#Jupiter Fulgur

[carneirodemercurio]

"Pro numinum vis summa, pro caelestium rector parensque, cuius excussis tremunt humana telis". Seneca. 'Cum tonas, Luceti, prae te tremunt' Highest of the divine powers, ruler and parent of the heavens, whose hurling lightning bolts make humans tremble' Seneca 'When you thunder, Jupiter, men tremble before you' Today I honour Jupiter Fulgur (Jupiter of the lighting). Quite aptly there are storms forecast for today. I have a severe storm phobia - so as well as my veneration today, I shall also be hoping that no thunderstorms come this way.

Polo máis alto dos poderes divinos, gobernante e pai dos ceos, cuxos raios lanzandos fan tremer aos humanos' Séneca "Cando tronas, Luceti (Xúpiter), os homes tremen ante ti" Hoxe honro a Xúpiter Fulgur (Xove dos lostregos). Moi axeitadamente hai previsións de treboadas. Teño unha fobia grande ás tormentas, así que, ademais das miñas veneracións, espero que non veñan treboadas por aquí hoxe.

[happyk44]

Cracking open my Religio Romana handbook to check out what's going on next month and, since my Saturnalia post is making the rounds again, decided to write down some for anyone that would like to write some Jason/Reyna/Camp Jupiter religious shenanigans throughout the year 👍

This isn't all of them btw! I just grabbed a couple that seemed most interesting for their respective months or most relevant to the Roman babes

January 11th and January 15th: Carmentalia, two feast days in honour of Carmenta (goddess Juturna also celebrated on the 11th)

February 13th to 22nd: Parentalia, commemoration of ancestors and the dead in families

February 22nd: Caristia, family pot luck in spirit of love and forgiveneness

February 23rd: Terminalia, in honor of Terminus

February 27th: Equirria, first of two horse-racing festivals in honor of Mars

March 1st: original New Year's Day when sacred fire of Rome was renewed; Matronalia in honor of Juno Lucina; also considered the dies natalis (birthday) of Mars

March 14th: second Equirria

March 15th: Feriae Iovi, sacred to Jove (Jupiter)

March 17th: Agonalia in honour of Mars

April 1st: Veneralia in honor of Venus

April 21st: Parilia, rustic festival in honor of Pales, Roman patron goddess of shepherds and flocks, and the dies natalis (birthday) of Rome

April 23rd: Vinalia Priora, the first of two wine festivals

May 9th, 11th, and 13th: Lemuria, festival of the dead

May 15th: Mercuralia, in honor Mercury; Feriae (free day) of Jove (Jupiter)

June 3rd: anniversary of the Temple of Bellona

June 7th to 15th: Vestavia, in honour of Vesta, June 9th specifically is a die religiousus to her

June 24th: festival of Fors Fortuna

July 6th to 13th: Ludi Apollinares, games in honor of Apollo

July 14th to 19th: series of markets or fairs - not religious

July 17th: anniversary of the Temple of Honos and Virtus, sacrifice to Victory

July 23rd: Neptunalia, held in honor of Neptune

August 23rd: Vulcanalia in honor of Vulcan

September 1st: ceremonies for Jupiter Tonans (the Thunderer) and Juno Regina

September 20th to 23rd: days set aside for markets and fairs

October 7th: rites for Jupiter Fulgur (Jupiter of daytime lightning) and Juno Curitis

November 4th to 17th: Plebeian Games

November 18th to 20th: markets and fairs

December 1st: ceremonies at temples for Neptune and for Pietas

December 3rd: Bona Dea rites for women only

December 17th to 23rd: Saturnalia in honor of Saturn with public ritual on the 17th

Side note that I am not an academic, not religious, not a pagan, and not spiritual in any way. I just like reading about mythologies and how those stories/deities used to be, and still are, worshipped by people. Also helps when coming up with religions and stuff for stories. But that's it, I have one book and access to google/wikipedia and that's the depths on my knowledge on Roman polytheistic practices 🙌

[mask131]

Roman gods are not Greek gods: Jupiter

JUPITER

Ah, Jupiter… Or Jove as he is also known. People tend to forget Jove was the official other name of Jupiter – in fact probably a more ancient name than Jupiter (the same thing with Vulcan and Volcanus). THE big Roman god. And I mean that in a literal way – Jupiter was THE god of Rome, THE god of the Roman Republic then Empire, THE god of the very Roman civilization.

