Summanus

Summanus took the thunder that fell between dusk and dawn; Jupiter took the rest. That division is a small thing and an entirely characteristic one — Roman religion distributed competence with a precision that later readers found comic and the Romans found simply correct, since a bolt at midnight was a different sign from a bolt at noon and had to be referred to the right god. His altar is listed among those attributed to Titus Tatius, in the oldest layer of the city's cult, and by the late Republic Ovid could remark that hardly anyone remembered who he was.

Domains

• thunder and lightning

Sources

• Summanus is the Roman god of thunder by night, distinguished from Jupiter who governed thunder by day, and is named among the deities whose altars were attributed to Titus Tatius in the earliest stratum of Roman cult.: Reference treatment listing Summanus among the Tatian altars and describing his nocturnal thunder. (secondary)