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One day he was Apollo, the nimbus on his curls, the Graces at his side; the next he was Mercury, wings at his heels, the caduceus in his hand; again he was Venus. But it was as Jupiter Latialis, armed with the thunderbolt and decorated with a great gold beard, that he appeared at his best. The role was very real to him.
At Rome the stone hatchet was dedicated to Jupiter Latialis, and solemn treaties were ratified by the sacrifice of a pig, the throat of which was cut with a sharp flint. According to Virgil, this custom was handed down to the ancient Romans by the uncouth nation of the Equicoles.
'If we would ascend the highest member of the mountain group, the Monte Cavo, we must make the circuit of the north flank of the mountains of Marino, on the edge of the Albano Lake, and Rocca di Tassa, a picturesque village in the hollow mountain side, from which we climb through woods, abounding in Galanthus nivalis and Corydalis cava, to that summit which was the arx of Jupiter Latialis, and to which the thirty Latian cities ascended in solemn procession to offer their annual sacrifice.
But in this warm soft renewal there was, for us, only the mood of lost things and imminent partings; and the song of the peasants in the field hard by told not, as it should, of their mountains, but of this sad, wet landscape traversed by endless lines of ruins. Suddenly in the clouds, a solid dark spot appeared; the top, the altar slab of Mons Latialis.
Having continued part of the Palatium as far as the Forum, and the temple of Castor and Pollux being converted into a kind of vestibule to his house, he often stationed himself between the twin brothers, and so presented himself to be worshipped by all votaries; some of whom saluted him by the name of Jupiter Latialis.
On the right the crested Alban heights form the boundary, crowned on the summit with the white convent of Monte Cavo the ancient temple of Jupiter Latialis, up to which the Roman consuls came to triumph when the Latin States were merged in the Roman Commonwealth and bearing on their shoulders the sparkling, gem-like towns of Frascati and Albano, with their thrilling memories of Cicero and Pompey; the whole range melting away into the blue vault of heaven in delicate gradations of pale pink and purple.
They had need be very little, as having been nothing but ruins ever since the days of Tullus Hostilius. On its top is a house of the Constable Colonna's, where stood the temple of Jupiter Latialis. At the foot of the hill Gandolfo, are the famous outlets of the lake, built with hewn stone, a mile and a half under ground.
On the morrow the palace of the Caesars was turned into a lupanar, a little larger, a little handsomer than the others, but still a brothel, one of which the inmates were matrons of Rome and the keeper Jupiter Latialis. After that, seemingly, there was nothing save apotheosis. But Caligula, in the nick of time, remembered the ocean.
Immediately above the town of Rocca di Papa, before you begin that ascent through the woods of Monte Cavo, are the Campi d'Annibale, the former crater of the volcano of Mons Latialis, grass fields whose legend Pascarella tells us: that when Hannibal encamped there the Romans raised the necessary money by selling the ground of the enemy's camp!
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