But before jumping too much ahead, let’s take a brief look at who Jove/Jupiter was before the Hellenization.

Well… we don’t have much info, as usual. Jupiter clearly is an inheritance of the Etruscan god Tinia, which in turn was the Etruscan counterpart of Zeus, so there’s a full-cycle going on here. Early Jupiter was very clearly a sky god in charge of the weather. Thunder and lightning were part of his main attributes (which helped the Zeus-confusion), but he also was in control of other celestial phenomenon, such as wind, rain, storms or light. [The “light” part was very important for early-Jove, though experts debate as if this light was supposed to be a solar and lunar light, or just a reference to the light of the lightning). It makes sense that, in the rural and agricultural civilization that was “Rome before Rome”, such a god would become one of the most important and beloved of them. Another one of his early names or aspects was “Diespiter”, a deformation of Dieus-pater, “Day father”/”Sky father”. And while his elemental functions stayed in his numerous epithets and names (Jupiter Fulgur, Fulgurator or Fulgens, meaning Lightning Jupiter ; Jupiter Pluvius, Jupiter sender of rains ; Jupiter Tonans/Tonitrualis, Jupiter the Thunderer ; Jupiter Lucetius, Jupiter of the Light…), his “natural” aspect got side-lined as Jupiter found his true vocation…

A political vocation. Jupiter was the most political of all the Roman gods. In fact, he was the very god of the Roman State, and the embodiment of Roman civilization as a whole. Jupiter was the god of “religious centralization” that kept absorbing smaller gods and aspects of minor deities as the Roman power grew ; it was said he appeared to the second mythical king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, to establish with him the very rules and principles of the Roman religion – and Jupiter was the one who sent forth the auspices and omens on which the Romans relied. Jupiter also ensured and fortified the unity of the Roman state by being the god of all laws, and the patron of all treaties and all oaths – on which the very Roman society and government relied. He embodied the three main virtues of every Roman citizen: justice, good faith and honor. He was the one who gave positions and authority in the highest offices of Rome: when consuls started their job, they prayed to Jupiter to obtain his help and indulgence; and Jupiter always was the patron of whoever was in charge of the Roman society – kings during the monarchy, the patricians during the Republic, and finally the emperor during the Empire. In fact, Roman Emperors took the habit of fusing and confusing their depictions in art with the ones of Jove, putting their faces on statues of Jupiter or having statues of themselves dressed like Jove, even to the point of several of the god’s titles becoming imperial titles: the ruler of humans and the ruler of the gods became one and the same.

When there was the first plebeian secession (aka when the plebeians, lower-citizen of Rome, got fed up with how the rich and powerful treated them and left Rome all together until better live conditions were negotiated), after everything was settled the hill on which the plebeians had taken refuge was consecrated to Jove as a sign of Rome’s newfound unity. Jupiter’s priests, the Flamen Dialis, were the highest-ranking members of the Roman public cult, with specific privileges identifying them as above and “more special” than other priests (or “flamines” as they were called) ; and Jupiter was also served by a second group of religious authority, the “fetials”, religious administrators of the international affairs of the state, whose job was to rely on the complex set of codes and procedures known as the “fetial law” to make sure the gods of Rome were “protected” whenever Rome interacted with foreign powers. Jupiter formed, alongside his wife Juno and daughter Minerva, the “Capitoline Triad”, the trio of gods protecting Rome’s very integrity. He was “Jupiter Terminalus/Terminus”, god of the Roman’s state limits and boundaries. He was the god present in each and every city of the Empire, and that was imported in every foreign culture conquered and absorbed by the Empire – Jupiter Taranis for the Gaul, Jupiter Solutorius for Antique Spain, Jupiter Poeninus in the Alps, Jupiter Parthinus among the Patherni, Jupiter Ladicus in Gallaecia… Jupiter was called “Optimus Maximus”, the best and the greatest, the grandest power of the Empire – bestowing all benefits and good things upon the world, and stronger than all of the other gods.

