Send message to Authors

Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to study the onomastic formula Iuppiter Optumus Maxumus as a ritual technology derived from an archaic Latin formula of Jupiter in the innermost areas of the Iberian Peninsula.

Paper long abstract:

In antiquity, there were different onomastic techniques of communication with the divine. Within the Iberian Peninsula, the native inhabitants of some rural and peri-urban areas in the Roman provinces of Lusitania and part of the Tarraconensis oft applied the formula Iuppiter Optumus Maxumus in their religious dedications. This epigraphic designation for Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the Roman invocation par excellence, emerged under its archaising Latin form during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD in rural Hispania on different religious media, long after such formulation had ceased to be usual in Rome to become an exception. The use of this archaizing formula in ritual contexts may reflect two different circumstances: it could be a conscious revival developed by local elites for their own interests, or it could be a regional phonetic singularity, perpetuated by the population of the rural areas from northern Lusitania and Gallaecia, which were the areas less affected by Roman municipalization. Through the study of the devotees and the context in which this formula is used, the aim of this work is to determine whether the technological use of the epithets Optumus Maxumus responds to a regional linguistic variable that affects the ritual praxis and coexists with the more standardised invocations to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, or whether this appellation and its variants bear witness to an epichoric ritual technique that was developed along the transformation of the epigraphic practices, conducted by local elites as an attempt to adapt their traditional religiosity to a new Roman environment.