the supreme god of the ancient Pagans.

The theologists, according to Cicero, reckoned up three Jupiters; the first and second of whom were born in Arcadia: of these two, the one sprang from Æther, the other from Caelus. The third Jupiter was the son of Saturn, and born in Crete, where they pretended to show his sepulchre. Cicero in other places speaks of several Jupiters who reigned in different countries. The Jupiter, by whom the poets and divines understand the supreme god, was the son of Saturn king of Crete. He would have been devoured by his father as soon as born, had not his mother Rhea substituted a stone instead of the child, which Saturn immediately swallowed. Saturn took this method to destroy all his male children, because it had been foretold by Cælus and Terra, that one of his sons should deprive him of his kingdom. Jupiter, being thus saved from his father's jaws, was brought up by the Curetes in a den on Mount Ida. 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 drove his father out of heaven, and divided the empire of the world with his brothers. For himself, he had heaven and earth. Neptune had the sea and waters; and Pluto hell. The Titans undertook to destroy Jupiter, as he had done his father. These Titans were giants, the sons of Titan and the Earth. They declared war against Jupiter, and heaped mountains upon mountains, in order to scale heaven: but their efforts were unsuccessful. Jupiter overthrew them with his thunder, and shut them up under the waters and mountains, from which they were not able to get out.

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 fatter to enjoy Antiope; into a bull, to carry off Europa; into a swan, to abuse Leda; into a shower of gold, to corrupt Danaë; and into several other forms to gratify his passions. He had Bacchus by Semele, Diana and Apollo by Latona, and was the father of Mercury and the other gods.

The heathens in general believed that there was but one supreme God; but when they considered this one great being as influencing the affairs of the world, they gave him as many different names: and hence proceeded their variety of nominal gods. When he thundered or lightened, they called him Jupiter; when he calmed the sea, Neptune; when he guided their councils, Minerva; and when he gave them strength in battle, Mars. In process of time they used different representations of this Jupiter, &c., and considered them, vulgarly at least, as so many different persons. They afterward regarded each of them in different views: e.g. The Jupiter that showered down blessings was called the Kind Jupiter; and when punishing, the Terrible Jupiter. There was also one Jupiter for Europe, and another for Africa; and in Europe, there was one great Jupiter who was the particular friend of the Athenians, and another who was the special protector of the Romans; nay, there was scarce a town or hamlet perhaps, in Italy, that had not a Jupiter of its own; and the Jupiter of Terracina or Jupiter Anxur, represented in medals as young and beardless, with rays round his head, more resembled Apollo than the great Jupiter at the Capitol. In this way Jupiter at length had temples and different characters almost everywhere: at Carthage, he was called Ammon; in Egypt, Serapis; at Athens, the great Jupiter was the Olympian Jupiter; and at Rome the greatest Jupiter was the Capitoline Jupiter, who was the guardian and benefactor of the Romans, and whom they called the "best and greatest Jupiter;" Jupiter optimus maximus. The figure of this Jupiter was represented in his chief temple on the Capitoline hill, as sitting on a curule chair; with the fulmen or thunder, or rather lightning in one hand, and a sceptre in the other. This fulmen in the figures of the old artists was always adapted to the character under which they were to represent Jupiter. If his appearance was to be mild and calm, they gave him the comic fulmen or bundle. Jupiter, bundle of flames wreathed close together, held down in his hand: When punishing, he holds up the same figure, with two transverse darts of lightning, sometimes with wings added to each side of it, to denote its swiftness; this was called by the poets the three-forked bolt of Jove: and when he was going to do some exemplary execution, they put in his hand a handful of flames, all let loose in their utmost fury; and sometimes filled both his hands with flames. The superiority of Jupiter was principally manifested in that air of majesty which the ancient artists endeavoured to express in his countenance: particular attention was paid to the head of hair, the eyebrows, and the beard.

There are several heads of the mild Jupiter on ancient seals; where his face has a mixture of dignity and ease in it, admirably described by Virgil, Æn. i. ver. 256. The statues of the Terrible Jupiter were generally of black marble, as those of the former were of white: the one sitting with an air of tranquillity; the other standing, more or less disturbed. The face of the one is pacific and serene; of the other angry or clouded. On the head of the one the hair is regular and composed; in the other it is so discomposed, that it falls half way down the forehead. The face of the Jupiter Tonans resembles that of the Terrible Jupiter; he is represented on gems and medals as holding up the triple bolt in his right hand, and standing in a chariot which seems to be whirled on impetuously by four horses. Thus he is also described by the poets. Ovid, Deian. Herc. v. 28.; Horace, lib. i. od. 4. v. 8. Jupiter, as the intelligence presiding over a single planet, is represented only in a chariot and pair: on all other occasions, if represented in a chariot, he is always drawn by four horses. Jupiter is well known as the chief ruler of the air, whose particular province was to direct the rains, the thunders, and the lightnings. As the dispenser of rain, he was called Jupiter Pluvius; under which character he is exhibited seated in the clouds, holding up his right hand, or extending his arms almost in a straight line each way, and pouring a stream of hail and rain from his right hand upon the earth; whilst the fulmen is held down in his left. The wings that are given him relate to his character of presiding over the air: his hair and beard in the Antonine pillar are all spread down by the rain, which descends in a sheet from him, and falls for the refreshment of the Romans; whilst their enemies are represented as struck with the lightnings, and lying dead at their feet.

Some consider a great part of the fable of Jupiter to include the history of Noah and his three sons; and that Saturn is Noah, who saw all mankind perish in the waters of the deluge; and who, in some sort, swallowed them up, by not receiving them into the ark. Jupiter is Ham; Neptune, Japheth; and Shem, Pluto.

The Titans, it is thought, represent the old giants, who built the tower of Babel, and whose pride and presumption God had confounded, by changing their language, and pouring out the spirit of discord and division among them. The name of Jupiter, or Jovis Pater, is thought to be derived from Jehovah, pronounced with the Latin termination Jovis instead of Jo-va; and in medals we meet with Jovis in the nominative, as well as oblique cases: for example, Jovis euf-ter, Jovis propugnator, Jovis flator. To the name Jovis was added pater; and afterwards, instead of "Jo- vis pater," Jupiter was used by abbreviation.

The name Jupiter was not known to the Hebrews till the reign of Alexander the Great, and the kings his successors. Antiochus Epiphanes commanded the idol of Jupiter Olympus to be placed in the temple at Jerusalem; and that of Jupiter the defender of strangers in the temple on Mount Gerizim, 2 Macc. vi. 2. While St Paul and St Barnabas were at Lystra, they were taken for gods, because they cured one who had been lame from his birth, and that by an expression only; St Paul was taken for Mercury, by reason of his eloquence; and St Barnabas for Jupiter (Acts xiv. 11. 12.), on account probably of his good men.

u., in Astronomy, one of the superior planets, remarkable for its brightness; and which by its proper motion seems to revolve round the earth in about twelve years. See ASTRONOMY Index.