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They have called him Victor, Invictus, Opitulus, Impulsor,
Stator, Centumpeda, Supinalis, Tigillus, Almus, Ruminus, and
other names which it were long to enumerate. But these surnames they
have given to one god on account of diverse causes and powers, but yet
have not compelled him to be, on account of so many things, as many
gods. They gave him these surnames because he conquered all things;
because he was conquered by none; because he brought help to the
needy; because he had the power of impelling, stopping, stablishing,
throwing on the back; because as a beam he held together and sustained
the world; because he nourished all things; because, like the pap,
he nourished animals. Here, we perceive, are some great things and
some small things; and yet it is one who is said to perform them all.
I think that the causes and the beginnings of things, on account of
which they have thought that the one world is two gods, Jupiter and
Janus, are nearer to each other than the holding together of the
world, and the giving of the pap to animals; and yet, on account of
these two works so far apart from each other, both in nature and
dignity, there has not been any necessity for the existence of two
gods; but one Jupiter has been called, on account of the one
Tigillus, on account of the other Ruminus. I am unwilling to say
that the giving of the pap to sucking animals might have become Juno
rather than Jupiter, especially when there was the goddess Rumina to
help and to serve her in this work; for I think it may be replied that
Juno herself is nothing else than Jupiter, according to those verses
of Valerius Soranus, where it has been said: "Almighty Jove,
progenitor of kings, and things, and gods, And eke the mother of the
gods," etc.
Why, then, was he called Ruminus, when they who may perchance
inquire more diligently may find that he is also that goddess Rumina?
If, then, it was rightly thought unworthy of the majesty of the
gods, that in one ear of corn one god should have the care of the
joint, another that of the husk, how much more unworthy of that
majesty is it, that one thing, and that of the lowest kind, even the
giving of the pap to animals that they may be nourished, should be
under the care of two gods, one of whom is Jupiter himself, the very
king of all things, who does this not along with his own wife, but
with some ignoble Rumina (unless perhaps he himself is Rumina, being
Ruminus for males and Rumina for females)! I should certainly have
said that they had been unwilling to apply to Jupiter a feminine name,
had he not been styled in these verses "progenitor and mother," and
had I not read among other surnames of his that of Pecunia [money],
which we found as a goddess among those petty deities, as I have
already mentioned in the fourth book. But since both males and females
have money [pecuniam], why has he not been called both Pecunius and
Pecunia? That is their concern.
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