1.
Lupercalia
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Lupercalia subsumed Februa, an earlier-origin spring cleansing ritual held on the same date, which gives the month of February its name. The festival was known as Februa after the februum which was used on the day. Ovid mentions februare deriving from an Etruscan word for purging, some sources connect the Latin word for fever with the same idea of purification or purging, due to the sweating commonly seen in association with fevers. Justin describes an image of the Lycaean god, whom the Greeks call Pan. It stood in the Lupercal, the cave where tradition held that Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf, the cave lay at the foot of the Palatine Hill, on which Romulus was thought to have founded Rome. The Februa was ancient and possibly Sabine, after the month of February was added to the Roman calendar, Februa occurred on its fifteenth day. Of its various rituals, the most important came to be those of the Lupercalia, Lupercalia was celebrated in parts of Italy and Gaul, Luperci are attested by inscriptions at Velitrae, Praeneste, Nemausus and elsewhere. The ancient cult of the Hirpi Sorani, who practiced at Mt. Soracte,45 km north of Rome, had elements in common with the Roman Lupercalia, the Lupercalia is marked on a calendar of 354 alongside traditional and Christian festivals. Despite the banning in 391 of all non-Christian cults and festivals, Lupercalia was celebrated by the nominally Christian populace on a regular basis, the remark was addressed to the senator Andromachus by Gelasius in an extended literary epistle that was virtually a diatribe against the Lupercalia. Gelasius finally abolished the Lupercalia, after a long dispute, some researchers, such as Kellog and Cox, have made a separate claim that the modern customs of Saint Valentines Day originate from Lupercalia customs. Like the cultivated fig, its fruit is pendulous, and the tree exudes a milky sap if cut, after the sacrifice at the Lupercal, two Luperci aproached its altar. Their foreheads were anointed with blood taken from the sacrificial knife, then wiped clean with wool soaked in milk, after which they were expected to smile. The Luperci completed their circuit of the Palatine, then returned to the Lupercal cave, the Luperci were young men, or iuvenes, usually between the ages of 20 and 40. They formed two religious based on ancestry, the Quinctiliani and the Fabiani. Each college was headed by a magister, in 44 BC, a third college, the Julii, was instituted in honor of Julius Caesar, its first magister was Mark Antony. Antony offered Caesar a crown during the Lupercalia, an act that was interpreted as a sign that Caesar aspired to make himself king and was gauging the reaction of the crowd. The collegia of the Julii disbanded or lapsed during Caesars civil wars, in the Imperial era, membership of the two traditional collegia was opened to iuvenes of equestrian status. Horaces Ode III,18 describes Lupercalia, the festival or its associated rituals gave its name to the Roman month of February and thence to the modern month
2.
Capitoline Wolf
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The Capitoline Wolf is a bronze sculpture of the mythical she-wolf suckling the twins, Romulus and Remus, from the legend of the founding of Rome. When Numitor, grandfather of the twins, was overthrown by his brother Amulius and they were rescued by a she-wolf who cared for them until a herdsman, Faustulus, found and raised them. The Capitoline Wolf has been housed since 1471 in the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Campidoglio, Rome, the age and origin of the Capitoline Wolf is a subject of controversy. The statue was thought to be an Etruscan work of the 5th century BC, with the twins added in the late 15th century AD. However, radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating has found that the portion of the statue was likely cast between 1021 and 1153. The sculpture is somewhat larger than life-size, standing 75 cm high and 114 cm long, the wolf is depicted in a tense, watchful pose, with alert ears and glaring eyes watching for danger. By contrast, the human twins – executed in a different style – are oblivious to their surroundings. The she-wolf from the legend of Romulus and Remus was regarded as a symbol of Rome from ancient times, several ancient sources refer to statues depicting the wolf suckling the twins. Livy reports in his Roman history that a statue was erected at the foot of the Palatine Hill in 295 B. C. Cicero also mentions the wolf in De Divinatione 1.20 and 2.47. The 18th-century German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann attributed the statue to an Etruscan maker in the 5th century BC and it was first attributed to the Veiian artist Vulca, who decorated the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and then re-attributed to an unknown Etruscan artist of approximately 480–470 BC. Winckelmann correctly identified a Renaissance origin for the twins, they were added in 1471 or later. During the 19th century, a number of researchers questioned Winckelmanns dating of the bronze, august Emil Braun, the secretary of the Archaeological Institute of Rome, proposed in 1854 that the damage to the wolfs paw had been caused by an error during casting. However, these views were disregarded and had been forgotten by the 20th century. In 2006, the Italian art historian Anna Maria Carruba and the Etruscologist Adriano La Regina contested the traditional dating of the wolf on the basis of an analysis of the casting technique. Carruba had been given the task of restoring the sculpture in 1997, single-piece casting was, however, widely used in medieval times to mould bronze items that needed a high level of rigidity, such as bells and cannon. Carruba argues, like Braun, that the damage to the paw had resulted from an error in the moulding process. Radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating was carried out at the University of Salento in February 2007 to resolve the question, the results revealed with an accuracy of 95.4 percent that the sculpture was crafted between the 11th and 12th century AD. It is unclear when the sculpture was first erected, but there are a number of references to a wolf standing in the Popes Lateran Palace
3.
Gray wolf
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The gray wolf or grey wolf, also known as the timber wolf or western wolf, is a canine native to the wilderness and remote areas of Eurasia and North America. It is the largest extant member of its family, with males averaging 43–45 kg, like the red wolf, it is distinguished from other Canis species by its larger size and less pointed features, particularly on the ears and muzzle. Its winter fur is long and bushy, and predominantly a mottled gray in color, although pure white, red. As of 2005,37 subspecies of C. lupus are recognised by MSW3 and it is nonetheless closely related enough to smaller Canis species, such as the eastern wolf, coyote, and golden jackal to produce fertile hybrids. It is an animal, travelling in nuclear families consisting of a mated pair. The gray wolf is typically an apex predator throughout its range, with only humans and it feeds primarily on large ungulates, though it also eats smaller animals, livestock, carrion, and garbage. The gray wolf is one of the worlds best known and well researched animals, although the fear of wolves is pervasive in many human societies, the majority of recorded attacks on people have been attributed to animals suffering from rabies. The English wolf stems from the Old English wulf, which is thought to be derived from the Proto-Germanic *wulfaz. The Latin lupus is a Sabine loanword, both derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *wlqwos/*lukwos. The species Canis lupus was first recorded by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758, the thirty-seven subspecies of Canis lupus are listed under the designated common name of wolf in Mammal Species of the World third edition that was published in 2005. The nominate subspecies is the Eurasian wolf, also known as the common wolf, the subspecies includes the domestic dog, dingo, eastern wolf and red wolf, but lists C. l. italicus and C. l. communis as synonyms of C. l. lupus. However, the classification of several as either species or subspecies has recently been challenged, ecological factors including habitat type, climate, prey specialization and predatory competition will greatly influence the wolfs genetic population structure and cranio-dental plasticity. The domestic dog is the most widely abundant large carnivore and a descendant from one of those now-extinct wolf populations, in 2013, a genetic study found that the wolf population in Europe was divided along a north-south axis and formed five major clusters. Three clusters were identified occupying southern and central Europe in Italy, the Carpathians, another two clusters were identified occupying north-central Europe and the Ukrainian steppe. The Italian wolf consisted of a population with low genetic diversity. Wolves from Croatia, Bulgaria, and Greece formed the Dinaric-Balkans cluster, the wolves from the Carpathians were more similar to the wolves from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe than they were to wolves from north-central Europe. These clusters may have been the result of expansion from glacial refugia, an adaptation to environments, and landscape fragmentation. These six wolf ecotypes were named West Forest, Boreal Forest, Arctic, High Arctic, Baffin, the studies found that precipitation and mean diurnal temperature range were the most influential variables
4.
Cave
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A cave is a hollow place in the ground, specifically a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. Caves form naturally by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground, the word cave can also refer to much smaller openings such as sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos. A cavern is a type of cave, naturally formed in soluble rock with the ability to grow speleothems. Speleology is the science of exploration and study of all aspects of caves, visiting or exploring caves for recreation may be called caving, potholing, or spelunking. The formation and development of caves is known as speleogenesis, which can occur over the course of millions of years, caves are formed by various geologic processes and can be variable sizes. These may involve a combination of processes, erosion from water, tectonic forces, microorganisms, pressure. Isotopic dating techniques can be applied to cave sediments, in order to determine the timescale when geologic events may have occurred to help form and it is estimated that the maximum depth of a cave cannot be more than 3,000 metres due to the pressure of overlying rocks. For karst caves the maximum depth is determined on the basis of the limit of karst forming processes. Most caves are formed in limestone by dissolution, solutional caves or karst caves are the most frequently occurring caves and such caves form in rock that is soluble. Most occur in limestone, but they can form in other rocks including chalk, dolomite, marble, salt. Rock is dissolved by acid in groundwater that seeps through bedding planes, faults, joints. Over geological epochs cracks expand to become caves and cave systems, the largest and most abundant solutional caves are located in limestone. Limestone dissolves under the action of rainwater and groundwater charged with H2CO3, the dissolution process produces a distinctive landform known as karst, characterized by sinkholes and underground drainage. Limestone caves are often adorned with calcium carbonate formations produced through slow precipitation and these include flowstones, stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, soda straws and columns. These secondary mineral deposits in caves are called speleothems, the portions of a solutional cave that are below the water table or the local level of the groundwater will be flooded. Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico and nearby Carlsbad Cavern are now believed to be examples of type of solutional cave. They were formed by H2S gas rising from below, where reservoirs of oil give off sulfurous fumes and this gas mixes with ground water and forms H2SO4. The acid then dissolves the limestone from below, rather than from above, caves formed at the same time as the surrounding rock are called primary caves
5.
