SOME IMPORTANT EARLY ROMAN DIVINITIES

To begin with, the Romans, like so many other ancient peoples, believed in the existence of numerous deities, each of whom possessed specific powers exercised over discrete aspects of the physical world. Unlike the Greeks, however, the Romans did not develop a complex and colorful mythology; they simply conceived of the gods in rather practical terms as being powerful entities, whom they diligently worshipped in order to receive benefactions and to avert evil.

Supreme in the divine sphere was Jupiter (or Jove), who was the god of the sky and its weather. His name is etymologically related to Zeus, the Greek sky god, so that Jupiter’s name is testimony to the Romans’ primordial link to other Indo-European peoples. As the god of the sky and weather, Jupiter was believed to control lightning, which the Romans regarded as one of the most important ways in which divine favor and displeasure were made manifest to humankind. His supremacy in the Roman state religion was symbolized by the great temple on the Capitoline Hill, the single most important shrine in Rome, dedicated to the worship of the Capitoline triad: Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.

Janus was the god of doors, passageways, and comings and goings. His name most likely derives from ire, the Latin verb “to go,” and is probably cognate with Sanskrit yana, the path which led souls to their proper abode. Janus’s two chief epithets, Patulcius (“opener”) and Clusivius (“closer”), were illustrated iconographically by depicting the god’s head as having two faces. Since he was thought to exercise power over accessibility, he was usually invoked first in official prayers, along with Jupiter, in order to gain access to the other gods. His most famous shrine in Rome was a small oblong structure with doors on each end which were kept closed in peacetime but opened in wartime (Müller 1943). According to one modern scholar (Holland 1961, 118 ff.), this shrine was originally an early Roman crossing over a brook in the Forum, which was later completely paved over.

Before being converted into a temple, this bridge must have had a wooden door-like frame at each end and handrails along its sides. It was transformed into Janus’s famous shrine by placing a door at each end, walling up the area beneath the handrails, and covering the remainder with an arched roof. Since this bridge stood on the edge of the early Roman settlement, it was always kept passable (the space from bank to bank closed with a walkway) in peacetime, but in time of war it was always broken down (opened over the brook) in order to protect the community.

Mars was a very important god among the early Romans as well as for the other Italic peoples of early Italy. In later times he was regarded as the god of war, but his nature was much more complex in archaic times. He may originally have been the god of the wilderness lying just beyond the edge of the peasant’s farmstead, who therefore was thought to exercise power over both farmland and wilderness. Consequently, he was invoked to protect crops and to assist Roman arms in waging war beyond the borders of the state. Ancient prayers and rituals clearly demonstrate his dual agricultural and warlike character. Cato, in section 141 of his treatise on agriculture, records the following prayer to be used in conjunction with sacrificial rites for purifying the land of a farm:

Pray with wine to Janus and Jupiter, and speak thus. “Father Mars, I pray and beseech thee that thou be gracious and merciful to me, my house, and my household. To this intent I have ordered the suovetaurilia3 to be led around my land, my ground, my farm; that thou keep away, ward off, and remove sickness, seen and unseen, barrenness and destruction, ruin and unseasonable influence; and that thou permit my harvests, my grain, my vineyards, and my plantations to flourish and to come to good issue, preserve in health my shepherds and my flocks, and give good health and strength to me, my house, and my household. For these reasons and for purifying my farm, my land, my ground, as I have said, be thou magnified (macte esto) by the sacrifice of these suckling victims of the suovetaurilia. Father Mars, to the same intent be thou magnified with these suckling victims of the suovetaurilia.”

Mars’s power over vegetation is further indicated by the fact that the early Romans began the year with the month of March, which took its name from the god and marked the return of spring and plant life. The Salii (leaping priests) performed their leaping dance through the streets of Rome during this month, beating spears upon shields and singing an archaic hymn. The growth of crops was supposed to be encouraged through the sympathetic magic of their leaping, and their hymn commemorated the passing of the old year’s spirit of vegetation (Veturius Mamurius = Old Mars) and the return of the new year. Mars also had a role in divination, because a specific breed of woodpecker (picus Martius) was greatly revered by many Italic peoples as a bird of great augural significance.

Juno was the goddess of youthful vigor and maturation (R. Palmer 1974, 3ff.). Thus the Romans applied her name to the month of June, the time when the crops were reaching full maturity for the summer harvest. During historical times, Juno was exclusively considered a goddess of women and childbirth, but her role in early Roman religion was not so restricted. Her domain over youthful vigor may have included the young men capable of bearing arms (iuniores) and hence the defense of the state. This may explain her inclusion in the Capitoline triad. She was likewise the tutelary deity of the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii. The Etruscans adopted her worship from the Latins under the name Uni, testifying to the lively cultural interchange between these two peoples in archaic times.

Another important female deity in early Roman religion was Ceres. The genesis and history of her cult reveal much about early Roman religious thought and practice. Her name is related to the verb “to grow” (crescere) or “to create” (creare). She was therefore simply the goddess of agricultural increase. Comparative evidence from Oscan and Umbrian religious texts shows that the names of many Italic deities were often coupled with an adjective similar in form to Ceres’s name because of their involvement in some kind of growth. It appears that although the Romans worshipped Ceres as a goddess from very early times, as witnessed by the fact that she was served by a flamen, she may not originally have been recognized as an actual divinity among other Italic peoples, who merely conceived of her as an abstract function associated with other divinities.

She therefore represents a phenomenon not uncommon in the history of Roman religion: an attribute that becomes a divinity. Already by the beginning of the republic, Ceres was equated with Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture, for when the Romans built a shrine to Ceres on the Aventine (dedicated in 493 B.C.), her cult was patterned after the worship and rites of Demeter practiced among the western Greeks of southern Italy and Sicily.

The Romans employed Greek artists to decorate the shrine (Pliny NH 35.154); and even though the cult was an integral part of the Roman state religion, the Romans always employed a Greek priestess from Magna Graecia or Sicily to conduct some of its rites (Cic. Pro Balbo 55). Thus, Ceres’ cult exhibits one of the earliest instances of hellenization, one of the most important processes that affected Roman religion and culture in later centuries.

Moreover, as the result of their responsibility for Rome’s grain supply, the plebeian aediles quite naturally used Ceres’ Aventine temple as their headquarters; and their practice of preserving official records there must have stemmed from one interpretation of Demeter’s Greek epithet, Thesmophoros, as meaning “Lawgiver.”

Notes

2. Despite their age, perhaps the two best modern treatments of early Roman religion are still Fowler 1899, 1911. Although Scullard 1981 covers the same ground as Fowler 1899 and contains more recent bibliography, it is not informed by an insightful understanding of early Roman religion. Wissowa 1912 and Latte 1960 are detailed and well-documented accounts of Roman religious history, but Wissowa is sometimes gullible in accepting later Roman explanations of early practices. Dumézil 1966 treats Roman religion in terms of his overarching hypothesis of Indo-European trifunctionalism, on which see Renfrew 1987, 250–62. Harmon 1978a and 1978b present good treatments of some of the more important Roman festivals from the perspective of primitive religious thought. The most recent detailed survey of early Roman religion is Beard, North, and Price 1998, 1–72.

3. The suovetaurilia was a ritual of purification involving the sacrifice of a pig, a sheep, and a bull, whose entrails were carried around the area to be purified.

By Gary Forsythe in "A Critical History of Early Rome - From Prehistory to the First Punic War", University of California Press, Berkeley, USA, 2005, excerpts pp. 126-128. Digitalized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

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