![\"Capitoline](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2021\/02\/800px-Roma_Tempio_di_Giove_Capitolino_ricostruito-1.jpg\")
<\/a>An artist\u2019s reconstruction of the ancient Roman temple of Capitoline Jupiter
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I\u2019ve been writing regular newspaper columns for the Deseret News<\/em> for roughly eleven years.\u00a0 Over several of those years, I was writing three columns every two weeks \u2014 a weekly solo column, called \u201cDefending the Faith,\u201d on Latter-day Saint issues, and a biweekly column (co-authored, until his shocking and too-early death at the end of 2019, with my friend Bill Hamblin) on world religions.\u00a0 (Links to most of the former, though not quite all, are gathered here<\/a>.\u00a0 Links to most if not all of the latter are gathered here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Well, that\u2019s all come to an end.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n After a month of uncertainty occasioned by the transition of the Deseret News<\/em>\u00a0away from a principally printed format to an electronic one \u2014 a reflection of the turbulence and change happening in the world of print journalism more generally \u2014 I received word last night that my bi-weekly column on world religions no longer fits the design of the newspaper, meaning that my tenure as a columnist for the Deseret News<\/em> is now finished.\u00a0 The \u201cMormon Times\u201d section disappeared quite a while ago, and now the \u201cFaith\u201d section is gone. My LDS-oriented column had already been terminated somewhat more than a year ago, and now I\u2019m done with the bi-weekly column on religions of the world.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I won\u2019t deny that I\u2019m saddened and disappointed by this development.\u00a0 The columns had come to be a fixture in my world.\u00a0 Part of my regular routine.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m still trying to decide what I\u2019m going to do instead, how I\u2019m going to use the time that regularly went to the Deseret News<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here, in the meantime, is the last column that I submitted to the editor of the Deseret News<\/em>.\u00a0 It was never published.\u00a0 As you will easily see, it was written before the inauguration of President Joe Biden; it was submitted on 8 January.\u00a0 Perhaps, though, you\u2019ll still find it of some interest:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The United States Capitol, often simply called the \u201cCapitol Building,\u201d is much in the news these days.\u00a0 On 6 January, it was breached by a mob, the first time it had been actually invaded since the British partially burned it in 1814 (during the somewhat misleadingly named \u201cWar of 1812\u201d).\u00a0 On Wednesday, 20 January, it will be the location of the 59th presidential inauguration in American history.<\/span><\/p>\n The Capitol is, of course, the seat of the national legislature of the United States of America\u2014the first of the three branches of the federal government mentioned in the Constitution and thus, literally, the first among equals.\u00a0 In imitation of it, state legislatures from Alaska to Florida and from Hawaii to Maine also meet in buildings called \u201ccapitols\u201d\u2014many of them (including Utah\u2019s) architecturally patterned after it.<\/span><\/p>\n But why is it called the \u201cCapitol\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, nobody really knows for sure, except that Thomas Jefferson was involved in it.<\/span><\/p>\n Generations of American elementary school students have puzzled over the difference between \u201ccapital,\u201d as in \u201ccapital city,\u201d and \u201ccapitol,\u201d referring to the prominent building that sits in that capital city.\u00a0 But, although they\u2019re ultimately related, the two words are quite distinct in their origins as well as in their spellings.<\/span><\/p>\n The word\u00a0\u201ccapital\u201d\u00a0derives from the\u00a0Latin\u00a0\u201ccaput,\u201d meaning \u201chead.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps that fact will be a little bit easier to believe if we note that the genitive or possessive form of \u201ccaput\u201d is spelled \u201ccapitis.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The word \u201ccapitol,\u201d by contrast, comes from the \u201cMons Capitolinus\u201d or \u201cCapitoline Hill,\u201d the most important of the famous \u201cSeven Hills\u201d of ancient Rome, which divided the Roman Forum from the \u201cCampus Martius\u201d or \u201cField of Mars.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 1793, while he was serving as Secretary of State under President George Washington, Thomas Jefferson gave the name \u201cCapitol Hill\u201d to the area where federal legislators meet today, and, somehow, he made it stick.\u00a0 Pierre Charles L\u2019Enfant, the French-American engineer who developed the overall layout for the new national capital, had known the area as \u201cJenkins Hill\u201d or \u201cJenkins Heights.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Because of its slight prominence in a mostly flat area, the 1791 \u201cL\u2019Enfant Plan\u201d had marked Jenkins Hill as the future location for what it called \u201cCongress House.\u201d\u00a0 It was, L\u2019Enfant said of the hill, a \u201cpedestal waiting for a monument.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Reviewing the city design, though, Jefferson insisted that Jenkins Heights be termed \u201cCapitol Hill,\u201d instead.\u00a0 And \u201cCongress House\u201d was to be the \u201cCapitol.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Why Jefferson wanted these names is not at all obvious.\u00a0 Perhaps it reflects a confluence of his classical education and his grand dreams for the country that he and the other Founders were inventing.\u00a0 But the source for \u201cCapitol\u201d as the name of a building is reasonably clear:<\/span><\/p>\n Ancient Rome\u2019s Capitoline Hill had originally been sacred to the god Saturn, who was linked with time, the agricultural cycle, wealth, and plenty.\u00a0 Accordingly, it\u00a0<\/span>had borne the name \u201cMons Saturnius.\u201d\u00a0 But then, late in the sixth century before Christ, a temple was built atop the hill to Jupiter, Saturn\u2019s eldest son and the king of the classical Roman gods.\u00a0 Called the \u201cTemple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus\u201d (meaning \u201cTemple of Jupiter, the Best and the Greatest\u201d), it was the largest of the ancient temples in the city and the most important of them.\u00a0 It may be for that reason that it began to be known as \u201cCapitolium,\u201d which, like \u201ccapital,\u201d comes from \u201ccaput,\u201d the Latin word for \u201chead.\u201d\u00a0 Eventually, because of its splendor and significance, the entire hill on which it stood took on its name.<\/span><\/p>\n The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Capitoline Hill never served as an official place of government or political debate or legislation; the Roman Senate met in the Curia Julia over in the Forum.\u00a0 Nevertheless, it is from that ancient pagan sanctuary that, at the slightly puzzling insistence of Thomas Jefferson, Washington DC\u2019s \u201cCapitol Hill\u201d and the seat of the national legislature of the United States take their names.<\/span><\/p>\n Today, in the same way that such geographical descriptors and building names as \u201cVatican,\u201d \u201cthe Kremlin,\u201d \u201cWhitehall,\u201d \u201cDowning Street,\u201d \u201cthe White House,\u201d \u201cLondon,\u201d \u201cMoscow,\u201d and \u201cWashington\u201d itself are used as metonyms or rhetorical substitutes for the governments of Russia, Great Britain, the United States, and so forth, \u201cCapitol Hill\u201d\u2014originally the location of the foremost Roman temple to Jupiter, \u201cdjous-pater,\u201d the \u201csky father\u201d\u2014has become a common stand-in for the actions and deliberations of the legislative branch of the United States federal government.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019ve been writing regular newspaper columns for the Deseret News for roughly eleven years.\u00a0 Over several of those years, I was writing three columns every two weeks \u2014 a weekly solo column, called \u201cDefending the Faith,\u201d on Latter-day Saint issues, and a biweekly column (co-authored, until his shocking and too-early death at the 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