JUPITER, in pagan worship, the greatest of their deities, was the son of Saturn and Rhea. That goddess perceiving that her husband devoured her children as fast as she brought them forth; and being in pain for Jupiter, she substituted a stone in his room, which Saturn immediately swallowed. He was educated on mount Ida by the Corybantes. Virgil tells us, that he was fed by the bees; out of gratitude for which, he changed them from an iron to a golden colour. Some say, that his nurses were Amalthea and Melissa, who gave him goats milk and honey; and others, that Amalthea was the name of the goat which nourished him, and which, as a reward for her great services, was changed into a constellation. According to others, he was fed by wild pigeons, who brought him ambrosia from Oceanus; and by an eagle, who carried nectar in his beak from a steep rock: for which he rewarded the former, by making them the foretellers of winter and summer; and the last, by giving him immortality, and making him his thunderbearer. When grown up, he defeated the Titans, dethroned his father Saturn, and divided his kingdom with his two brothers; Jupiter had the earth, Neptune the sea, and Pluto hell. Jupiter had several wives: the first of whom, named Metis, he is said to have devoured when big with child, by which he himself became pregnant; and Minerva issued out of his head, completely armed and fully grown. His second was Themis; the name of his third is not known; his fourth was the celebrated Juno, whom he deceived under the form of a cuckoo, which to shun the violence of a storm fled for shelter to her lap. He was the father of the Muses and Graces; and had a prodigious number of children by his mistresses. He metamorphosed himself into a satyr to enjoy Antiope; into a bull, to carry off Europa; into a swan, to abuse Leda; into a shower of gold, to corrupt Danae; and into several other forms to gratify his passions. He had Bacchus by Semele, Pallas by Thetis, Diana and Apollo by Latona; and was the father of Mercury and the other gods.
He had a multiplicity of names, either from the places where he was worshipped, or the attributes ascribed to him; and is usually represented seated on a throne of ivory or gold, surrounded with clouds, vested in a purple robe, grasping his thunder in the right hand and holding a sceptre in his left, with the eagle at his feet.
The ridiculous stories which the poets had published concerning this god, served as a foundation to the religion of the heathens; but some persons of a graver character endeavour to explain them, either by allegories, or the principles of natural philosophy.