Of course, Jupiter was also a very important martial god, and the main supporter of Rome during their wars. Several of his “political” aspects doubled as military ones. For example Jupiter Feretrius, “Jupiter who carries away the spoils of war”, was the aspect of the god to which the corpses of enemy leaders were offered – but he also doubled as the political aspect of the god invoked to witness solemn oaths. In a reverse, Jupiter Stator, “Jupiter Standing”, was the aspect of the god as the very principal of founding, as the one who instituted everything in civilization and humanity – but he was also the god as he bestowed resistance, fastness and firmness to people, making simple people into soldiers ; and the god people prayed to in order to be protected from foreign invasions. He was also Jupiter Victor – Jupiter the Victorious, giving the power of “conquering everything”, and thus embodying the very imperialistic ambitions of Rome. It was under the sight of Jupiter Capitolinus, “Jupiter of the Capitole”, that the senators gathered to decide to declare a war, each general had to present themselves to him before battle, and if Rome was victorious, they crowned Jupiter with gold. There is also one aspect of Jupiter tied to the military history of Rome, though you probably wouldn’t know it – “Jupiter Pistor”, Jupiter the Baker. Because you see, as the Gaul army placed Rome under siege, Jupiter apparently appeared to the Roman citizens and told them to throw bread from above the walls of the city – to make the Gaul believe that Rome had so much food in stock they could throw some away without fearing any famine. It worked, and thus Jupiter was thanked as the “Baker”.

As people tend to point out, Jupiter’s Hellenization did not actually “change” the god in term of essence or religious rites – he was too strongly implanted and revered in the Roman world to be modified, plus he had enough common points with the Greek Zeus to be kept “as he was”. Jupiter still inherited the traditional physical depictions of Zeus (except in some local cults where he appeared as a beardless youth instead of a mature, bearded man), and gained most of the legends concerning his Greek counterpart.

In fact… it is in the “mythological” details that we get the most interesting developments of Jupiter. Most notably, we have one trace of pre-Hellenized Jupiter that shows how the Hellenization hit him: his family. Originally, Jupiter was an only son, twin brother of Juno, and born out of Fortuna Primigenia (the original mother of the gods and source of everything in the pre-Hellenized Roman religion). It wasn’t until the “Greek remake” that Jupiter became the son of Saturn and Ops (to fit the Kronos and Rhea myth), the brother of Neptune and Pluto (equivalents of Poseidon and Hades), and that Fortuna went from the ancient mother of the ruler of the gods, to a simple secondary goddess daughter of Jupiter (as Fortuna became remade in the shape of the Greek Tyche).

Another leftover of his original “elemental” incarnation can be found in the fact that each ides (full moon marking the midpoint of each month) were consecrated to him – because on the ides it was believed that there was as much daylight as nightlight, and in this perfect balance Jove was celebrated in his ancient form of “god of light”. This rustic aspect of Jupiter also manifests in how so many viniculture holidays and celebrations of Ancient Rome were tied to Jove – due to the grapes being easily destroyed by bad weather, and so winemakers kept praying Jove to be kind to them.

[sebastophanes]

Happy Feast of Jupiter Fulgur!

Today, October 7th, the Classical Church of Byzantium Novum celebrates the Feast of Jupiter Fulgur! Meaning “Jupiter of the Daytime Lightning” the epithet was closely related to Jupiter Fulminator (“Jupiter who Hurls Thunder”) and linked to several others as well.

[library-of-babel]

“Trans-States - The Art of Crossing Over” edited by Cavan McLaughlin (Fulgur Press MMIX 2019). Foreword by Alan Moore.

The cover shows the Hanged Man Major Arcana/Archetype from the Thoth Tarot by Aleister Crowley, illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris.

Note the strong geometric shapes in this image e.g. a cross, triangles, squares, as well as the shape of the number 4, and the symbol for the planet Jupiter (ZEUS).