Palatine Hill
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The Palatine Hill is the centremost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city. It stands 40 metres above the Roman Forum, looking down upon it on one side, from the time of Augustus Imperial palaces were built here and hence it became the etymological origin of the word palace and its cognates in other languages. According to Livy the Palatine hill got its name from the Arcadian settlement of Pallantium, more likely, it is derived from the noun palātum palate, Ennius uses it once for the heaven, and it may be connected with the Etruscan word for sky, falad. The term palace itself stems from Palatium, according to Roman mythology, the Palatine Hill was the location of the cave, known as the Lupercal, where Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf Lupa that kept them alive. Another legend occuring on the Palatine is Hercules defeat of Cacus after the monster had stolen some cattle. Hercules struck Cacus with his characteristic club so hard that it formed a cleft on the southeast corner of the hill, Rome has its origins on the Palatine. Excavations show that people have lived in the area since the 10th century BC, according to Livy, after the immigration of the Sabines and the Albans to Rome, the original Romans lived on the Palatine. The Palatine Hill was also the site of the ancient festival of the Lupercalia, many affluent Romans of the Republican period had their residences there. Augustus also built a temple to Apollo here, the Palace of Domitian which dominates the site and looks out over the Circus Maximus was rebuilt largely during the reign of Domitian over earlier buildings of Nero. Later emperors particularly the Severans made significant additions to the buildings, the House of Livia, the wife of Augustus, is conventially attributed to her based only on the generic name on a clay pipe and circumstantial factors such as proximity to the House of Augustus. The building is located near the Temple of Magna Mater at the end of the hill. It is notable for its beautiful frescoes, the House of Tiberius is located next to the Temple of Cybele, on the platform built by Nero and in the current Farnese Gardens. During Augustus reign, an area of the Palatine Hill was roped off for a sort of archaeological expedition and he declared this site the original town of Rome. Modern archaeology has identified evidence of Bronze Age settlement in the area which predates Romes founding, there is a museum on the Palatine in which artifacts dating from before the official foundation of the City are displayed. The museum also contains Roman statuary, an altar to an unknown deity, once thought to be Aius Locutius, was discovered here in 1820. In July 2006, archaeologists announced the discovery of the Palatine House, head archaeologist Clementina Panella uncovered a section of corridor and other fragments under Romes Palatine Hill, which she described on July 20 as a very ancient aristocratic house. On the ground floor, three shops opened onto the Via Sacra, the location of the domus is important because of its potential proximity to the Curiae Veteres, the earliest shrine of the curies of Rome. In January 2007, Italian archeologist Irene Iacopi announced that she had found the legendary Lupercal cave beneath the remains of Augustus residence
6.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
7.
Temple of Cybele (Palatine)
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The Temple of Cybele or Temple of Magna Mater was Romes first and most important temple to the Magna Mater, who was known to the Greeks as Cybele. The new temple was dedicated on 11 April 191 BC, the temple was sited on the high western slope of the Palatine, overlooking the valley of the Circus Maximus and facing the temple of Ceres on the slopes of the Aventine. It was accessible via a long flight of steps from the flattened area or proscenium below. The goddesss altar was visible both from the proscenium and the temples interior, the original temple burned down in 111 BC, and was restored by one Metellus. The temple of Cybele on the Palatine was destroyed in 394 AD on the orders of Emperor Theodosius I, the temple was 33.18 metres deep, and its frontage 17.10 metres wide, accessed by steps of the same width. It was built in the prostyle hexastyle of the Corinthian order, the whole was supported by a massively walled, stucco-faced podium of irregular, thickly mortared tufa and peperino. A coin of Faustina the Elder is thought to show the same temple, with curved roof, at the top of the steps is a statue of Cybele enthroned, with a turreted crown and lion attendants. This is consistent with a colossal, fragmentary statue of the goddess, the goddess meteoric stone may have been kept on a pedestal within the temple cella, or incorporated into the face of a statue and set on a pediment. Magna Mater, aedes at LacusCurtius Roller, Lynn Emrich, in Search of God the Mother, The Cult of Anatolian Cybele. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, University of California Press
8.
Basilica di Sant'Anastasia al Palatino
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SantAnastasia is a basilica and titular church in for cardinal-priests in Rome, Italy. SantAnastasia was built in the late 3rd century - early 4th century, the church is listed under the titulus Anastasiae in the acts of the 499 synod. Later the church was entitled to the martyr with the same name, the church was restored several times, Pope Damasus I, Pope Hilarius, Pope John VII, Pope Leo III, and Pope Gregory IV. The current church dates back to the 17th century restoration commissioned by Pope Urban VII, traditionally, the church is connected to the cult of St Jerome, who possibly celebrated mass here. The saint is depicted over the altar, by Domenichino, the ceiling is frescoed with a martyrdom of the saints by Michelangelo Cerruti. The chapel to the right, has a painting of St. John the Baptist by Pier Francesco Mola, while the last chapel on the right has a fresco of Scenes of the life of Saints Carlo Borromeo and Filippo Neri by Lazzaro Baldi. The right transept has a painting of S. Toribio by Francesco Trevisani, the high altar has a Nativity by Lazzaro Baldi and below the altar is a statue of Saint Anastasia by Ercole Ferrata. It clearly shows the influence of Berninis Beata Ludovica Albertoni, the left transept has a Madonna of the Rosary by Baldi, and the tomb of Cardinal and philologist Angelo Mai by the late neoclassical sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni. The last chapel to the left, by Domenichino depicts a St. Jerome, the other chapel has a Ss. Giorgio e Publio by Etienne Parrocel. The current Cardinal Priest of the Titulus S. Anastasiae is Godfried Danneels, past holders have included Boso, a Bishop of Turin, and John Morton, an Archbishop of Canterbury
9.
Founding of Rome
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The most familiar of these myths, and perhaps the most famous of all Roman myths, is the story of Romulus and Remus, the twins who were suckled by a she-wolf. The national epic of mythical Rome, the Aeneid of Virgil, the Aeneid was written under Augustus, who claimed ancestry through Julius Caesar from the hero and his mother Venus. This started a series of armed conflicts with Turnus over the marriage of Lavinia, before the arrival of Aeneas, Turnus was betrothed to Lavinia, who then married Aeneas, starting the war. Aeneas won the war and killed Turnus, the Trojans won the right to stay and to assimilate with the local peoples. Toward the end of line, King Procas was the father of Numitor. At Procas death, Numitor became king of Alba Longa, but Amulius captured him and sent him to prison, for many years, Amulius was the king. The tortuous nature of the chronology is indicated by Rhea Silvias ordination among the Vestals, the myth of Aeneas was of Greek origin and had to be reconciled with the Italian myth of Romulus and Remus, who would have been born around 771 BC if taken as historical figures. They were purported to be sons of Rhea Silvia and either Mars and they were abandoned at birth, in the manner of many mythological heroes, because of a prophecy that they would overthrow their great-uncle Amulius, who had overthrown Silvias father Numitor. They were abandoned on the Tiber River by servants who took pity on the infants, the twins were nurtured by a she-wolf until a shepherd named Faustulus found the boys and took them as his sons. Faustulus and his wife Acca Larentia raised the children, when Remus and Romulus became adults, they killed Amulius and restored Numitor. They decided to establish a city, however, they quarreled, thus, Rome began with a fratricide, a story that was later taken to represent the citys history of internecine political strife and bloodshed. The ancient Romans were certain of the day Rome was founded, April 21, even the official Fasti Capitolini offers its own date,752 BC. Recent discoveries by Andrea Carandini on Romes Palatine Hill have also yielded evidence of a series of walls on the north slope that can be dated to the middle of the 8th century BC. According to the legend, Romulus plowed a furrow around the hill in order to mark the boundary of his new city, there is no consensus on the etymology of the citys name. Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggested Greek ῥώμη, meaning strength, vigor, a modern theory of etymology holds that the name of the city is of Etruscan origin, derived from rumon, river. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from about 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attests to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron age, in any case, the location that became the city of Rome was inhabited by Latin settlers from various regions, farmers and pastoralists, as evidenced by differences in pottery and burial techniques
10.
Romulus and Remus
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In Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus are twin brothers, whose story tells the events that led to the founding of the city of Rome and the Roman Kingdom by Romulus. The killing of Remus by his brother, and other tales from their story, have inspired artists throughout the ages, since ancient times, the image of the twins being suckled by a she-wolf has been a symbol of the city of Rome and the Roman people. Although the tale takes place before the founding of Rome around 750 BC, whether the twins myth was an original part of Roman myth or a later development is a subject of ongoing debate. Romulus and Remus were born in Alba Longa, one of the ancient Latin cities near the site of Rome. Their mother, Rhea Silvia was a virgin and the daughter of the former king, Numitor. In some sources, Rhea Silvia conceived them when their father, through their mother, the twins were descended from Greek and Latin nobility. Seeing them as a threat to his rule, King Amulius ordered them to be killed. They were saved by the god Tiberinus, Father of the River and survived with the care of others, in the most well-known episode, the twins were suckled by a she-wolf, in a cave now known as the Lupercal. Eventually, they were adopted by Faustulus, a shepherd and they grew up tending flocks, unaware of their true identities. Over time, their leadership abilities attracted a company of supporters from the community. When they were adults, they became involved in a dispute between supporters of Numitor and Amulius. As a result, Remus was taken prisoner and brought to Alba Longa, both his grandfather and the king suspected his true identity. Romulus, meanwhile, had organized an effort to free his brother, during this time they learned of their past and joined forces with their grandfather to restore him to the throne. Amulius was killed and Numitor was reinstated as king of Alba, the twins set out to build a city of their own. After arriving back in the area of the seven hills, they disagreed about the hill upon which to build, Romulus preferred the Palatine Hill, above the Lupercal, Remus preferred the Aventine Hill. When they could not resolve the dispute, they agreed to seek the gods approval through a contest of augury, Remus first saw 6 auspicious birds but soon afterward, Romulus saw 12, and claimed to have won divine approval. The new dispute furthered the contention between them, in the aftermath, Remus was killed either by Romulus or by one of his supporters. Romulus then went on to found the city of Rome, its institutions, government, military and he reigned for many years as its first king
11.
Faustulus
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In Roman mythology, Faustulus was the shepherd who found the infants Romulus and Remus, who were being suckled by a she-wolf, known as Lupa, on the Palatine Hill. He, with his wife, Acca Larentia, raised the children, in some versions of the myth, Larentia was a prostitute. The name Faustulus was later claimed by a Roman family, one of whom minted a coin showing Faustulus with the twins, sextus Pompeius Fostlus issued a silver denarius in about 140 BCE that showed, on the twins and she-wolf with Faustulus to their left
12.
Faunus
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In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the horned god of the forest, plains and fields, when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan, Faunus was one of the oldest Roman deities, known as the di indigetes. According to the epic poet Virgil, he was a king of the Latins who came with his people from Arcadia. His shade was consulted as a god of prophecy under the name of Fatuus, with oracles in the grove of Tibur, around the well Albunea. Marcus Terentius Varro asserted that the responses were given in Saturnian verse. Faunus revealed the future in dreams and voices that were communicated to those who came to sleep in his precincts, W. Warde Fowler suggested that Faunus is identical with Favonius, one of the Roman wind gods. Faunus is the Latin outcome of a PIE *dhau-no- meaning the strangler, a. Pasqualini agrees on the presence of a Daunian connection in the towns of Latium claiming a Diomedean descent. Moreover, it would seem there is a sizable presence of Daunians in Latium. Festus 106 L records a king Lucerus who helped Romulus against Titus Tatius, moreover, Oscan epithet Leucesius and Lucetius should be interpreted as related to the Luceres. He also lists the Leucaria mother of Romos, Jupiter Lucetius, toponyms Leucasia /Leucaria near Paestum, daunos according to Walde Hoffmann is from IE root *dhau to strangle, meaning the strangler, epithet of the wolf, cfr. In fable Faunus appears as an old king of Latium, grandson of Saturnus, son of Picus, after his death he is raised to the position of a tutelary deity of the land, for his many services to agriculture and cattle-breeding. A goddess of like attributes, called Fauna and Fatua, was associated in his worship and she was regarded as his daughter, wife, or sister. The female deity Bona Dea was often equated with Fauna, as Pan was accompanied by the Paniskoi, or little Pans, so the existence of many Fauni was assumed besides the chief Faunus. Fauns are place-spirits of untamed woodland, educated, Hellenizing Romans connected their fauns with the Greek satyrs, who were wild and orgiastic drunken followers of Dionysus, with a distinct origin. Faunus was naturally equated with the god Pan, who was a god of shepherds who was said to reside in Arcadia. Pan had always been depicted with horns and as many depictions of Faunus also began to display this trait. However, the two deities were considered separate by many, for instance, the epic poet Virgil, in his Aeneid. A euhemeristic account made Faunus a Latin king, son of Picus and Canens
13.
