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We may, therefore, suppose, on the analogy of what we have already seen to be the general lines of development in Roman religion, that the festivals in origin centred round a purpose rather than a personality, and were addressed 'to all spirits whom it might concern'; and that later, when the deus notion was on the increase, they either attached themselves to some god whose personality was already distinct, as the Vinalia were attached to Iuppiter, or 'developed' a deity of their own.
=Iuppiter.= We have known Iuppiter hitherto either in connection with certain very primitive survivals, or in the genuine Roman period as a sky-numen, concerned with the grape-harvest in the two Vinalia and the Meditrinalia, and the recipient at the family meal of a daps as a general propitiation before the beginning of the sowing.
In the oldest religious calendar we find two festivals called Vinalia, one in April and the other in August; what exactly was the relation of each of them to the operations of viticulture is by no means clear, but we know that these operations were under the protection of Jupiter, and that his priest, the Flamen Dialis, offered to him the first-fruits of the vintage.
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