At Rome Jupiter likewise enjoyed sovereign status, but his original con-
nection with the sky has left traces, especially in the poetic language. Iuppiter
is used with some freedom to mean the sky, especially in the phrase sub Ioue
‘in the open air’, for which the prose equivalent is sub diuo.^12
The most obvious characteristic of the sky, apart from its brightness, is
its vastness. In the Rigveda ‘big, great’ (máh) is a frequent epithet of dyáu-
‘heaven’, and in a few places it attaches to Dyaus as a divine figure:^13
mahı ̄ ́ Dyáuh
̇Pr
̇thivı ̄ ́ ca na | imám
̇yajñám mimiks
̇ata ̄m.
May great Heaven and Earth water this sacrifice for us. (1. 22. 13)
mahé yát pitrá ı ̄m
̇rásam
̇Divé kár...
When he had made seed for great Father Heaven. (1. 71. 5)
máhi mahé Divé arca ̄ Pr
̇thivyái.
I will sing a great (song) for great Heaven (and) Earth. (3. 54. 2)The related word μγα is often applied to Zeus in Homer and elsewhere, as
well as to ο1ρανο ́ , the lexical replacement for ‘sky’, and to Ouranos as a god
(Hes. Th. 176, 208). It is not a standard epithet of gods.
Another Homeric formula is ∆ι: Zμβρο, ‘Zeus’ rain’, that is, the rain
that comes from the sky (Il. 5. 91, 11. 493, etc.). There is a parallel formula in
the Rigveda, Divó vr
̇
s
̇t
̇í-, ‘Dyaus’ rain’ (2. 27. 15; 5. 63. 1, 83. 6, 84. 3; 6. 13. 1).^14
The Vedic cognate of Zμβρο,abhrám, appears in close association with this
phrase at 5. 84. 3, yát te abhrásya vidyúto | Divó várs
̇
anti vr
̇s
̇t
̇áyah
̇, ‘when the
rain-cloud’s lightnings (and) Dyaus’ rains rain on you’. Compare also 9. 87. 8,
Divó ná vidyút stanáyanti abhráih
̇
, ‘like Dyaus’ lightning thundering with the
rain-clouds’, or perhaps ‘like the lightning thundering with Dyaus’ rain-
clouds’.
The genitive ∆ιο ́ can also be attached to the clouds: Il. 2. 146 πατρ:
∆ι: $κ νεφελα ́ ων. A similar collocation occurs in the Latvian mythological
songs, but with a slightly different sense, as debes-, the Latvian cognate of
Greek νφο, means ‘heaven’ (though Lithuanian debesis=‘cloud’). There we
find the phrase Dieva debesı ̄m, ‘to God’s heaven’.^15
Several times in the Iliad there is reference to the house of Zeus, ∆ι:
δο ́ μο or ∆ι: ... δ; or δ;μα ∆ιο ́ , where the gods regularly gather. There
is no corresponding *Divó dáma- in Vedic, but one of the Latvian songs (LD
(^12) See the passages quoted in the Oxford Latin Dictionary s.v. Iuppiter, §2.
(^13) Schmitt (1967), 155 f.
(^14) Compared by Durante (1976), 97.
(^15) LD 25804 (Jonval no. 78); cf. 34042 (Jonval no. 130). I owe this and the following compari-
sons to an uncompleted dissertation by Mr Didier Calin, made available to me by the kindness
of Michael Meier-Brügger.
- Sky and Earth 169