Augustus
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Augustus was the founder of the Roman Principate and considered the first Roman emperor, controlling the Roman Empire from 27 BC until his death in AD14. He was born Gaius Octavius into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia and his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesars will as his adopted son and heir, then known as Octavianus. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar, following their victory at the Battle of Philippi, the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as military dictators. The Triumvate was eventually torn apart by the ambitions of its members. Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, in reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and it took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis, the resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of peace known as the Pax Romana. Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanding possessions in Africa, expanding into Germania, beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy. Augustus died in AD14 at the age of 75 and he probably died from natural causes, although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son Tiberius, Augustus was known by many names throughout his life, At birth, he was named Gaius Octavius after his biological father. Historians typically refer to him simply as Octavius between his birth in 63 until his adoption by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, upon his adoption, he took Caesars name and became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in accordance with Roman adoption naming standards. He quickly dropped Octavianus from his name, and his contemporaries referred to him as Caesar during this period, historians. In 27 BC, following his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra and it is the events of 27 BC from which he obtained his traditional name of Augustus, which historians use in reference to him from 27 BC until his death in AD14. While his paternal family was from the town of Velletri, approximately 40 kilometres from Rome and he was born at Ox Head, a small property on the Palatine Hill, very close to the Roman Forum. He was given the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, his cognomen possibly commemorating his fathers victory at Thurii over a band of slaves. Due to the nature of Rome at the time, Octavius was taken to his fathers home village at Velletri to be raised. Octavius only mentions his fathers equestrian family briefly in his memoirs and his paternal great-grandfather Gaius Octavius was a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War
14.
Livia
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Livia Drusilla, also known as Julia Augusta after her formal adoption into the Julian family in AD14, was the wife of the Roman emperor Augustus throughout his reign, as well as his adviser. She was the mother of the emperor Tiberius, paternal grandmother of the emperor Claudius, paternal great-grandmother of the emperor Caligula and she was deified by Claudius who acknowledged her title of Augusta. She was born on 30 January 59 or 58 BC as the daughter of Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus by his wife Aufidia, the diminutive Drusilla often found in her name suggests that she was a second daughter. Marcus Livius Drusus Libo was her adopted brother and she was probably married in 43 BC. Her father married her to Tiberius Claudius Nero, her cousin of patrician status who was fighting him on the side of Julius Caesars assassins against Octavian. Her first child, the future Emperor Tiberius, was born in 42 BC, later, Livia, her husband Tiberius Nero and their two-year-old son, Tiberius, moved on to Greece. At this time, Livia already had a son, the future emperor Tiberius, legend said that Octavian fell immediately in love with her, despite the fact that he was still married to Scribonia. Octavian divorced Scribonia in 39 BC, on the day that she gave birth to his daughter Julia the Elder. Seemingly around that time, when Livia was six months pregnant, on 14 January, the child was born. Augustus and Livia married on 17 January, waiving the traditional waiting period, Tiberius Claudius Nero was present at the wedding, giving her in marriage just as a father would. The importance of the patrician Claudii to Octavians cause, and the survival of the Claudii Nerones are probably more rational explanations for the tempestuous union. Nevertheless, Livia and Augustus remained married for the next 51 years, after Mark Antonys suicide following the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Octavian had removed all obstacles to his power and henceforth ruled as Emperor, from 27 BC on, under the honorary title Augustus. He and Livia formed the model for Roman households. Despite their wealth and power, Augustuss family continued to live modestly in their house on the Palatine Hill, Livia would set the pattern for the noble Roman matrona. She wore neither excessive jewelry nor pretentious costumes, she took care of the household and her husband, always faithful, in 35 BC Octavian gave Livia the unprecedented honour of ruling her own finances and dedicated a public statue to her. She had her own circle of clients and pushed many protégés into political offices, including the grandfathers of the later emperors Galba and Otho. With Augustus being the father of one daughter, Livia revealed herself to be an ambitious mother and soon started to push her own sons Tiberius. Drusus was a general and married Augustuss favourite niece, Antonia Minor
15.
Romulus
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Romulus was the legendary founder and first king of Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Romes oldest legal, political, religious, Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, were the sons of Rhea Silvia, herself the daughter of Numitor, the former king of Alba Longa. Through them, the twins are descended from the Trojan hero Aeneas and Latinus, before the twins birth, Numitor had been usurped by his brother, Amulius. After seizing the throne, Amulius murdered Numitors son, and condemned Rhea to perpetual virginity by consecrating her a Vestal, Rhea, however, became pregnant, ostensibly by the god Mars. Amulius had her imprisoned, and upon the birth, ordered that they be thrown into the rain-swollen Tiber. Instead of carrying out the orders, his servants left the twins along the riverbank at the foot of Palatine Hill. In the traditional telling of the legend, a she-wolf happened upon the twins and she suckled and tended them by a cave until they were found by the herdsman Faustulus and his wife, Acca Larentia. The brothers grew to manhood among the shepherds and hill-folk, after becoming involved in a conflict between the followers of Amulius and those of their grandfather Numitor, they learned the truth of their origin. They overthrew and killed Amulius and restored Numitor to the throne, the princes set out to establish a city of their own. They returned to the hills overlooking the Tiber, the site where they had exposed as infants. They could not agree on which hill should house the new city, when an omen to resolve the controversy failed to provide a clear indication, the conflict escalated and Remus was killed by his brother or by his brothers follower. In a variant of the legend, the augurs favoured Romulus, when Remus derisively leapt over the walls to show how inadequate they were against invaders, he was struck down by Romulus. In another variant, Remus died during a melée along with Faustulus, the founding of the city by Romulus was commemorated annually on April 21, with the festival of the Parilia. His first act was to fortify the Palatine, in the course of which he made a sacrifice to the gods and he then laid out the citys boundaries with a furrow that he ploughed, performed another sacrifice, and with his followers set to work building the city itself. Romulus then sought the assent of the people to become their king, with Numitors help, he addressed them and received their approval. Romulus accepted the crown after he sacrificed and prayed to Jupiter, Romulus then divided the populace into three tribes, known as the Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres, for taxation and military purposes. Each tribe was presided over by a known as a tribune. Romulus also allotted a portion of land to ward, for the benefit of the people
16.
Etruscology
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Etruscology is the study of the ancient Italian civilization of the Etruscans, which was incorporated into an expanding Roman Empire during the period of Romes Middle Republic. Since the Etruscans were politically and culturally influential in pre-Republican Rome, many Etruscologists are also scholars of the history, archaeology, the premier scholarly journal of Etruscan Studies is Studi Etruschi. A recent edition to the literature is the American journal, Etruscan Studies, Journal of the Etruscan Foundation. A more informal organ is Etruscan News and the accompanying cyber-publication Etruscan News Online, thomas Dempster, Scottish scholar and historian, is perhaps the godfather of Etruscology. Under the patronage of Grand Duke Cosimo II of Etruria, Dempster researched, other scholars who focus more on the Etruscan influence on Rome include, R. E. A. Palmer, John F. Hall, and H. H. Scullard. The Etruscan Foundation supports Etruscan scholarship in the United States and abroad, the foundation provides internships and fellowships, and publishes the journal Etruscan Studies. It also sponsors an annual lecture
17.
Sapienza University of Rome
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The Sapienza University of Rome, also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, is a collegiate research university located in Rome, Italy. Formally known as Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, it is the largest European university by enrollments and one of the oldest in history, the University is also the most prestigious Italian university and also the best ranked in Southern Europe. The biggest part of the Italian ruling class studied at this University and he introduced a new tax on wine in order to raise funds for the university, the money was used to buy a palace which later housed the SantIvo alla Sapienza church. However, the Universitys days of splendour came to an end during the sack of Rome in 1527, when the studium was closed and the professors dispersed, Pope Paul III restored the university shortly after his ascension to the pontificate in 1534. In the 1650s the university known as Sapienza, meaning wisdom. University students were newly animated during the 19th-century Italian revival, in 1870, La Sapienza stopped being the papal university and became the university of the capital of Italy. In 1935 the new university campus, planned by Marcello Piacentini, was completed, Sapienza University has many campuses in Rome but its main campus is the Città Universitaria, which covers 439,000 m2 near the Roma Tiburtina Station. The university has satellite campuses outside Rome, the main of which is in Latina. In 2011 a project was launched to build a campus residence halls near Pietralata station. The Department of Philosophy is located in this building, since the 2011 reform, Sapienza University of Rome has eleven faculties and 65 departments. Today Sapienza, with 140,000 students and 8,000 among academic and technical, the university has significant research programmes in the fields of engineering, natural sciences, biomedical sciences and humanities. It offers 10 Masters Programmes taught entirely in English, as of the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities, Sapienza is positioned within the 151-200 group of universities and among the top 3% of universities in the world. In 2015, the Center for World University Rankings ranked the Sapienza University of Rome as the 112th in the world, in order to cope with the large demand for admission to the university courses, some faculties hold a series of entrance examinations. The entrance test often decides which candidates will have access to the undergraduate course, for some faculties, the entrance test is only a means through which the administration acknowledges the students level of preparation. Students that do not pass the test can still enroll in their chosen degree courses but have to pass an additional exam during their first year, the title of the speech would have been The Truth Makes Us Good and Goodness is Truth. Some students and professors protested in reaction to a 1990 speech that Pope Benedict XVI gave in which he, in their opinion, endorsed the actions of the church against Galileo in 1633
18.
Nymphaeum
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A nymphaeum or nymphaion, in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs. These monuments were originally natural grottoes, which tradition assigned as habitations to the local nymphs and they were sometimes so arranged as to furnish a supply of water, as at Pamphylian Side. A nymphaeum dedicated to a water nymph, Coventina, was built along Hadrians Wall. Subsequently, artificial grottoes took the place of natural ones, the nymphaeum in Jerash, Jordan, was constructed in 191 AD. The fountain was originally embellished with marble facing on the level, painted plaster on the upper level. Water cascaded through seven carved lions heads into small basins on the sidewalk, the nymphaea of the Roman period, which extended the sacral use to purely recreational ones, were borrowed from the constructions of the Hellenistic east. The majority of them were rotundas, and were adorned with statues and they served the threefold purpose of sanctuaries, reservoirs and assembly-rooms. A special feature was their use for the celebration of marriages, such nymphaea existed in Corinth, Antioch and Constantinople, the remains of some twenty have been found in Rome and many in Africa. The so-called exedra of Herodes Atticus, the nymphaeum in the palace of Domitian, nymphaea were important in the architectural movement of mosaic from floor to walls and ceiling vaults in the 1st century. Initially they were decorated with geometrical mosaics often incorporating shells. The term nymphaeum was also applied to the fountains of water in the atrium of the Christian basilica, phiale is an equivalent Greek term. A nymphaeum for al fresco summer dining featuring artificial grottoes with waterflows was designed by Bartolomeo Ammanati, Roman gardens This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed. Plattner and T. Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of rome,1929, Nymphaeum
19.
