Summānus
An ancient Etruscan deity of the nocturnal heavens, to whom was ascribed thunder by night,
as that by day was ascribed to Iupiter. He had a chapel on the Capitol, and his image in
terra-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 (Varro,
L. L. v. 74;
De Div. i. 10; Pliny ,
Pliny H. N. xxix. 57).