Crowley describes the information embedded in this image in “The Book of Thoth” (1944).

[claudehenrion]

Retour sur 6 mois de folie - ( I ) : où l'homme croit réinventer l'Homme !

  Suite du ''retour sur images'' : le dernier en date des dérapages incontrôlés du chef de l'Etat (en fait, ce fut une sortie de route grave) est digne des fulgurances du grand Georges Lautner : ''Votre problème, c’est que vous croyez que le père est forcément un mâle'' (sic !). Une telle énormité se repasse en boucle, tant elle reflète la prétention de ces nuls qui se prennent pour dieu --dans ce cas, sans majuscule. Ma phrase favorite, ''La folie est sortie des asiles'', est confortée au delà de mes pires craintes, car devant un anti-raisonnement tellement déraisonnable, peu de gens hésitent, lorsqu’on leur pose la question : ''D'après vous, qui a un problème ?''

  Le 26 janvier dernier, lors d'une grande réception à l’Élysée, à l’occasion des 30 ans de la Convention internationale des Droits de l’enfant, Pascale Morinière, Présidente des Associations catholiques, a signalé au Président que ''il est incohérent de fêter la ratification de la Convention internationale des droits de l'enfant et de priver en même temps des enfants de père" : la dite convention établit en effet le ''caractère primordial de l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant'' (art. 3) (NDLR - sous entendu : sur tout ''désir d'enfant'' et contre les choix sexuels de telle ou telle) et stipule : ''l’enfant a le droit de connaître ses parents et d’être élevé par eux'' (art.7). En une semaine, on a donc célébré une chose et son contraire, avec le vote par le Sénat d’un texte sur la PMA avec effacement du père biologique.

  Oui, mais voilà : le maître des lieux croit que son élection a fait de lui, ipso facto, le maître du temps, de la vie, du sens des mots, de la logique, de l'Histoire, de la vérité, de la morale et du réel... tous redéfinis par lui selon les canons les plus dangereux d'un gaucho-boboïsme mortifère. En un mot : il est dieu, quoi, ne mégotons pas ! Coincé dans ses contradictions, ''dieu'' a donc osé répondre : ''Votre problème, c’est que vous croyez que le père est forcément un mâle, ce qui n'est plus le cas''. On ne s'en lasse pas, tant c'est énorme ! Il a même ajouté : ''tous les psychanalystes vous le diront'', copiant (mal) une phrase à l'emporte-pièce du seul Boris Cyrulnik le 17 septembre 2019.  Pour rétablir la vérité, on va remplacer son ''tous les psys'' mensonger par ''un seul psy, et encore'' : ce neuro psychiatre donnait son avis sur ''les 1000 premiers jours de l'enfant''... sans prétendre que ce temps si court pouvait dessiner une vie entière ! Mais notre caste dirigeante, enflée à en avoir perdu tout sens commun, n'est plus à une grave approximation près : elle confond l'Elysée avec l'Olympe et Macron avec Jupiter !

  L’opinion boursouflée que ce ramassis de nuls ont sur eux-mêmes explique,,sans l’excuser, la phrase absurde d'Agnès Buzyn ''Le père peut être une grand-mère'' (sic !), qui était passée pour un dérapage verbal : en fait, il s'agit d'une imbécillité partagée au sein de ce gouvernement. Cette cuistre avait cru intelligent d'ajouter ''ça peut aussi être une altérité'', imaginant que ça veut dire ''n'importe qui d'autre''... alors que sa seule définition est (je cite) : ''Altérité : caractéristique de ce qui est autre, de ce qui est extérieur à un ''soi'', à une réalité de référence, à un individu, et par extension groupe, société, chose et lieu''. Selon cette feue-ministre sinistre (et bête), un père pourrait donc être ‘’une caractéristique, un lieu, un groupe, une société, ou une chose’’. Pauvres pères ! Nos ministres et les députés ‘’En Marche’’ sont non seulement incultes, nuls et prétentieux : ils sont stupides ! Et dangereux.

