Note 1183 — Chapter XX · THE WORSHIP OF THE OAK

Petronius, Sat. 44. That the slope mentioned by Petronius was the Capitoline one is made highly probable by a passage of Tertullian (Apologeticus 40: “Aquilicia Jovi immolatis, nudipedalia populo denuntiatis, coelum apud Capitolium quaeritis, nubila de laquearibus exspectatis”). The church father’s scorn for the ceremony contrasts with the respect, perhaps the mock respect, testified for it by the man in Petronius. The epithets Rainy and Showery are occasionally applied to Jupiter. See Tibullus, i. 7. 26; Apuleius, De mundo, xxxvii. 371; H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae selectae, No. 3043.