Triclinium
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A triclinium is a formal dining room in a Roman building. The word is adopted from the Greek τρικλίνιον, triklinion, from τρι-, tri-, the triclinium was characterized by three klinai on three sides of a low square table, whose surfaces sloped away from the table at about 10 degrees. Diners would recline on these surfaces in a semi-recumbent position, the fourth side of the table was left free, presumably to allow service to the table. Usually the open side faced the entrance of the room, in Roman-era dwellings, particularly wealthy ones, triclinia were common and the hosts and guest would recline on pillows while feasting. The Museum of Archeology in Arezzo, Italy, or the House of Caro in Pompeii offer what are thought to be accurate reconstructions of triclinia, the custom of using klinai while taking a meal rather than sitting became popular among the Greeks in the early seventh century BC. From here it spread to their colonies in southern Italy and was adopted by the Etruscans. The Romans may have seen the first dining klinai as used by the Etruscans, dining was the defining ritual in Roman domestic life, lasting from late afternoon through late at night. Typically, 9-20 guests were invited, arranged in a prescribed seating order to emphasize divisions in status, as static, privileged space, dining rooms received extremely elaborate decoration, with complex perspective scenes and central paintings. Dionysus, Venus, and still lifes of food were popular, middle class and elite Roman houses usually had at least two triclinia, its not unusual to find four or more. Here, the triclinium maius would be used for dinner parties. Smaller triclinia would be used for dinner parties, with a more exclusive set of guests. Hence their decoration was often at least as elaborate as that found in larger triclinia, as in the larger triclinia, wine, food, and love were always popular themes. As in many houses in Pompeii, here the smaller dining room forms a suite with the adjoining cubiculum, accubita Stibadium Triclinium Galleries and plans of Roman triclinia
20.
Nero
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Nero was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, during his reign, the redoubtable general Corbulo conducted a successful war and negotiated peace with the Parthian Empire. His general Suetonius Paulinus crushed a revolt in Britain, Nero annexed the Bosporan Kingdom to the empire and may have begun the First Jewish–Roman War. In 64 AD, most of Rome was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome, Suetonius, writing a generation later, claims that many Romans believed Nero himself had started the fire, in order to clear land for his planned palatial complex, the Domus Aurea. In 68, the rebellion of Vindex in Gaul and later the acclamation of Galba in Hispania drove Nero from the throne, facing a false report of being denounced as a public enemy who was to be executed, he committed suicide on 9 June 68. His death ended the Julio-Claudian dynasty, sparking a period of civil wars known as the Year of the Four Emperors. Neros rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance and he is known for many executions, including that of his mother, and the probable murder by poison of his stepbrother Britannicus. Nero was rumored to have had captured Christians dipped in oil and this view is based on the writings of Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio, the main surviving sources for Neros reign, but a few sources paint Nero in a more favourable light. Some sources, including some mentioned above, portray him as an emperor who was popular with the common Roman people, some modern historians question the reliability of ancient sources when reporting on Neros tyrannical acts. Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Nero, was born on 15 December 37 in Antium and he was the only son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the Younger, sister of Emperor Caligula. Neros father, Gnaeus, was the son of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Gnaeus was thus the grandson of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and probably Aemilia Lepida on his fathers side, and the grandson of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor on his mothers side. Thus, Nero had as his paternal grandmother Antonia Major, through Octavia, Nero was the great-nephew of Caesar Augustus. Neros father had employed as a praetor and was a member of Caligulas staff when the latter travelled to the East. Neros father was described by Suetonius as a murderer and a cheat who was charged by Emperor Tiberius with treason, adultery, Tiberius died, allowing him to escape these charges. Neros father died of edema in 39 when Nero was two, Neros mother was Agrippina the Younger, a great-granddaughter of Caesar Augustus and his wife Scribonia through their daughter Julia the Elder and her husband Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Agrippinas father, Germanicus, was a grandson of Augustuss wife, Livia, on one side and Mark Antony, Germanicus mother Antonia Minor was a daughter of Octavia Minor and Mark Antony. Germanicus was also the son of Tiberius. Agrippina poisoned her second husband Passienus Crispus, so many ancient historians also accuse her of murdering her third husband, the emperor Claudius
21.
Casa Romuli
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The Casa Romuli, also known as the tugurium Romuli, was the reputed dwelling-place of the legendary founder and first king of Rome, Romulus. It was situated on the corner of the Palatine hill. Over the centuries, the casa was repeatedly damaged by fire and storms, the last recorded fire was in 12 BC, on the death of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, right-hand man of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. On this occasion, the casa was apparently set on fire by some crows which dropped pieces of burning meat, again snatched from an altar, onto the thatched roof. It has been speculated that a tugurium Faustini on the Palatine recorded in the time of the emperor Constantine I the Great was in reality the still surviving casa Romuli. A second casa Romuli is recorded in the sources, on the Capitoline Hill. It is last mentioned in AD78, to date, archaeologists have been unable to definitively associate the casa Romuli with any extant remains. A strong candidate is the largest of a group of dwellings whose foundations were unearthed in the location during excavations in 1946. The dwellings foundations were cut into the bedrock, with an ovoid 4. 9m X3. 6m perimeter. Six post-holes arranged in a circle of one in the centre were presumably to accommodate the supporting struts for walls. Organic material found in the site has dated to the Italian early Iron Age. Romulus and Remus Lupercal Latial culture Latins Dio Cassius Roman History Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities Plutarch Parallel Lives Vitruvius De Architectura Archeo-Guida Cornell, the Beginnings of Rome Platner, S. B. A topographical Dictionary of ancient Rome Pensabene, P. “Casa Romuli sul Palatino. ”Possible remains of Casa Romuli Images of Villanovan hut-urn
22.
National Geographic Society
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The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D. C. United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational institutions in the world and its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history. In partnership with 21st Century Fox, the Society operates the magazine, TV channels, a website that features extra content and worldwide events, the National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge. The Society believes in the power of science, exploration and storytelling to change the world, National Geographic is governed by a board of trustees, whose 21 members include distinguished educators, business executives, former government officials and conservationists. The organization sponsors and funds research and exploration. National Geographic maintains a museum for the public in its Washington and its Education Foundation gives grants to education organizations and individuals to improve geography education. Its Committee for Research and Exploration has awarded more than 11,000 grants for scientific research, National Geographic has retail stores in Washington, D. C. The locations outside of the United States are operated by Worldwide Retail Store S. L and it also publishes other magazines, books, school products, maps, and Web and film products in numerous languages and countries. National Geographics various media properties reach more than 280 million people monthly, the National Geographic Society began as a club for an elite group of academics and wealthy patrons interested in travel. After preparing a constitution and a plan of organization, the National Geographic Society was incorporated two weeks later on January 27, Gardiner Greene Hubbard became its first president and his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, succeeded him in 1897. Bell and Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor devised the successful marketing notion of Society membership, the current National Geographic Society president and CEO is Gary E. Knell. The chairman of the board of trustees is John Fahey, the editor-in-chief of National Geographic magazine is Susan Goldberg. Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, a chairman of the Society board of trustees received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 for his leadership in geography education. In 2004, the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D. C. was one of the first buildings to receive a Green certification from Global Green USA. The National Geographic received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities in October 2006 in Oviedo, in 2013 the society was investigated for possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act relating to their close association with an Egyptian government official responsible for antiquities. This new, for-profit corporation, will own National Geographic and other magazines, as reported by The Guardian, a spokesman for National Geographic in a November 2,2015 e-mail statement, briefly discussed the rationale for the staff reductions as part of the. Process of reorganizing in order to move forward following the closing the National Geographic Partners deal. Additional specifics were provided to Photo District News by M. J. Jacobsen, National Geographic’s SVP of communications, similar to the contents of a formal announcement by the two companies
23.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
24.
The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
25.
Religion in ancient Rome
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The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety in maintaining good relations with the gods. According to legends, most of Romes religious institutions could be traced to its founders, particularly Numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king of Rome, who negotiated directly with the gods. This archaic religion was the foundation of the mos maiorum, the way of the ancestors or simply tradition, as Rome came into contact with foreign cultures, and conquered them, foreign religions increasingly attracted devotees among Romans, who increasingly had ancestry from elsewhere in the Empire. The emperors promoted the Imperial cult around the empire, and this, ultimately, Roman polytheism was brought to an end with the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the empire. The priesthoods of public religion were held by members of the elite classes, there was no principle analogous to separation of church and state in ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic, the men who were elected public officials might also serve as augurs. Priests married, raised families, and led politically active lives, Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus before he was elected consul. The augurs read the will of the gods and supervised the marking of boundaries as a reflection of universal order, Roman religion was thus practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des, I give that you might give. Even the most skeptical among Romes intellectual elite such as Cicero, for ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life. Each home had a shrine at which prayers and libations to the familys domestic deities were offered. Neighborhood shrines and sacred such as springs and groves dotted the city. The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances, women, slaves, and children all participated in a range of religious activities. The Romans are known for the number of deities they honored. The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks, adapting Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature, etruscan religion was also a major influence, particularly on the practice of augury. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, conditions that conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of magic, conspiratorial, or subversive activity. Sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists who seemed to threaten traditional morality and unity, one way that Rome incorporated diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within the hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the worship of local and Roman deities. Because Romans had never been obligated to one god or one cult only
26.
Roman mythology
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Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Romes legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. Roman mythology may also refer to the study of these representations. The Romans usually treated their traditional narratives as historical, even when these have miraculous or supernatural elements, the stories are often concerned with politics and morality, and how an individuals personal integrity relates to his or her responsibility to the community or Roman state. When the stories illuminate Roman religious practices, they are concerned with ritual, augury. Romes early myths and legends also have a relationship with Etruscan religion. In particular, the versions of Greek myths in Ovids Metamorphoses, written during the reign of Augustus, because ritual played the central role in Roman religion that myth did for the Greeks, it is sometimes doubted that the Romans had much of a native mythology. This perception is a product of Romanticism and the scholarship of the 19th century. From the Renaissance to the 18th century, however, Roman myths were an inspiration particularly for European painting, the Roman tradition is rich in historical myths, or legends, concerning the foundation and rise of the city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities, in Romes earliest period, history and myth have a mutual and complementary relationship. As T. P. Wiseman notes, The Roman stories still matter, as they mattered to Dante in 1300 and Shakespeare in 1600, what does it take to be a free citizen. Can a superpower still be a republic, how does well-meaning authority turn into murderous tyranny. Major sources for Roman myth include the Aeneid of Vergil and the first few books of Livys history as well as Dionysius s Roman Antiquities. Other important sources are the Fasti of Ovid, a six-book poem structured by the Roman religious calendar, scenes from Roman myth also appear in Roman wall painting, coins, and sculpture, particularly reliefs. The Aeneid and Livys early history are the best extant sources for Romes founding myths, material from Greek heroic legend was grafted onto this native stock at an early date. By extension, the Trojans were adopted as the ancestors of the Roman people. Rape of the Sabine women, explaining the importance of the Sabines in the formation of Roman culture, numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king of Rome who consorted with the nymph Egeria and established many of Romes legal and religious institutions. Servius Tullius, the king of Rome, whose mysterious origins were freely mythologized. The Tarpeian Rock, and why it was used for the execution of traitors, lucretia, whose self-sacrifice prompted the overthrow of the early Roman monarchy and led to the establishment of the Republic
27.
