Mock thunder, we know, has been made by various
peoples as a rain-charm in modern times; why should it not have been
made by kings in antiquity?
Thus, if the kings of Alba and Rome imitated Jupiter as god of the
oak by wearing a crown of oak leaves, they seem also to have copied
him in his character of a weather-god by pretending to make thunder
and lightning. And if they did so, it is probable that, like Jupiter
in heaven and many kings on earth, they also acted as public
rain-makers, wringing showers from the dark sky by their
enchantments whenever the parched earth cried out for the refreshing
moisture. At Rome the sluices of heaven were opened by means of a
sacred stone, and the ceremony appears to have formed part of the
ritual of Jupiter Elicius, the god who elicits from the clouds the
flashing lightning and the dripping rain. And who so well fitted to
perform the ceremony as the king, the living representative of the
sky-god?
If the kings of Rome aped Capitoline Jove, their predecessors the
kings of Alba probably laid themselves out to mimic the great Latian
Jupiter, who had his seat above the city on the summit of the Alban
Mountain.
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