SUMMANUS

An ancient Etruscan deity of the nocturnal heavens, to whom was ascribed thunder by night; as that by day was ascribed to Jupiter. He had a chapel on the Capitol, and his image in term cotta stood on the pediment of the great temple. Besides this he had a temple near the Circus Maximus, where on the 20th of June an annual sacrifice was offered to him. His true significance became in later times so obscure that his name was falsely explained as meaning the highest of the Manes (summus Manium) and equivalent to Dis, pater, or the Greek Pluto.