Conclusion

Abstract

“Jupiter” was a creation of poetry as much as of philosophy, theology, or cultic practice—if those things can even be separated. What Jupiter, then, did the poets make? Fate’s voice or Fate’s subject? Life-giving rain, cataclysmic storms, the overseer of human bonds, the destroyer of unlucky civilizations, the perfect lover, the tyrannical rapist? The answer, of course, is “all of the above.” His thunderbolt can be used for punishing human hubris or breaking down a girl’s door; Ganymede can be a symbol of rapture or rape. Throughout most of Augustan poetry, the most comprehensive conclusion about the relationship between Jupiter and Augustus is partly a negative one. While the poets’ Jupiter reflects their response to the social and political changes set in motion by the first princeps, the chief Olympian is too multivalent a figure to have his characterization determined entirely by Roman politics. Roman poets found Jupiter, but they also made him. From that conversation emerged a living reality that, like poetry itself, can never be adequately paraphrased.