Apollo
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Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The ideal of the kouros, Apollo has been recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. As the patron of Delphi, Apollo was an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague. Amongst the gods custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, as the leader of the Muses and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became an attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans, Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the 3rd century CE. The name Apollo—unlike the related older name Paean—is generally not found in the Linear B texts, the etymology of the name is uncertain. The spelling Ἀπόλλων had almost superseded all other forms by the beginning of the common era and it probably is a cognate to the Doric month Apellaios, and the offerings apellaia at the initiation of the young men during the family-festival apellai. According to some scholars the words are derived from the Doric word apella, apella is the name of the popular assembly in Sparta, corresponding to the ecclesia. R. S. P. Beekes rejected the connection of the theonym with the noun apellai, several instances of popular etymology are attested from ancient authors. Thus, the Greeks most often associated Apollos name with the Greek verb ἀπόλλυμι, in the ancient Macedonian language πέλλα means stone, and some toponyms may be derived from this word, Πέλλα and Πελλήνη. The role of Apollo as god of plague is evident in the invocation of Apollo Smintheus by Chryses, the Hittite testimony reflects an early form *Apeljōn, which may also be surmised from comparison of Cypriot Ἀπείλων with Doric Ἀπέλλων. A Luwian etymology suggested for Apaliunas makes Apollo The One of Entrapment, Apollos chief epithet was Phoebus, literally bright. It was very commonly used by both the Greeks and Romans for Apollos role as the god of light, like other Greek deities, he had a number of others applied to him, reflecting the variety of roles, duties, and aspects ascribed to the god. However, while Apollo has a number of appellations in Greek myth. Aegletes, from αἴγλη, light of the sun Helius, literally sun Lyceus light, the meaning of the epithet Lyceus later became associated with Apollos mother Leto, who was the patron goddess of Lycia and who was identified with the wolf
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Bellona (goddess)
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Bellona was an Ancient Roman goddess of war. Her main attribute is the helmet worn on her head, she often holds a sword, spear or shield. Her iconography was further extended by painters and sculptors following the Renaissance, originally named Duellona in the Italic languages, Bellona was an ancient Sabine goddess of war, identified with Nerio, the consort of the war god Mars, and later with her Greek equivalent Enyo. Her first temple in Rome was dedicated in 296 BCE, where her festival was celebrated on June 3 and her priests were known as Bellonarii and used to wound their own arms or legs as a blood sacrifice to her. These rites took place on the 24 March, called the day of blood after the ceremony, in consequence of this practice, which approximated to the rites dedicated to Cybele in Asia Minor, both Enyo and Bellona became identified with her Cappadocian aspect, Ma. The Roman Campus Martius area in which Bellona’s temple was sited had extraterritorial status, ambassadors from foreign states, who were not allowed to enter the city proper, stayed in this complex. The area around the temple of Bellona was considered to symbolize foreign soil, and it was here too that Roman Senate meetings relating to foreign war were conducted. Beside the temple was the war column, which represented the boundary of Rome, in the military cult of Bellona, she was associated with Virtus, the personification of valour. She then travelled outside Rome with the legions and her temples have been recorded in France, Germany, Britain. In poetry the name Bellona is often used simply as a synonym for war, there she is represented as carrying a spear and a flaming torch or waving a blood-stained sword and riding in a chariot. While she does not figure as a character in Shakespeares plays, in Henry IV, Part I, Hotspur describes her as the fire-eyed maid of smoky war. In The Two Noble Kinsmen, set in pre-Roman Athens, the sister of Hippolyta will solicit her divine aid for Theseus against Thebes. At the start of the named after him, Macbeth is introduced as a violent and brave warrior when the Thane of Ross calls him Bellonas bridegroom, that is to say. She also does not appear as a character in Paradise Lost by John Milton, however, the narrator describes Satans ears as not less pealed with noises loud and ruinous than when Bellona storms with all her battering engines. In more modern times, Adam Lindsay Gordon dedicated an energetic Swinburnean evocation of the goddess who leads men astray in his poem Bellona. She also figures in Edgell Rickword’s World War I poem The Traveller, there the poet describes himself as marching toward the front line in the company of Art, the god Pan and the works of Walter Pater. Meeting Bellona as they approach the fighting, one by one the pleasurable companions are forced to flee before the violence of war, Bellona appears in the prologue of Rameaus opera, Les Indes Galantes, in which the call of love ultimately triumphs over that of war. However, she retains her harsh aspect in Prometheus Absolved by Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca, in this cantata celebrating the birth of the Archduchess Isabella in 1762, the gods sit in judgement on Prometheus, some arguing for clemency, while Bellona and others demand rigour
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Bona Dea
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Bona Dea was a divinity in ancient Roman religion. She was associated with chastity and fertility in women, healing, according to Roman literary sources, she was brought from Magna Graecia at some time during the early or middle Republic, and was given her own state cult on the Aventine Hill. Her rites allowed women the use of wine and blood-sacrifice. Men were barred from her mysteries and the possession of her true name, most often, she was identified as the wife, sister or daughter of the god Faunus, thus an equivalent or aspect of the nature-goddess Fauna, who could prophesy the fates of women. The goddess had two annual festivals, one was held at her Aventine temple, the other was hosted by the wife of Romes senior annual magistrate, for an invited group of elite matrons and female attendants. The rites remained a subject of curiosity and speculation, both religious and prurient. Bona Deas cults in the city of Rome were led by the Vestal Virgins, surviving statuary shows her as a sedate Roman matron with a cornucopia and a snake. Personal dedications to her are attested among all classes, especially plebeians, freedmen and women, approximately one third of her dedications are from men, some of whom may have been lawfully involved in her cult. Bona Dea is both a title and a respectful pseudonym, the goddess true or cult name is unknown. Her other, less common pseudonyms include Feminea Dea, Laudandae. Deae. and she is a goddess of no definable type, with several origins and a range of different characteristics and functions. Based on what little they knew of her rites and attributes, Roman historians speculated her true name, festus describes her as identical with a womens goddess named Damia, which Georges Dumézil sees as an ancient misreading of Greek Demeter. In the late Imperial era, the neoplatonist author Macrobius identifies her as a universal earth-goddess, the Christian author Lactantius, claiming the late Republican polymath Varro as his source, describes her as Faunus wife and sister, named Fenta Fauna, or Fenta Fatua. The known features of Bona Deas cults recall those of earth and fertility goddesses of the Graeco-Roman world. They included nocturnal rites conducted by predominantly or exclusively female initiates and female priestesses, music, dance and wine, during the Roman Republican era, two such cults to Bona Dea were held at different times and locations in the city of Rome. One was held on May 1 at Bona Deas Aventine temple, the festival and temples foundation year is uncertain – Ovid credits it to Claudia Quinta. The rites are inferred as some form of mystery, concealed from the gaze and, according to most later Roman literary sources. In the Republican era, Bona Deas Aventine festivals were probably distinctly plebeian affairs, open to all classes of women and perhaps, in limited fashion. By the Late Republic era, Bona Deas May festival and Aventine temple could have fallen into official disuse, the goddess also had a Winter festival, thoroughly documented but attested on only two occasions
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Castor and Pollux
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In Greek and Roman mythology, Castor and Pollux, or Kastor and Polydeuces, were twin brothers, together known as the Dioscuri or Dioskouroi. Their mother was Leda, but they had different fathers, Castor was the son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters or half-sisters Helen of Troy. In Latin the twins are known as the Gemini or Castores. When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, the pair were regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmos fire, and were also associated with horsemanship. They are sometimes called the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids, later seen as a reference to their father and stepfather Tyndareus, the best-known story of the twins birth is that Zeus disguised himself as a swan and seduced Leda. Thus Ledas children are said to have hatched from two eggs that she then produced. The Dioscuri can be recognized in vase-paintings by the skull-cap they wear, the pilos, whether the children are thus mortal or half-immortal is not consistent among accounts, nor is whether the twins hatched together from one egg. In some accounts, only Pollux was fathered by Zeus, while Leda and this explains why they were granted an alternate immortality. It is a belief that one would live among the gods. Castor and Pollux are sometimes both mortal, sometimes both divine, one consistent point is that if only one of them is immortal, it is Pollux. In Homers Iliad, Helen looks down from the walls of Troy, the narrator remarks that they are both already dead and buried back in their homeland of Lacedaemon, thus suggesting that at least in some early traditions, both were mortal. Their death and shared immortality offered by Zeus was material of the lost Cypria in the Epic cycle, the Dioscuri were regarded as helpers of humankind and held to be patrons of travellers and of sailors in particular, who invoked them to seek favourable winds. Their role as horsemen and boxers also led to them being regarded as the patrons of athletes and they characteristically intervened at the moment of crisis, aiding those who honoured or trusted them. Ancient Greek authors tell a number of versions of the story of Castor, homer portrays them initially as ordinary mortals, treating them as dead in the Iliad, but in the Odyssey they are treated as alive even though the corn-bearing earth holds them. The author describes them as having honour equal to gods, living on alternate days due to the intervention of Zeus, in both the Odyssey and in Hesiod, they are described as the sons of Tyndareus and Leda. In Pindar, Pollux is the son of Zeus while Castor is the son of the mortal Tyndareus, the theme of ambiguous parentage is not unique to Castor and Pollux, similar characterisations appear in the stories of Hercules and Theseus. The Dioscuri are also invoked in Alcaeus Fragment 34a, though whether this poem antedates the Homeric Hymn to the twins is unknown and they appear together in two plays by Euripides, Helen and Elektra
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Ceres (mythology)
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In ancient Roman religion, Ceres was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. She was originally the central deity in Romes so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad and her seven-day April festival of Cerealia included the popular Ludi Ceriales. She was also honoured in the May lustratio of the fields at the Ambarvalia festival, at harvest-time, Ceres is the only one of Romes many agricultural deities to be listed among the Dii Consentes, Romes equivalent to the Twelve Olympians of Greek mythology. The Romans saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess Demeter, whose mythology was reinterpreted for Ceres in Roman art and literature. Roman etymologists thought ceres derived from the Latin verb gerere, to bear, bring forth, produce, because the goddess was linked to pastoral, agricultural and human fertility. Archaic cults to Ceres are well-evidenced among Romes neighbours in the Regal period, including the ancient Latins, Oscans and Sabellians, an archaic Faliscan inscription of c.600 BC asks her to provide far, which was a dietary staple of the Mediterranean world. Throughout the Roman era, Ceres name was synonymous with grain and, by extension and she had the power to fertilise, multiply and fructify plant and animal seed, and her laws and rites protected all activities of the agricultural cycle. In January, Ceres was offered spelt wheat and a pregnant sow and this was almost certainly held before the annual sowing of grain. The divine portion of sacrifice was the entrails presented in an earthenware pot, in a rural context, Cato the Elder describes the offer to Ceres of a porca praecidanea. Before the harvest, she was offered a propitiary grain sample, Ovid tells that Ceres is content with little, provided that her offerings are casta. Ceres main festival, Cerealia, was held from mid to late April and it was organised by her plebeian aediles and included circus games. From c.175 BC, Cerealia included ludi scaenici through April 12 to 18, W. H. Roscher lists these deities among the indigitamenta, names used to invoke specific divine functions. The adult males of the party waited at the grooms house. A wedding sacrifice was offered to Tellus on the brides behalf, Varro describes the sacrifice of a pig as a worthy mark of weddings because our women, and especially nurses call the female genitalia porcus. Spaeth believes Ceres may have included in the sacrificial dedication, because she is closely identified with Tellus and, as Ceres legifera. In the most solemn form of marriage, confarreatio, the bride and groom shared a cake made of far, from at least the mid-republican era, an official, joint cult to Ceres and Proserpina reinforced Ceres connection with Roman ideals of female virtue. The promotion of this cult coincides with the rise of a nobility, an increased birthrate among plebeian commoners. Several of Ceres ancient Italic precursors are connected to fertility and motherhood
