As Lord of the air, Jupiter came to be endowed with a multitude of active powers the most palpable, and the most replete with at least outward influence for man. The years are his years, the thunder and lightning his thunder and lightning, the rain his rain; the rivers, or the most illustrious among them, the Διϊπετεῖς ποταμοὶ, are his: the clouds and tempests obey his compelling, the winds blow at his command. The hail and snow come from him[306]: he impels the falling star[307], and, when he desires a more effective weapon or a more solemn lesson than usual, he launches the scathing thunderbolt[308]. All signs and portents whatever, that appear in air, belong primarily to him; as does the genial sign of the rainbow,
ἅστε Κρονίων ἐν νέφεϊ στήριξε, τέρας μερόπων ἀνθρώπων[309].
And when these or any of them are used by other deities, it is only by such as have a peculiar relationship, either traditive or mythological, to him.
But as the tradition of the lottery adorns and strengthens, so in another view it circumscribes him. His sway is unknown in the regions of the dead, where his brother holds the sceptre, as the Ζεὺς καταχθόνιος[310]. Accordingly, when Hercules is sent to fetch Cerberus, Jupiter obtains for him the aid of Minerva. The more traditive deity escapes the circumscriptions of the less; the daughter eclipses the sire.
Much of the higher power exerted by Juno is in fact her use of the atmospheric prerogatives of her husband.
But the most considerable and characteristic manifestation of the Homeric Jupiter is that, in which he appears as Head of the Olympian Family and Polity. Of this let us now consider so much, as is not more immediately connected with the subject of the divine Polity.
He is carefully marked out as supreme in the mythological prerogatives, which are for Olympus as the Crown and Sword of State on Earth. He is the original owner of the Ægis. To him the gods rise up at their meetings[311]. He is not tied to swear by Styx[312], and invokes no infernal power to be the sanction of his word, but condescends only to use the symbol of a nod.
[312] Il. i. 524-30. See however xix. 113.
Of omnipotence, as we understand the word, it would not appear that Homer had any idea. He had however the idea of a being superior in force to all other gods separately, or perhaps even when combined. This being was Jupiter. But the conception in his mind was a wavering one, so that, though it was present to him, we cannot say that he embraced it as a truth. If by some parts of the poems it is supported, by others it is brought into question or overthrown. As respects Briareus, who was not a god, his superiority in mere force to Jupiter is expressly declared (Il. i. 404).