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The magistrates, on entering office, took oath by Iuppiter and the Di Penates populi Romani Quiritium, and that the conception was as wide in the state as in the household is shown by the fact that on less formal occasions the formula appears as Iuppiter et ceteri di omnes immortales.
But as the little community grew, and especially perhaps after the union of the two settlements, the worship of Iuppiter Feretrius, associated with the sacred oak upon the Capitol the hill between Palatine and Quirinal comes more and more into prominence as a bond of union and the central point of the state's religious life: it tends indeed to take the place of priority, which had previously been occupied by Ianus.
The western cave is the earlier, but it is the earlier not because it was a shrine of Iuppiter puer, but because the ancient road which came through the forum turned up to it, because it is the least symmetrical of the two caves, and because the temple faced it, and did not face the forum.
But more characteristic than the erection of altars is the connection of deities with special localities. Thus Quirinus has his own sacred hill, Iuppiter is worshipped on the Capitol, Vesta and Iuno Lucina have their sacred groves within the boundaries of the city, and Dea Dia, Robigus, and Furrina similar groves at the limits of Roman territory.
It is true that in the very early leges regiae some notion of this kind is seen a significant glimpse of what the original relation may have been: it is there ordained that the patron who betrayed his client, or the client who deceived his patron, shall be condemned to Iuppiter; the parricide to the spirits of his dead ancestors, the husband who sells his wife to the gods of the underworld, the man who removes his neighbour's landmark to Terminus, the stealer of corn to Ceres.
Then as the conception of individual deities became clearer, they were identified with some one or other of the gods of the country or the state, among whom the individual householder would select those who should be the particular Penates of his family: Ceres, Iuno, Iuppiter, Pales would be some of those chosen in the earlier period.
If the numen then lacks personal individuality, he has a very distinct specialisation of function, and if man's appeal to the divinity is to be successful, he must be very careful to make it in the right quarter: it was a stock joke in Roman comedy to make a character 'ask for water from Liber, or wine from the nymphs. Hence we find in the prayer formulæ in Cato and elsewhere the most careful precautions to prevent the accidental omission of the deity concerned: usually the worshipper will go through the whole list of the gods who may be thought to have power in the special circumstances; sometimes he will conclude his prayer with the formula 'whosoever thou art, or 'and any other name by which thou mayest desire to be called. The numen is thus vague in his conception but specialised in his function, and so later on, when certain deities have acquired definite names and become prominent above the rest, the worshipper in appealing to them will add a cult-title, to indicate the special character in which he wishes the deity to hear: the woman in childbirth will appeal to Iuno Lucina, the general praying for victory to Iuppiter Victor, the man who is taking an oath to Iuppiter as the deus Fidius.
As a still later development the cult-title will, as it were, break off and set up for itself, usually in the form of an abstract personification: Iuppiter, in the two special capacities just noted, gives birth to Victoria and Fides.
Marett, Anthropology. Home University Library. J.L. Myres, The Dawn of History. Home University Library. Myres's revision, in view of the rest of the book which he has not seen. In his 'better land' Non huc Argoo contendit remige pinus, Neque impudica Colchis intulit pedem.... Iuppiter illa piæ secrevit litora genti, Ut inquinavit ære tempus aureum;
Be that as it may, we have in Iuppiter, Mars, and Quirinus the great state-triad of the synoecismus, who held their own until at the beginning of the next epoch they were supplanted by the new Etruscan triad of the Capitol, Iuppiter, Iuno and Minerva.
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