it, but since he executed the rite improperly the god threw a lightning bolt which burned down the king's house and killed Tullus. Tarquin the Elder When approaching Rome (where Tarquin was heading to try his luck in politics after unsuccessful attempts in his native Tarquinii), an eagle swooped down, removed his hat, flew screaming in circles, replaced the hat on his head and flew away. Tarquin's wife Tanaquil interpreted this as a sign that he would become king based on the bird, the quadrant of the sky from which it came, the god who had sent it and the fact it touched his hat (an item of clothing placed on a man's most noble part, the head). The Elder Tarquin is credited with introducing the Capitoline Triad to Rome, by building the so-called Capitolium Vetus. Macrobius writes this issued from his Samothracian mystery beliefs. Cult Sacrifices Sacrificial victims (hostiae) offered to Jupiter were the ox (castrated bull), the lamb (on the Ides, the ovis idulis) and the wether (a castrated goat or castrated ram) (on the Ides of January). The animals were required to be white. The question of the lamb's gender is unresolved; while a sacrificial lamb for a male deity was usually male, for the vintage-opening festival the flamen Dialis sacrificed a ewe lamb to Jupiter. This rule seems to have had many exceptions, as the sacrifice of a ram on the Nundinae by the flaminica Dialis demonstrates. During one of the crises of the Punic Wars, Jupiter was offered every animal born that year. Temples Temple of Capitoline Jupiter The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus stood on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. Jupiter was worshiped there as an individual deity, and with Juno and Minerva as part of the Capitoline Triad. The building was supposedly begun by king Tarquinius Priscus, completed by the last king (Tarquinius Superbus) and inaugurated in the early days of the Roman Republic (September 13, 509 BC). It was topped with the statues of four horses drawing a quadriga, with Jupiter as charioteer. A large statue of Jupiter stood within; on festival days, its face was painted red. In (or near) this temple was the Iuppiter Lapis: the Jupiter Stone, on which oaths could be sworn. Jupiter's Capitoline Temple probably served as the architectural model for his provincial temples. When Hadrian built Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem, a temple to