the old tradition that Servius Tullius was really an
Etruscan bearing the Etruscan name Mastarna.[495] Now those in power at
Rome at this time, whoever they were, not content with rebuilding the
ancient temple of Jupiter on the Alban hill, conceived the idea of also
building a great temple at Rome, on the steep rock overlooking the
Forum, to the same deity of the heaven who had long presided over the
Latin league. The tradition was that this temple was vowed by the first
Tarquinius, begun by the second, and finally dedicated by the first
consul Horatius in the year 509.[496] It is quite possible that this
tradition indicates the truth in outline--that it was an Etruscan who
conceived the idea of the great work, and that the foreign domination
gave way to a Roman reaction before the temple was ready for dedication.
We cannot know what exactly was the Etruscan intention as to the cult;
but we know that the temple was built in the Etruscan style, that its
foundations were of Etruscan masonry,[497] and that the deities
inhabiting it were three--a _trias_--a feature quite foreign to the
native Roman religion.[498] Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva had each a
separate dwelling (_cella_) within the walls of the temple, which, in
order to meet this innovation, was almost as broad as it was long.
Whether this trias was the one originally intended by the Etruscan king
or kings it is impossible to say; but I have great doubts of it. I
confess that I have no ground but probability to go on when I conjecture
that a long period elapsed between the beginning of this great
undertaking and the final completion, and that in the meantime many
things had happened of which we have no record; that when the temple was
finished it was in Roman hands, though retaining its Etruscan
characteristics, and especially the combination of three deities; and
that those three deities were essentially Roman in conception. Roman,
too, was the idea that one of the three should be paramount; the two
goddesses never attained to any special significance, and the temple
always remained essentially the dwelling of the great Jupiter, the
Father of heaven.[499]

The cult-titles of this Jupiter, Optimus Maximus, the best and greatest,
seem to raise him to a position not only far above his colleagues in the
temple, but above all other Jupiters in Latium or elsewhere, and
presumably above all other deities. They thus suggest a deliberate
attempt to place him in a higher po