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Cupid
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In classical mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus and he is also known in Latin as Amor. Although Eros is generally portrayed as a winged youth in Classical Greek art. During this time, his iconography acquired the bow and arrow that represent his source of power, a person, or even a deity, in myths, Cupid is a minor character who serves mostly to set the plot in motion. He is a character only in the tale of Cupid and Psyche. Although other extended stories are not told him, his tradition is rich in poetic themes and visual scenarios, such as Love conquers all. In art, Cupid often appears in multiples as the Amores, or amorini in the terminology of art history. Cupids are a frequent motif of both Roman art and later Western art of the classical tradition, in the 15th century, the iconography of Cupid starts to become indistinguishable from the putto. Cupid continued to be a figure in the Middle Ages. In the Renaissance, a renewed interest in classical philosophy endowed him with complex allegorical meanings, in contemporary popular culture, Cupid is shown drawing his bow to inspire romantic love, often as an icon of Valentines Day. The Romans reinterpreted myths and concepts pertaining to the Greek Eros for Cupid in their own literature and art, in the Greek tradition, Eros had a dual, contradictory genealogy. He was among the gods who came into existence asexually, after his generation. In Hesiods Theogony, only Chaos and Gaia are older, before the existence of gender dichotomy, Eros functioned by causing entities to separate from themselves that which they already contained. At the same time, the Eros who was pictured as a boy or slim youth was regarded as the child of a divine couple, in Latin literature, Cupid is usually treated as the son of Venus without reference to a father. Seneca says that Vulcan, as the husband of Venus, is the father of Cupid and this last Cupid was the equivalent of Anteros, Counter-Love, one of the Erotes, the gods who embody aspects of love. The multiple Cupids frolicking in art are the manifestation of these proliferating loves and desires. During the English Renaissance, Christopher Marlowe wrote of ten thousand Cupids, in Ben Jonsons wedding masque Hymenaei, in the later classical tradition, Cupid is most often regarded as the son of Venus and Mars, whose love affair represented an allegory of Love and War. The duality between the primordial and the sexually conceived Eros accommodated philosophical concepts of Heavenly and Earthly Love even in the Christian era, Cupid is winged, allegedly, because lovers are flighty and likely to change their minds, and boyish because love is irrational
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Diana (mythology)
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In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt, the moon, and nature being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was eventually equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy, Diana was worshipped in ancient Roman religion and is revered in Roman Neopaganism and Stregheria. Diana was known to be the goddess of childbirth and women. She was one of the three goddesses, along with Minerva and Vesta, who swore never to marry. Oak groves were especially sacred to her as were deer, according to mythology, Diana was born with her twin brother, Apollo, on the island of Delos, daughter of Jupiter and Latona. She made up a triad with two other Roman deities, Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife, and Virbius, the woodland god. Diana is a form developed from an ancient *divios, corresponding to later divus, dius, as in Dius Fidius, Dea Dia. It is rooted in Indoeuropean *dyw, meaning sky or daylight, from which also derived the name of Vedic god Dyaus and the Latin deus, dies. On the Tablets of Pylos a theonym διϝια is supposed as referring to a deity precursor of Artemis, Modern scholars mostly accept the identification. The ancient Latin writers Varro and Cicero considered the etymology of Dīāna as allied to that of dies, the persona of Diana is complex and contains a number of archaic features. According to Georges Dumézil it falls into a subset of celestial gods. Such gods, while keeping the original features of celestial divinities, the celestial character of Diana is reflected in her connection with light, inaccessibility, virginity, and her preference for dwelling on high mountains and in sacred woods. Diana therefore reflects the world in its sovereignty, supremacy, impassibility. At the same time, however, she is seen as active in ensuring the succession of kings and these functions are apparent in the traditional institutions and cults related to the goddess. This ever open succession reveals the character and mission of the goddess as a guarantor of kingly status through successive generations. Her function as bestower of authority to rule is also attested in the story related by Livy in which a Sabine man who sacrifices a heifer to Diana wins for his country the seat of the Roman empire. Diana was also worshipped by women who wanted to be pregnant or who, once pregnant and this form of worship is attested in archeological finds of votive statuettes in her sanctuary in the nemus Aricinum as well as in ancient sources, e. g. Ovid. According to Dumezil the forerunner of all gods is an Indian epic hero who was the image of the Vedic god Dyaus
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Egeria (mythology)
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Her name is used as an eponym for a female advisor or counselor. Egeria may predate Roman myth, she could have been of Italic origin in the sacred forest of Aricia in Latium, her immemorial site, at Aricia there was also a Manius Egerius, a male counterpart of Egeria. Described sometime as a nymph, she is usually regarded as a water nymph and somehow her cult also involved some link with childbirth. But most of all, Egeria gave wisdom and prophecy in return for libations of water or milk at her sacred groves and this quality has been made especially popular through the tale of her relationship with Numa Pompilius. According to mythology she counseled and guided the King Numa Pompilius in the establishment of the framework of laws. Numa is reputed to have written down the teachings of Egeria in sacred books that he had buried with him, when a chance accident brought them back to light some 500 years later, the Senate deemed them inappropriate for disclosure to the people, and ordered their destruction. What made them inappropriate was some matter of nature with political bearing that apparently has not been handed down by Valerius Antias. Dionysius of Halicarnassus hints that they were kept as a very close secret by the Pontifices. She is also gifted with oracular capabilities, in another episode she helps Numa in a battle of wits with Jupiter himself, whereby Numa sought to gain a protective ritual against lightning strokes and thunder. The precise level of her relationship to Numa has been described diversely, by Juvenals day that tradition was treated more critically. Juvenal called her Numas Amica in a sceptical phrase, Numa Pompilius died in 673 BC of old age. According to Ovids Metamorphoses, with Numas death Egeria melted into tears of sorrow, thus becoming a spring, a spring and a grove once sacred to Egeria stand close to a gate of Rome, the Porta Capena. Its waters were dedicated to the use of the Vestals. The primeval spring, one of dozens of springs flow into the river Almone, was made to feed large pools. Juvenal regretted an earlier phase of architectural elaboration, Nymph of the Spring, more honour’d hadst thou been, If, free from art, an edge of living green, Thy bubbling fount had circumscribed alone, And marble ne’er profaned the native stone. In Nathaniel Lees English Restoration tragedy Lucius Junius Brutus, Egeria appears in a vision to Brutus son Titus, in Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest, the priest Chasuble refers to Cecilys tutor Miss Prism as Egeria. In Smithsonian Nov 2016 Vol47, Number 7, John Adams writes to his son Charles, encyclopædia Britannica 1911, Egeria Roma Sotterranea, Il ninfeo di Egeria, Ruins of Egerias Nymphaeum Park of the Caffarella
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Fauna (deity)
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In ancient Roman religion, Fauna is a goddess said in differing ancient sources to be the wife, sister, or daughter of Faunus. Varro regarded her as the counterpart of Faunus, and said that the fauni all had prophetic powers. She is also called Fatua or Fenta Fauna, servius identifies Faunus with Fatuclus, and says his wife is Fatua or Fauna, deriving the names as Varro did from fari, to speak, because they can foretell the future. Justin said that Fatua, the wife of Faunus, being filled with divine spirit assiduously predicted future events as if in a madness, dumézil regarded her as the Favorable. According to Macrobius, the Books of the Pontiffs treated Bona Dea, Fauna, Ops, the male-female figures never have equal prominence, and one partner seems to have been modeled on the other. An Oscan dedication naming Fatuveís, found at Aeclanum in Irpinia, Fauna has also been dismissed as merely an artificial construction of scholarly casuistics
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Flora (mythology)
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In Roman mythology, Flora was a Sabine-derived goddess of flowers and of the season of spring – a symbol for nature and flowers. Her name is derived from the Latin word flos which means flower, in modern English, Flora also means the plants of a particular region or period. Her festival, the Floralia, was held between April 28 and May 3 and symbolized the renewal of the cycle of life, drinking, and flowers. The festival was first instituted in 240 B. C. E, on May 23 another festival was held in her honor. Floras Greek equivalent was Chloris, who was a nymph, Flora was married to Favonius, the wind god also known as Zephyr, and her companion was Hercules. Flora achieved more prominence in the revival of Antiquity among Renaissance humanists than she had ever enjoyed in ancient Rome. Flora is the character of the ballet The Awakening of Flora. She is also mentioned in Henry Purcells Nymphs and Shepherds, there are many monuments of Flora, e. g. in Capitoline Museums in Rome, in Valencia and Szczecin. Ovid, Fasti V. 193-212 Macrobius, Saturnalia I.10. 11-14 Lactantius, the Obscure Goddess Online Directory, Flora
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Genius (mythology)
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In Roman religion, the genius is the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place, or thing. Much like an angel, the genius would follow each man from the hour of his birth until the day he died. For women it was the Juno spirit that would accompany each of them, the Greeks called their genii daemons, and believed in them from the earliest times. The rational powers and abilities of human being were attributed to their soul. Each individual place had a genius and so did powerful objects, the concept extended to some specifics, the genius of the theatre, of vineyards, and of festivals, which made performances successful, grapes grow, and celebrations succeed, respectively. It was extremely important in the Roman mind to propitiate the appropriate genii for the major undertakings, although the term genius might apply to any divinity whatsoever, most of the higher-level and state genii had their own well-established names. Genius applied most often to places or people not generally known. Houses, doors, gates, streets, districts, tribes, the supreme hierarchy of the Roman gods, like that of the Greeks, was modelled after a human family. It featured a father, Jupiter, who was also the divine unity. These supreme unities were subdivided into genii for each family, hence. The male function was a Jupiter, for example, to protect infants one propitiated a number of deities concerned with birth and childrearing, Cuba, Cunina and Rumina. Certainly, if those genii did not perform their proper function well, hundreds of lararia, or family shrines, have been discovered at Pompeii, typically off the atrium, kitchen or garden, where the smoke of burnt offerings could vent through the opening in the roof. A lararium was distinct from the penus, another shrine where the penates, each lararium features a panel fresco containing the same theme, two peripheral figures attend on a central figure or two figures who may or may not be at an altar. In the foreground is one or two serpents crawling toward the genius through a meadow motif, campania and Calabria preserved an ancient practice of keeping a propitious house snake, here linked with the genius. Etymologically genius has the same derivation as nature from gēns from the Indo-European root *gen- and it is the indwelling nature of an object or class of objects or events that act with a perceived or hypothesized unity. Philosophically the Romans did not find the paradox of the one being many confusing, multiple events could therefore be attributed to the same and different divinities and a person could be the same as and different from his genius. They were not distinct, as the guardian angels. This point of view is not attributable to any one civilization, the Etruscans had such beliefs at the beginning of history, but then so did the Greeks, the native Italics and many other peoples in the Near and Middle East
