Veiovis

Is explained by Festus1 to mean "little Jupiter";2 while others interpret it "the destructive Jupiter," and identify him with Pluto.3 But Veiovis and Vedius,4 which are only different forms of the same name, seem to designate an Etruscan divinity of a destructive nature, whose fearful lightnings produced deafness in those who were to be struck by them, even before they were actually hurled.5

His temple at Rome stood between the Capitol and the Tarpeian rock; he was represented as a youthful god armed with arrows, and his festival fell before the nones of March.6

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Iconography

Vediovis was depicted as a young man, holding a bundle of arrows in his hand and with a goat standing beside him.

References

Notes

  1. p. 379 (ed. Miller).
  2. comp. Ovid. Fasti iii, 445.
  3. Gellius. Noctes Atticae v, 12; Macrobius, Saturnalia iii, 9.
  4. Martianus Capella ii, p. 40.
  5. Ammianus Marcellinus. Rerum Gestarum xvii, 10.
  6. Gellius, l.c.; Vitruvius. On Architecture iv, 8.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.