  En inventant contre toute nature une double filiation maternelle, cette loi innove dans la dinguerie : une mère ne serait plus celle qui accouche mais… n'importe qui a envie de ''posséder'' un enfant, à rebours complet de l'antique sagesse ''Mater semper certa est'' ( = il n'y a jamais de doute sur qui est la mère... --puisque c'est celle qui a accouché !). Mais voilà... Une assemblée de godillots qui ne lisent même pas les textes qu'ils votent sur ordre (cf. le scandale du deuil des parents d'un enfant décédé !) a voté la suppression des mots ''papa'' et ''maman'', qui sont les premiers mots que dit spontanément tout bébé, dans toutes les langues, dans toutes les civilisations, depuis le début de toute humanité. Le ‘’progressisme’’ déchaîné de ces apprentis-sorciers est en train de détruire ce qui caractérise l'Homme dans son rôle d’adulte, pour le remplacer par des concepts abstraits jamais définis, jamais testés, qui n'ont jamais marché nulle part, et pour cause.  

  A l'occasion de cette loi  prétendue ''bio-éthique'' (qui est à l'opposé et de l'un et de l'autre !), la macronie a pulvérisé tous les records de la bêtise humaine. Un inconnu-qui-ose-tout (comme dit Lautner), promu ''porte-flingue'' de la perversité, un Jean-Louis Touraine, membre du PS depuis des lustres et membre de LREM depuis 3 ans (donc spécialiste des membranes poreuses ?) s'est déchaîné, avec une idée fixe : faire dire aux mots le contraire de leur sens ! ''Désormais, la mère sera celle qui a décidé d'être mère'' (un monument !)... ou : ''Il n'existe pas un ''droit à avoir des grands parents'', assorti du commentaire et c'est heureux''...  alors qu'il n'existe pas non plus un ''droit à respirer'', un ''droit à avoir froid –ou chaud'', un ''droit à être malade.... ou pas'' ! Et dire que, dans d'autres situations, ce type a peut-être des réactions normales, qu'il a froid, ou chaud... ou qu'il a adoré son grand-père ! Mais on sait qu'un désordre dans les mots ne peut déboucher que sur le désordre dans la pensée... et vice-versa ! Bingo ! On est au fond du trou !

  C'est au cours de ces séances, insupportables pour qui croit à l'intelligence de l'homme, que l'irresponsable Agnès Buzyn a osé affirmer : ''en rien, un donneur de gamètes n'est un père... En rien. NON (sic !). Un donneur de gamètes est un donneur... de gamètes, et rien d'autre, VOILA'' (re-sic !). ''Non !'', ''Voilà !'' : tout serait dit, puisqu'elle l'a dit, Na ! ! En revanche, pour les gens normaux, c'est la panique devant les gouffres sans fond qu'ouvrent ces lois dites sociétales qui sont toutes ''sociéticides''... Devant ces errements, je me réjouis sans joie d'avoir mon âge : je passerai moins longtemps dans l'asile d'aliénés à l'air libre qui voudrait remplacer une civilisation où il faisait si bon vivre... (NDLR : il faut remarquer, pour être honnête, que ce type de raisonnement marche dans tous les cas de figure : ''le rouge est noir. Voilà...''. ''La maladie, c'est la santé. Voilà...''. ''Les impôts, c'est le bonheur. Voilà...''... Ou, plus vrai : ''les idées de LREM, c'est archi-nul, Voilà !'').

  Mais tant pis pour les conséquences dramatiques des lois dangereuses dites à tort ''sociétales'', il s'agit avant tout de corriger la stupide accusation de ''président de droite'' ! (NDLR : on se demande bien ce qui peut bien être ''à droite'' dans l'action d'un gouvernement fasciné par des solutions de gauche ! La ponction fiscale ? La limite des retraites des cadres et la CSG qui assassine les vieux ? Le hold-up sur les caisses de retraites bien gérées, la destruction de la famille, les mensonges sur l'Histoire de France, la main tendue à l'islam, les projets de ''bobo-isation'' de ce que devrait être Notre-Dame de Paris ? Soyons sérieux...). 

