many gods, but to one and the same god._
They have called him Victor, Invictus, Opitulus, Impulsor, Stator,
Centumpeda, Supinalis, Tigillus, Almus, Ruminus, and other names
which it were long to enumerate. But these surnames they have given
to one god on account of diverse causes and powers, but yet have not
compelled him to be, on account of so many things, as many gods. They
gave him these surnames because he conquered all things; because he
was conquered by none; because he brought help to the needy; because
he had the power of impelling, stopping, stablishing, throwing on
the back; because as a beam[267] he held together and sustained the
world; because he nourished all things; because, like the pap,[268]
he nourished animals. Here, we perceive, are some great things and
some small things; and yet it is one who is said to perform them
all. I think that the causes and the beginnings of things, on account
of which they have thought that the one world is two gods, Jupiter
and Janus, are nearer to each other than the holding together of the
world, and the giving of the pap to animals; and yet, on account
of these two works so far apart from each other, both in nature
and dignity, there has not been any necessity for the existence of
two gods; but one Jupiter has been called, on account of the one
Tigillus, on account of the other Ruminus. I am unwilling to say
that the giving of the pap to sucking animals might have become Juno
rather than Jupiter, especially when there was the goddess Rumina to
help and to serve her in this work; for I think it may be replied
that Juno herself is nothing else than Jupiter, according to those
verses of Valerius Soranus, where it has been said:
"Almighty Jove, progenitor of kings, and things, and gods,
And eke the mother of the gods," etc.
Why, then, was he called Ruminus, when they who may perchance inquire
more diligently may find that he is also that goddess Rumina?
If, then, it was rightly thought unworthy of the majesty of the gods,
that in one ear of corn one god should have the care of the joint,
another that of the husk, how much more unworthy of that majesty is
it, that one thing, and that of the lowest kind, even the giving of
the pap to animals that they may be nourished, should be under the
care of two gods, one of whom is Jupiter himself, the very king of
all things, who does this not along with his own wife, but with some
ignoble Rumina (unless perhaps he himself is Rumina, being Ruminus
for males and Rumina for females)! I should certainly have said that
they had been unwilling to apply to Jupiter a feminine name, had he
not been styled in these verses "progenitor and mother," and had I
not read among other surnames of his that of Pecunia [money], which
we found as a goddess among those petty deities, as I have already
mentioned in the fourth book. But since both males and females have
money [_pecuniam_], why has he not been called both Pecunius and
Pecunia? That is their concern.