Il culto di Iuppiter a Roma: spazi, tempo e attori

Abstract

The focus of the research is the cult of Jupiter in Rome in its historical manifestation, studied according to a multidisciplinary approach that applies mainly to the analysis of epigraphic sources as primary research tool. The choice of the city of Rome as a background to the phenomenon derives from the lack of an extensive investigation about Roman Jupiter in this specific context in the current state of research. To fill this gap in the scholarly orientations, the topic is discussed following the three main reading keys evoked by the heading (“places”, “time”, “actors”). The work is structured in two main parts. After an introduction on the typology of the documentary sources (not only epigraphic but also archaeological, literary, numismatic), the first part offers an excursus on Jupiter through the analysis of its general morphology, starting from his long and complex genesis as a “nature god” in the “pre-urban” phase up to the birth of the Capitoline cult as a “state god” with an official function. The description of the main characteristics of Jupiter on the iconographic, functional and onomastic level and the investigation of his role within the Roman pantheon, the relationship with the other gods and the relational dynamics with men/devotees come later. The second part is divided into three chapters, dedicated instead to the archaeological-topographic analysis of the sacred areas in Rome reserved for Jupiter’s worship, to the cult “timing”, i.e. the reconstruction of the city festive calendar and related ritual practice, to the historical-social and prosopographical investigation of the sacred personnel (above all the flamen Dialis) and god’s faithful of any social status. At the end of this historical commentary there is an epigraphic catalogue (the so-called “appendice epigrafica”) in which 168 dedications to Jupiter from Rome (excluding those to Iuppiter Dolichenus) are collected in detailed sheets. Most of the texts are published in CIL, VI, about twenty are post-CIL and only two are unpublished. Accompanying the study there are some tables which schematically summarize the epigraphic and/or literary data, a topographic map of Rome which shows the distribution of the areas sacred to Jupiter on the surface of the city (in the “places” chapter) and finally indices of the inscriptions, theonyms/epithets, the places and the actors.