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Hercules in ancient Rome
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In ancient Roman religion and myth, Hercules was venerated as a divinized hero and incorporated into the legends of Romes founding. The Romans adapted Greek myths and the iconography of Heracles into their own literature and art, some Greek sources as early as the 6th and 5th century BC gave Heracles Roman connections during his famous labors. His apotheosis thus served as one model during the Empire for the concept of the deified emperor, the divine Hercules was cultivated at Rome as early as the 6th century BC, at a temple next to the shrine of Carmenta and the Porta Carmentalis. The Temple of Hercules Victor, which still stands, is atypically round, Fulvius had attracted harsh criticism for enriching himself excessively with booty plundered from temples during his military campaigns. When he became censor, he added a portico to a temple of Hercules. He then transferred a group of the Muses from his private collection to dedicate at the temple. Several place names in Italy were connected to Hercules adventures, vitulia as a name for the Italian peninsula supposedly came into usage because Hercules chased a runaway bullock there. The altar of Iuppiter Praestes at Tibur was supposed to have established by Hercules himself. Hercules Augustus or Hercules Augusti, Hercules in his capacity as protector of the ruling emperor, Hercules Invictus, at the Ara Maxima, women were excluded from this cult. Hercules Magnus, honored with games that may have been first officially established by Sulla, Hercules Musarum, created when Fulvius Nobilior dedicated statues of the Muses to a temple of Hercules. Hercules Olivarius, in reference to a statue of Hercules dedicated by the guild of olive merchants, Hercules Triumphalis, represented by a statue in the Forum Boarium, was dressed in the regalia of a triumphator when a triumph was held. It is mentioned by Pliny, who attributes it to the legendary Evander, normally only those celebrating the rites took part in the communal meal that followed a sacrifice, but at the Ara Maxima, all male citizens were invited. None of the meat that resulted from the sacrifice could be allowed to remain at the end of the day, nor could it be removed from the precinct, women were excluded from this rite. The womens goddess is taken as the Bona Dea. The Good Goddess is identifiable with several goddesses, and in this instance her enmity with Hercules recalls that of Juno. She also shared some characteristics with Ceres, with whom Hercules was honored jointly on December 21, with the sacrifice of a pregnant sow, loaves of bread, Hercules was among the divinities honored at the first lectisternium held at Rome in 399 BC. Several Roman clans lay claim to descent from various divine figures, the Fabii traced their genealogy to a daughter of Evander who lay with Hercules in his dug-out and conceived the first Fabius. The emperor Commodus chose Hercules as a patron, and often had himself depicted in Hercules garb
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Janus
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In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past and it is conventionally thought that the month of January is named for Janus, but according to ancient Roman farmers almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month. Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war, the doors of his temple were open in time of war, and closed to mark the peace. Janus had no flamen or specialised priest assigned to him, Janus had a ubiquitous presence in religious ceremonies throughout the year, and was ritually invoked at the beginning of each one, regardless of the main deity honored on any particular occasion. The ancient Greeks had no equivalent to Janus, whom the Romans claimed as distinctively their own, three etymologies were proposed by ancient erudites, each of them bearing implications about the nature of the god. The first one is based on the definition of Chaos given by Paul the Deacon, hiantem, hiare, be open, in this etymology the notion of Chaos would define the primordial nature of the god. Another etymology proposed by Nigidius Figulus is related by Macrobius, Ianus would be Apollo and Diana Iana and this explanation has been accepted by A. B. It supports all the assimilations of Janus to the sky, the sun. It supposes a former *Dianus, formed on *dia- < *dy-eð2 from Indo-European root *dey- shine represented in Latin by dies day, Diovis, however the form Dianus postulated by Nigidius is not attested. Modern scholars have conjectured that it derives from the Indo-European root meaning transitional movement, iānus would then be an action name expressing the idea of going, passing, formed on the root *yā- < *y-eð2- theme II of the root *ey- go from which eō, ειμι. Other modern scholars object to an Indo-European etymology either from Dianus or from root *yā-, from Ianus derived ianua, and hence the English word janitor. Almost all of modern explanations were originally formulated by the ancients. The function god of beginnings has been expressed in numerous ancient sources, among them most notably Cicero, Ovid. As a god of motion, Janus looks after passages, causes actions to start, since movement and change are interconnected, he has a double nature, symbolised in his two headed image. He has under his tutelage the stepping in and out of the door of homes, the ianua, which took its name from him and he is also present at the Sororium Tigillum, where he guards the terminus of the ways into Rome from Latium. He has an altar, later a temple near the Porta Carmentalis, where the leading to Veii ended, as well as being present on the Janiculum. The connection of the notions of beginning, movement, transition, in general, Janus is at the origin of time as the guardian of the gates of Heaven, Jupiter himself can move forth and back because of Januss working. In one of his temples, probably that of Forum Holitorium, Janus frequently symbolized change and transitions such as the progress of past to future, from one condition to another, from one vision to another, and young peoples growth to adulthood
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Juno (mythology)
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Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter, Juno also looked after the women of Rome. As the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, Juno was called Regina and, together with Jupiter, Junos own warlike aspect among the Romans is apparent in her attire. She often appeared sitting pictured with an armed and wearing a goatskin cloak. The traditional depiction of this aspect was assimilated from the Greek goddess Athena. The name Juno was also thought to be connected to Iove, originally as Diuno. At the beginning of the 20th century, a derivation was proposed from iuven- and this etymology became widely accepted after it was endorsed by Georg Wissowa. Iuuen- is related to Latin aevum and Greek aion through a common Indo-European root referring to a concept of energy or fertile time. The iuvenis is he who has the fullness of vital force, in some inscriptions Jupiter himself is called Iuuntus, and one of the epithets of Jupiter is Ioviste, a superlative form of iuuen- meaning the youngest. Iuventas, Youth, was one of two deities who refused to leave the Capitol when the building of the new Temple of Capitoline Jove required the exauguration of deities who already occupied the site, Juno is the equivalent to Hera, the Greek goddess for love and marriage. Juno is the Roman goddess of love and marriage, Junos theology is one of the most complex and disputed issues in Roman religion. Even more than other major Roman deities, Juno held a number of significant and diverse epithets, names and titles representing various aspects. In accordance with her role as a goddess of marriage. However, other epithets of Juno have wider implications and are thematically linked. Juno is certainly the divine protectress of the community, who shows both a sovereign and a fertility character, often associated with a military one and she is also attested at Praeneste, Aricia, Ardea, Gabii. In five Latin towns a month was named after Juno, outside Latium in Campania at Teanum she was Populona, in Umbria at Pisaurum Lucina, at Terventum in Samnium Regina, at Pisarum Regina Matrona, at Aesernia in Samnium Regina Populona. In Rome she was since the most ancient times named Lucina, Mater and it is debated whether she was also known as Curitis before the evocatio of the Juno of Falerii, this though seems probable. Her various epithets thus show a complex of mutually interrelated functions that in the view of G, the ancient called her Covella in her function of helper in the labours of the new moon
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Jupiter (mythology)
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Jupiter, also Jove, is the god of sky and thunder and king of the gods in Ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering. Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god, the two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins. As the sky-god, he was a witness to oaths. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline Hill, where the citadel was located and he was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus. In the later Capitoline Triad, he was the guardian of the state with Juno. His sacred tree was the oak, the Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune, each presided over one of the three realms of the universe, sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who manifested himself in the daylight, usually, Tinia is usually regarded as his Etruscan counterpart. The Romans believed that Jupiter granted them supremacy because they had honoured him more than any other people had, Jupiter was the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested. He personified the divine authority of Romes highest offices, internal organization and his image in the Republican and Imperial Capitol bore regalia associated with Romes ancient kings and the highest consular and Imperial honours. The consuls swore their oath of office in Jupiters name, to thank him for his help, they offered him a white ox with gilded horns. A similar offering was made by generals, who surrendered the tokens of their victory at the feet of Jupiters statue in the Capitol. Some scholars have viewed the triumphator as embodying Jupiter in the triumphal procession, Jupiters association with kingship and sovereignty was reinterpreted as Romes form of government changed. Originally, Rome was ruled by kings, after the monarchy was abolished and the Republic established, religious prerogatives were transferred to the patres, nostalgia for the kingship was considered treasonous. Those suspected of harbouring monarchical ambitions were punished, regardless of their service to the state, in the 5th century BC, the triumphator Camillus was sent into exile after he drove a chariot with a team of four white horses —an honour reserved for Jupiter himself. His house on the Capitoline Hill was razed, and it was decreed that no patrician should ever be allowed to live there, during the Conflict of the Orders, Romes plebeians demanded the right to hold political and religious office
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Lares
