Clitumnus

Clitumnus is the god of the springs that feed the river Clitunno in southern Umbria, and the best-described local cult in Roman Umbria thanks to a letter of Pliny the Younger. Pliny saw an ancient temple at the source, with the god standing in a toga, an oracle that answered by lots, and a bridge across the stream dividing water too sacred to bathe in from water where bathing was allowed; the many small shrines around the spring each had their own god. Suetonius records that Caligula turned aside to the sacred grove of Clitumnus before his German expedition, and Propertius knew the grove too, so the cult is attested independently of Pliny. Pliny calls the cult image Iuppiter Clitumnus, and the sanctuary is conventionally the temple of Jupiter-Clitumnus; the registry keeps him as a local Umbrian god of the water, records the Jupiter identification as an identification made in the sources, and gives him no invented river-god genealogy.

Variant accounts

• Clitumnus is identified with Jupiter in the Roman-period sources.Pliny names the cult image Iuppiter Clitumnus, and the site is conventionally called the temple of Jupiter-Clitumnus; the Umbrian god is thus described as a local manifestation of Jupiter. The census disposition retains this identification 'with caution', and the registry follows it: the record stays an Umbrian local god of the spring, and is not merged into any Jupiter record.Pliny the Younger, Epistles 8.8, on Iuppiter Clitumnus. (primary); Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, s.v. 'Clitumnus'. (secondary)
• No Oceanus and Tethys parentage is accepted for Clitumnus.Greek convention makes river gods children of Oceanus and Tethys, and that genealogy is sometimes extended to Italian river deities in later handbooks. No ancient source gives it to Clitumnus, and the Lane 1 census explicitly refused it. The record carries no parents.Lane 1 Umbrian census, sources-consulted note for Clitumnus: 'No Oceanus/Tethys parentage was accepted.' See data-sources/audits/lane-1/umbrian-audit.md. (secondary)

Domains

• rivers
• prophecy

Powers

• to answer enquirers by lots at his spring, and so to foretell what is to come

Epithets

• Iuppiter ClitumnusPliny the Younger, Epistles 8.8, naming the cult statue Iuppiter Clitumnus. (primary)

Sources

• Clitumnus is the god of the springs at the head of the river Clitumnus in Umbria, worshipped at a temple where his togate image stood and where an oracle answered by lots; his sacred grove is attested independently by Suetonius and Propertius.: Pliny the Younger, Epistles 8.8. (primary); Suetonius, Caligula 43 — the visit to the sacred grove of Clitumnus before the German expedition. (primary); Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, s.v. 'Clitumnus, Temple of Jupiter-Clitumnus, Umbria, Italy'. (secondary)