PART
2 – Ch.XII.8
(The
principal prehistoric divinities of
XII.
8. The figure of Zeus Dachie (aristos, megistos, euruopa) and of
Jupiter of Otricoli.
There is a
surprising similarity between the simulacrum of Zeus Dachie (figured
above) and the bust of Jove at the
Even from the times
of the republic, the Romans started to imitate the archaic Pelasgian forms in
the iconic representation of their divinities.
The most beautiful
statues of Saturn, Hercules, Apollo and
Diana (Iana), which adorned the big temples of
Generally, the
Romans had the principle to consider and worship as sacred only the figures
consecrated by ancient national traditions and legends. The figures of the Lari
and the Penati, and the rough simulacrum of the Great Mother from Pessinus
prove this.
But which was the
primitive type of the Roman Jove,
called in Latin theology Jupiter Optimus
Maximus, and which was the origin of his images, no author can say. (Pliny - H. N. lib. XXXV. 157- tells us
only that the image of Jove from the
Capitol, consecrated by Tarquinius the Old, had been made of clay, by one so-called Vulca or Vulga of
The oldest Roman
simulacrum of Jove was called Jupiter
Lapis (Cf. Cicero, Fam. VII. 12)
[1].
[1. The person making an oath hold a stone in his hand, and after
pronouncing the sacramental formula, threw it away (Festus s. Lapidem). The same rite is still noticed today in some
parts of
On this
Jove-of-stone were made the most fearful oaths and were consecrated the
international peace or alliance treaties. But, what shape and what size this
simulacrum of old-Latin times had, we cannot know for sure.
A fact is fully
established though, that the Greek Jove
(Zeus
‘Ellanios s. Panellenios) was distinguished from
the Pelasgian Jove by entirely
different characters.
Speaking about the
great God of the Trojan times, Homer says: “The son of Saturn (Jove) said, and signaled his approval with his black eyebrows, and his silver locks, which fell down from the immortal head, moved, and great Olympos shook (Iliad, I. v. 528-530).
This was the figure
of the supreme divinity worshipped by the Pelasgians.
The Greeks, on the
contrary, showed Jove of Olympia, until the times of Phidias, with a more
oriental type, with shorn hair and curls on the forehead, with the beard cut on
the jaws and pointed outwards (Duruy,
Hist.d.Grecs, I, p.358, 794; Pausanias,
lib. V. 22. 1; Ibid, 24. 6).
The Romans though
followed the archaic Latin traditions. They adopted for their supreme divinity
a Pelasgian barbarian figure, representing Jove with abundant, hirsute hair,
with locks falling on the shoulders, with bushy beard, with a plain dress and a
half bare chest. (Jupiter tonitrualis
on the column of Trajan presents the same type – Frohner,
By examining very
attentively the general character of the forms, and the various details
presented by these two monuments, it seems that the barbarian rustic figure of
Jove of Otricoli was following the colossal type of Zeus aristos megistos euruopa
from the Dacian Carpathians, or the country of the holy and blessed
Hyperboreans.
The Roman
traditions had been tightly connected to the Pelasgian God from near the Istru
even from the times of Numa [2].
[2. Even during prehistoric
antiquity, the most sacred images and objects were considered to have been
those from the regions of the
Orestes and Pylades steal from
In the year of
Jupiter Optimus Maximus was the national
god of
Even in the time of
Hadrian, soon after the conquest of
As type and ideal
of divine majesty, the consecrated figure of Zeus euruopa, as
represented by the rock on the peak Omul, is characterized by abundant hair,
falling on the shoulders in long locks, while above the forehead the hair
resembled the mane of a lion.
The same particular
arrangement of the hair is also presented by the bust of Otricoli.
There exists
another very characteristic analogy between these two simulacra.
The bust of Jove of
Otricoli presents in all the features of its physiognomy, not the Italo-Latin
type, but a northern barbarian figure, a noble but severe ethnic type from the
parts of the Lower Danube, as we also see expressed on the ancient coins of
Dacia (see the figure of the Dacian king on the coin shown in Chapter VI. 4).
In cult, Jupiter Optimus Maximus of the Latins
was the same divinity as Zeus aristos megistos euruopa, the
great God of the Pelasgian race (
Even the epithet Latiaris, with its forms Latius, Latioris, of Jupiter Optimus
Maximus, appears to correspond more to euruopa. And if this epithet of
Latiaris, Latius or Latioris had everywhere an ethnographic character, it did
not designate the Jupiter of the Latins, from the narrow limits of the lower
So, from an
archaeological point of view, Jove of Otricoli is just a simple imitation of
the archaic figure of Zeus euruopa, or in other words Jupiter of Otricoli is the topical god of
[3. The French archaeologist E. David, who has studied and described
the bust of Jove from the
A similar case is
presented by the statue of the titan Atlas,
from the