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Lares, were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain, they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries or fruitfulness, Lares were believed to observe, protect and influence all that happened within the boundaries of their location or function. The statues of domestic Lares were placed at the table during meals, their presence, cult. Roman writers sometimes identify or conflate them with ancestor-deities, domestic Penates, because of these associations, Lares are sometimes categorised as household gods but some had much broader domains. Roadways, seaways, agriculture, livestock, towns, cities and those who protected local neighbourhoods were housed in the crossroad shrines which served as a focus for the religious, social and political life of their local, overwhelmingly plebeian communities. Their cult officials included freedmen and slaves, otherwise excluded by status or property qualification from most administrative, compared to Romes major deities Lares had limited scope and potency but archaeological and literary evidence attests to their central role in Roman identity and religious life. By analogy, a homeward-bound Roman could be described as returning ad Larem, despite official bans on non-Christian cults from the late 4th century AD onwards, unofficial cults to Lares persisted until at least the early 5th century AD. Archaic Romes Etruscan neighbours practiced domestic, ancestral or family cults very similar to those offered by later Romans to their Lares, the word itself seems to derive from the Etruscan lar, lars, or larth, meaning lord. Weinstock proposes a more ancient equivalence of Lar and Greek hero, Lares are represented as two small, youthful, lively male figures clad in short, rustic, girdled tunics – made of dogskin, according to Plutarch. They take an attitude, tiptoed or lightly balanced on one leg. One arm raises a drinking horn aloft as if to offer a toast or libation, Compitalia shrines of the same period show Lares figures of the same type. Painted shrine-images of paired Lares show them in mirrored poses to the left and right of a central figure, Lares belonged within the bounded physical domain under their protection, and seem to have been as innumerable as the places they protected. Some appear to have had overlapping functions and changes of name, likewise those invoked along with other deities by the consul Publius Decius Mus as an act of devotio before his death in battle are simply Lares. The titles and domains given below cannot therefore be taken as exhaustive or definitive, official Cult to the Lares Augusti continued from their institution through to the 4th century AD. They are identified with the Lares Compitalicii and Lares Praestites of Augustan religious reform, Lares Compitalicii, the Lares of local communities or neighbourhoods, celebrated at the Compitalia festival. The Lares Compitalicii are synonymous with the Lares Augusti of Augustan reform, Augustus institution of cult to the Lares Praestites was held at the same Compitalia shrines, but on a different date. Lares Domestici, Lares of the house, probably identical with Lares Familiares, Lares Familiares, Lares of the family, probably identical with the Lares Domestici. Lares Grundules, the thirty grunting Lares or Lares of the eaves, supposedly given an altar, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus the place where the sow bore the piglets and Aeneas made the sacrifice was sacred, and forbidden to foreigners
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Liber
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In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Liber /ˈlaɪbər/, also known as Liber Pater, was a god of viticulture and wine, fertility and freedom. He was a deity of Romes plebeians and was part of their Aventine Triad. His festival of Liberalia became associated with speech and the rights attached to coming of age. His cult and functions were increasingly associated with Romanised forms of the Greek Dionysus/Bacchus, in ancient Lavinium, he was a phallic deity. Latin liber means free, or the one, when coupled with pater, it means The Free Father. The word liber is also understood in regard of the libation, ritual offering of drink. Roman writers of the late Republic and early Empire offer various etymological and poetic speculations based on this trope, to explain certain features of Libers cult. According to Livy, the dictator A. Postumius vowed games, in 493 the vow was fulfilled, the new Aventine temple was dedicated and ludi scaenici were held in honour of Liber, for the benefit of the Roman people. These early ludi scaenici have been suggested as the earliest of their kind in Rome, the Aventine Triad has been described as parallel to the Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus on the Capitoline Hill, within the citys sacred boundary, and as its copy and antithesis. The Aventine Triad was apparently installed at the behest of the Sibylline Books and he was a god of the grape and of wine, his early ludi scaenici virtually defined their genre thereafter as satirical, subversive theatre in a lawful religious context. Some aspects of his cults remained potentially un-Roman and offered a focus for civil disobedience, Libers associations with wine, inebriation, uninhibited freedom and the subversion of the powerful made him a close equivalent to the Greek god Dionysus, who was Romanised as Bacchus. In some cults, and probably in the imagination, Liber was gradually assimilated to Bacchus and came to share his Romanised Dionysian iconography. Pliny calls him the first to establish the practice of buying and selling, he invented the diadem, the emblem of royalty. Roman mosaics and sarcophagi attest to various representations of this exotic triumphal procession, very little is known of Libers official and unofficial cults during the early to middle Republican era. Their Dionysiac or Bacchic elements seem to have regarded as tolerably ancient, home-grown and manageable by Roman authorities until 186 BC. Livy, writing 200 years after the event, gives a highly theatrical account of the Bacchanalias introduction by a foreign soothsayer, the cult spreads in secret, like a plague. The lower classes, plebeians, women, the young, morally weak and effeminate males are particularly susceptible, all persons have leuitas animi. Livys dramatis personae, stylistic flourishes and tropes probably draw on Roman satyr-plays rather than the Bacchanalia themselves, nevertheless, their presence at the Aventine provoked an investigation
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Libertas
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Libertas is the Roman goddess and embodiment of liberty. The Roman Republic was established simultaneously with the creation of Libertas and is associated with the overthrow of the Tarquin kings and she was worshipped by the Junii, the family of Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger. In 238 BC, before the Second Punic War, Tiberius Gracchus built a temple to Libertas on the Aventine Hill, census tables were stored inside the temples atrium. A subsequent temple was built on Palatine Hill, another of the Seven hills of Rome, by building and consecrating the temple on the former house of then-exiled Cicero, Clodius ensured that the land was legally uninhabitable. Upon his return, Cicero successfully argued that the consecration was invalid and thus managed to reclaim the land and destroy the temple. In 46 BC, the Roman Senate voted to build and dedicate a shrine to Libertas in recognition of Julius Caesar, but no temple was built, instead, a small statue of the goddess stood in the Roman Forum. Libertas, along with other Roman goddesses, has served as the inspiration for many modern-day symbols, according to the National Park Service, the Statues Roman robe is the main feature that invokes Libertas and the symbol of Liberty from which the Statue derives its name. In addition, money throughout history has born the name or image of Libertas, Libertas was pictured on Galbas Freedom of the People coins during his short reign after the death of Nero. The Greek equivalent of the goddess Libertas is Eleutheria, the personification of liberty, as Liberty, Libertas was depicted on the obverse of most coinage in the U. S. into the twentieth century. The goddess Libertas is also depicted on the Great Seal of France and this is the image which later influenced French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi in the creation of his statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. Libertas was not associated with the pileus, commonly worn by the freed slave, when a slave obtained his freedom he had his head shaved, and wore instead of his hair an undyed pileus. Hence the phrase servos ad pileum vocare is a summons to liberty, the figure of Liberty on some of the coins of Antoninus Pius, struck A. D.145, holds this cap in the right hand. The master in the held the slave, and after he had pronounced the words hunc hominem liberum volo, he turned him round and let him go
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Mars (mythology)
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In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars was the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in only to Jupiter and he was the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army. Most of his festivals were held in March, the named for him, and in October. Under the influence of Greek culture, Mars was identified with the Greek god Ares, whose myths were reinterpreted in Roman literature and art under the name of Mars. But the character and dignity of Mars differed in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart, Mars was a part of the Archaic Triad along with Jupiter and Quirinus, the latter of whom as a guardian of the Roman people had no Greek equivalent. Mars altar in the Campus Martius, the area of Rome that took its name from him, was supposed to have been dedicated by Numa, the peace-loving semi-legendary second king of Rome. Although Ares was viewed primarily as a destructive and destabilizing force, Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, in the mythic genealogy and founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus with Rhea Silvia. Like Ares who was the son of Zeus and Hera, Mars is usually considered to be the son of Jupiter, however, in a version of his birth given by Ovid, he was the son of Juno alone. Jupiter had usurped the mothers function when he gave birth to Minerva directly from his forehead, to restore the balance, Flora obtained a magic flower and tested it on a heifer who became fecund at once. She then plucked a flower ritually using her thumb, touched Junos belly, Juno withdrew to Thrace and the shore of Marmara for the birth. Ovid tells this story in the Fasti, his poetic work on the Roman calendar. In the earliest Roman calendar, March was the first month, Ovid is the only source for the story. The consort of Mars was Nerio or Nerine, Valor and she represents the vital force, power and majesty of Mars. Her name was regarded as Sabine in origin and is equivalent to Latin virtus, in the early 3rd century BC, the comic playwright Plautus has a reference to Mars greeting Nerio, his wife. A source from late antiquity says that Mars and Nerine were celebrated together at a festival held on March 23, in the later Roman Empire, Nerine came to be identified with Minerva. Nerio probably originates as a personification of Mars power, as such abstractions in Latin are generally feminine. Her name appears with that of Mars in an archaic prayer invoking a series of abstract qualities, the influence of Greek mythology and its anthropomorphic gods may have caused Roman writers to treat these pairs as marriages. The union of Venus and Mars held greater appeal for poets and philosophers, in Greek myth, the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite had been exposed to ridicule when her husband Hephaestus caught them in the act by means of a magical snare
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Mercury (mythology)
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Mercury is a major Roman god, being one of the Dii Consentes within the ancient Roman pantheon. He is the god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages/communication, travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves. He was considered the son of Maia and Jupiter in Roman mythology, in his earliest forms, he appears to have been related to the Etruscan deity Turms, both gods share characteristics with the Greek god Hermes. He is often depicted holding the caduceus in his left hand, similar to his Greek equivalent he was awarded the caduceus by Apollo who handed him a magic wand, which later turned into the caduceus. Mercury did not appear among the di indigetes of early Roman religion. Rather, he subsumed the earlier Dei Lucrii as Roman religion was syncretized with Greek religion during the time of the Roman Republic, starting around the 4th century BC. He was often accompanied by a cockerel, herald of the new day, a ram or goat, symbolizing fertility, like Hermes, he was also a god of messages, eloquence and of trade, particularly of the grain trade. Mercury was also considered a god of abundance and commercial success, particularly in Gaul and he was also, like Hermes, the Romans psychopomp, leading newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Additionally, Ovid wrote that Mercury carried Morpheus dreams from the valley of Somnus to sleeping humans, archeological evidence from Pompeii suggests that Mercury was among the most popular of Roman gods. The god of commerce was depicted on two bronze coins of the Roman Republic, the Sextans and the Semuncia. This is probably because in the Roman syncretism, Mercury was equated with the Celtic god Lugus, Romans associated Mercury with the Germanic god Wotan, by interpretatio Romana, 1st-century Roman writer Tacitus identifies him as the chief god of the Germanic peoples. The Romans also made use of small statues of Mercury. Mercurius Arvernus, a syncretism of the Celtic Arvernus with Mercury, Mercurius Cimbrianus, a syncretism of Mercury with a god of the Cimbri sometimes thought to represent Odin. Mercurius Cissonius, a combination of Mercury with the Celtic god Cissonius, Mercurius Esibraeus, a syncretism of the Iberian deity Esibraeus with the Roman deity Mercury. Esibraeus is mentioned only in an inscription found at Medelim, Portugal, and is possibly the deity as Banda Isibraiegus. Mercurius Gebrinius, a syncretism of Mercury with the Celtic or Germanic Gebrinius, known from an inscription on an altar in Bonn, Mercurius Moccus, from a Celtic god, Moccus, who was equated with Mercury, known from evidence at Langres, France. The name Moccus implies that this deity was connected to boar-hunting, Mercurius Visucius, a syncretism of the Celtic god Visucius with the Roman god Mercury, attested in an inscription from Stuttgart, Germany. Visucius was worshiped primarily in the area of the empire in Gaul
