome or his equivalent authority. Here too  Dumézil notes the dedication has to do with regality and not with war, since the  rite is in fact the offer of the arms of a king by a king: a proof of such an  assumption is provided by the fact that the arms of an enemy king captured by an  officer or a common soldier were dedicated to Mars and Quirinus respectively.

Iuppiter Stator was first attributed by tradition to Romulus, who had  prayed the god for his almighty help at a difficult time the battle with the  Sabines of king Titus Tatius. Dumézil opines the action of Jupiter is not that  of a god of war who wins through fighting: Jupiter acts by causing an  inexplicable change in the morale of the fighters of the two sides. The same  feature can be detected also in the certainly historical record of the battle of  the third Samnite War in 294 BC, in which consul Marcus Atilius Regulus vowed a temple to Iuppiter Stator if "Jupiter will stop the rout of the Roman army and if  afterwards the Samnite legions shall be be victouriously massacred...It looked  as if the gods themselves had taken side with Romans, so much easily did the  Roman arms succeed in prevailing...". in a similar manner one can explain the  epithet Victor, whose cult was founded in 295 BC on the battlefield of Sentinum by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges and who received  another vow again in 293 by consul Lucius Papirius Cursor before a battle against  the Samnite legio linteata. Here too the religious meaning of the vow is  in both cases an appeal to the supreme god by the Roman chief at a time when as  a chief he needs divine help from the supreme god, even though for different  reasons: Fabius had remained the only political and military responsible of the  Roman State after the devotio of P. Decius Mus, Papirius had to face an  enemy who had acted with impious rites and vows, i. e. was religiously  reprehensible.

More recently Dario Sabbatucci has given a different interpretation of the  meaning of Stator within the frame of his structuralistic and dialectic  vision of Roman calendar, identifying oppositions, tensions and equilibria:  January is the month of Janus , at the beginning of the year, in the  uncertain time of winter (the most ancient calendar had only ten months, from  March to December). In this month Janus deifies kingship and defies Jupiter.  Moreover January sees also the presence of Veiovis who appears as an anti-Jupiter, of Carmenta who is the goddess of birth and like  Janus has two opposed faces, Prorsa and Postvorta (also named Antevorta and Porrima ), of Iuturna , who as a gushing spring evokes the  process of coming into being from non-being as the god of passage and change  does. In this period the preeminence of Janus needs compensating on the Ides  through the action of Jupiter Stator, who plays the role of anti-Janus,  i. e. of moderator of the action of Janus.

Some epithets describe a particular aspect