  C'est dans cette optique qu'il devenait urgent, si j'ai bien compris, que la ''buse un'' (comme la surnomme un tweet qui fait le buzz) abandonne le navire en pleine tourmente (retraites, hôpitaux, grèves des urgences, corps médical... et même la panique encore injustifiée du ''Corona virus''), pour aller se faire étriller aux Municipales. Mais parions tout de même qu'elle est soulagée de s'en tirer à si bon compte, tant la situation dans laquelle ils ont mis pays est dramatique ! (à suivre) 

H-Cl.

[alainlesourd-14]

Vivaldi : Armatae face - Juditha triumphans (Lea Desandre / Ensemble Jupiter)La mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre et le luthiste Thomas Dunford nous ont parlé de leur nouvel album Vivaldi avec l'Ensemble Jupiter dans Musique Matin. Découvrez l'air fulgurant « Armatae face » de l'oratorio Juditha Triumphans.

[hearthglow]

Article: The Organization of Roman Religious Beliefs

King, Charles. "The Organization of Roman Religious Beliefs." Classical Antiquity 22.2, pgs. 275-312, 2003.

Summary: Different religions organize their belief systems differently, but the classification of "belief" is still a valuable category. Roman religion allowed incompatible beliefs to exist simultaneously thanks to three main structures:

polymorphism (multiple divine identities with incompatible attributes)

orthopraxy (standardized ritual)

pietas (reciprocal obligation)

The article begins with what we might call Belief Discourse. One side claims the term is "profoundly Christian in its implications; it was forged out of the experience which the Apostles and St. Paul had of the Risen Lord" (275). The emphasis and centrality of the concept is invariably colored by our experience in a Christianized society, and thus its usage in academia cannot escape such monotheistic connotations. Thus, the Greeks and Romans did not have "beliefs".

On the other hand, King argues that by implying Christianity invented belief, academics fall victim to the same Christianizing bias and imply a Christian uniqueness. This "uniqueness" of Christian experience is the same basis of ongoing narratives about a "natural" evolution from chaotic polytheism to idealized monotheism. King goes on to point out that people worldwide hold plenty of secular beliefs as well: that it will rain on Tuesday, or that world peace will eventually be accomplished. Even academic positions are themselves beliefs. It is also not enough to define a religion purely in terms of similarities and differences to Christian mechanisms.

King then heads into a longstanding and particularly harmful misconception about Roman religion: that it had no beliefs whatsoever and its rituals were simply empty cult acts. He traces the core of this theme to a fundamental incompatibility: Christians are defined through their commitment to core teachings/tenets, with membership defined by a shared theological stance. This orthodoxy "erects barriers between sets of beliefs by stressing the correctness of a particular set of dogmas" (283). While this is an ideal vision that fails in practical reality (look at just how many sects Christianity boasts now and throughout its history), it is an ideal that has formed a lasting standard for religion itself. Meanwhile, Roman polytheism allowed multiple sets of conflicting beliefs, a structural difference that has proven utterly incomprehensible to generations of academics. If Roman polytheism did not define beliefs, did not create litmus tests for membership or boundaries for theological organization, then it was a failed religion. Some academics even argued it openly:

Rose, 1933 (summarized by King): Noting that various Roman sources give different names for the god worshiped at the festival of the Lupercalia, Rose concluded that no Roman either knew or cared what the ceremony was about and they were all simply acting out of habit. Failure to agree on details is thus equated with the absence of belief. …One should stress that Rose [meant] the festival continued for centuries without anyone having a clear belief about what they were worshiping. (291)

Veyne, 1997: "Lacking a common doctrine, Romans did not know what to think; consequently they assumed nothing and believed nothing." (291)

To confront this argument, King invokes the idea of polythetic sets. Consider a set of beliefs terms A, B, and C. The Christian set would require belief in A-B-C in order to be labeled a Christian - a monothetic set with all beliefs in common. A polythetic Roman pagan set, however, has no such requirement. One member holds beliefs A, B, and C; a second holds beliefs A, C, D, and E; a third holds B, F, and G. Our second and third members do not hold any beliefs in common, but would still be considered within the Roman set. Those beliefs with the highest degree of consensus and frequency can be considered to have a higher validity, but do not invalidate the others through sheer popularity.

The remainder of the article focuses on the three core mechanisms that Roman polytheists used to structure their beliefs:

1. Polymorphism

Definition: Roman gods possess more than one form or aspect.

"The god one prayed to in a particular situations, and under a particular name, could be the same god that one prayed to under a different name in a different context" (292).

If gods have multiple forms and multiple aspects, then contradictory beliefs can be equated directly, and the resulting logical inconsistency can be dismissed as an attribute of divinity (292-293).

Examples:

Catullus 34 equates Diana, Juno Lucina, Trivia, and Luna. "May you be hallowed by whatever name pleases you."

Varro (LL 5.68-69) equates Luna, Diana, Juno Lucina, and Proserpina.

Augustine quoting Varro (De Civ. D. 7.24) equates Proserpina with Vesta, Ops, and Tellus. 

Elsewhere Varro equates Tellus with Juno; Ceres with Ops; and implies a equation of Ceres with Proserpina.

This polytheistic system "rested on the idea that the number of aspects a deity possessed was unknown and possibly quite large" (295).

Allowed for specificity in prayer (Jupiter Propugnator vs. Jupiter Fulgur), explained the possible failure of prayers (you had prayed to the wrong aspect), but also reduced the ceremonial obligation owed to the gods (ie. you could worship Jupiter and thus have paid cultus to all his aspects at once). 

Allowed religions innovation to be presented as tradition (see Romans incorporating Greek aspects, provincial aspects). 

Allowed compartmentalization of borrowed traditions (if one form of Jupiter does something unacceptable for worship, you have numerous other aspects to worship instead).

The gods did not have to function according to human rules of consistency - religious tensions were defused, as any Roman would be aware of multiple religious interpretations. 

Arnobius, an ex-pagan convert to Christianity, professed that "what was important to the pagans was not to reconcile the contradictions, but to focus on the points that all the various conflicting scenarios had in common, that the gods existed and had power" (297).

2. Orthopraxy

Definition: A focus on correctness of ritual/behavior, not correctness of belief (orthodoxy).

Religious disputes focused on "details of ritual procedure, accusations that accepted procedure had not been followed, jurisdictional battles over who would control ritual procedure, and hostility toward alternative religious hierarchies that challenged the priests' right to define ritual for the whole community" (297).

See suppression of Bacchic cult in 186 BC and later oppression of Christians: variant beliefs were fine, but leaving the boundaries of the entire system could not be tolerated by the authorities. Still, there was never a systematic policy to suppress all competing forms of religious hierarchy.

NOT an alternative to belief, but a form of cultural/communal unity that left belief to the discretion of the individual.

"Depends on the belief that the gods want specific ceremonies to be performed in a particular way and that it is possible for humans to know exactly which rituals the gods want" (298).

"If the gods could have multiple identities with incompatible attributes, and it was impossible to know how many identities any given deity possessed, then the gods' natures were unknowable and it made sense to concentrate only on basic points: that the gods had powers and that they wanted offerings” (300).

3. Pietas

Definition: A relationship framework between two parties in familial, political, and religious contexts. Components include:

Reciprocal - Gods can give benefits to humans; humans give offerings and reverence to the gods. Interdependent but not equal.

Obligations are binding, long-term and often permanent - One could be born into an ongoing familial or societal relationship with the gods, which it was one's duty to continue. 

Parties can be linked in multiple relationships simultaneously. 

Both individuals and groups can be linked. 

Obligations owed to each party can be ranked in a hierarchy of importance. - Relationships are not exclusive. 

An individual worshiper can sacrifice on behalf of an entire family/community, fulfilling pietas obligations for the whole. No one Roman has to worship every god.

Different relationships held different intensities and duties. Resources could be concentrated on the most relevant divinities. 

"A conceptual mechanism by which a very disunified mass of ritual behavior could be presented as being to the overall benefit of the community as a whole" (307).

In conclusion, King reiterates that it is the patterns in how beliefs are organized, not their presence or absence, that defines the difference between monotheistic and polytheistic religions.