Spes (Latin for "Hope") was worshipped as a goddess in ancient Roman religion. Numerous temples to Spes are known, and inscriptions indicate that she received private devotion as well as state cult. [1]
Spes (Latin for "Hope") was worshipped as a goddess in ancient Roman religion. Numerous temples to Spes are known, and inscriptions indicate that she received private devotion as well as state cult. [1]
During the Republic, a temple to "ancient Hope" (Spes vetus) was supposed to have been located near the Praenestine Gate. [2] [3] It was associated with events that occurred in the 5th century BC, [4] [3] but its existence as anything except perhaps a private shrine has been doubted. [5]
A well-documented Temple of Spes was built by Aulus Atilius Calatinus [6] [3] along with Fides, as the result of vows ( vota ) made to these goddesses during the First Punic War. [7] This was built at the vegetable market ( Forum Olitorium ) [8] just outside the Carmental Gate. It was twice burnt down and restored, first in 213 BC and then again in AD 7. [9]
At Capua in 110 BC, a temple was built to the triad of Spes, Fides, and Fortuna. [10] [3]
Spes was one of the divine personifications in the Imperial cult of the Virtues. Spes Augusta was Hope associated with the capacity of the emperor as Augustus to ensure blessed conditions. [11]
Like Salus ("Salvation, Security"), Ops ("Abundance, Prosperity"), and Victoria ("Victory"), Spes was a power that had to come from the gods, in contrast to divine powers that resided within the individual such as Mens ("Intelligence"), Virtus ("Virtue"), and Fides ("Faith, Fidelity, Trustworthiness"). [12]
The Greek counterpart of Spes was Elpis, who by contrast had no formal cult in Greece. The primary myth in which Elpis plays a role is the story of Pandora. The Greeks had ambivalent or even negative feelings about "hope", with Euripides describing it in his Suppliants as "delusive" and stating "it has embroiled many a State", [13] and the concept was unimportant in the philosophical systems of the Stoics and Epicureans. [3]
In ancient Roman religion, Ceres was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. She was originally the central deity in Rome's so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad, then was paired with her daughter Proserpina in what Romans described as "the Greek rites of Ceres". Her seven-day April festival of Cerealia included the popular Ludi Ceriales. She was also honoured in the May lustration (lustratio) of the fields at the Ambarvalia festival: at harvest-time: and during Roman marriages and funeral rites. She is usually depicted as a mature woman.
Juventas, also known as Iuventus or Juventus (Greek equivalent: Hebe), was the ancient Roman goddess whose sphere of tutelage was youth and rejuvenation. She was especially the goddess of young men "new to wearing the toga" (dea novorum togatorum)—that is, those who had just come of age.
In ancient Roman religion, Abundantia, also called Abundita or Copia, was a divine personification of abundance and prosperity. The name Abundantia means plenty or riches. This name is fitting as Abundantia was a goddess of abundance, money-flow, prosperity, fortune, valuables, and success. She would help protect your savings and investments. Abundantia would even assist someone with major purchases. She was among the embodiments of virtues in religious propaganda that cast the emperor as the ensurer of "Golden Age" conditions. Abundantia thus figures in art, cult, and literature, but has little mythology as such. She may have survived in some form in Roman Gaul and medieval France. Abundantia would carry a cornucopia that was filled with grain and coins. She would occasionally leave some of her grain or money at someone's house as a gift.
Aequitas is the Latin concept of justice, equality, conformity, symmetry, or fairness. It is the origin of the English word "equity". In ancient Rome, it could refer to either the legal concept of equity, or fairness between individuals.
In ancient Roman religion, Aeternitas was the divine personification of eternity. She was particularly associated with Imperial cult as a virtue of the deified emperor (divus). The religious maintenance of abstract deities such as Aeternitas was characteristic of official Roman cult from the time of the Julio-Claudians to the Severans.
Bonus Eventus was a divine personification in ancient Roman religion. The Late Republican scholar Varro lists him as one of the twelve deities who presided over agriculture, paired with Lympha, the goddess who influenced the water supply. The original function of Bonus Eventus may have been agricultural, but during the Imperial era, he represents a more general concept of success and was among the numerous abstractions who appeared as icons on Roman coins.
In ancient Roman culture, felicitas is a condition of divinely inspired productivity, blessedness, or happiness. Felicitas could encompass both a woman's fertility and a general's luck or good fortune. The divine personification of Felicitas was cultivated as a goddess. Although felicitas may be translated as "good luck," and the goddess Felicitas shares some characteristics and attributes with Fortuna, the two were distinguished in Roman religion. Fortuna was unpredictable and her effects could be negative, as the existence of an altar to Mala Fortuna acknowledges. Felicitas, however, always had a positive significance. She appears with several epithets that focus on aspects of her divine power.
In ancient Roman culture, liberalitas was the virtue of giving freely, hence generosity. On coins, a political leader of the Roman Republic or an emperor of the Imperial era might be depicted as displaying largess to the Roman people, with liberalitas embodied as a goddess at his side. The goddess Liberalitas appears on coinage issued under the emperors Gordian III Trajan, Antoninus Pius and Septimius Severus, sometimes designated as Augusta or Augusti in association with Imperial cult. On one example, a Roman holds out his toga to receive coins poured by Liberalitas, as Antoninus looks on from an elevated seat.
Pietas, translated variously as "duty", "religiosity" or "religious behavior", "loyalty", "devotion", or "filial piety", was one of the chief virtues among the ancient Romans. It was the distinguishing virtue of the founding hero Aeneas, who is often given the adjectival epithet pius ("religious") throughout Virgil's epic Aeneid. The sacred nature of pietas was embodied by the divine personification Pietas, a goddess often pictured on Roman coins. The Greek equivalent is eusebeia (εὐσέβεια).
In ancient Roman religion, Providentia is a divine personification of the ability to foresee and make provision. She was among the embodiments of virtues that were part of the Imperial cult of ancient Rome. Providentia thus figures in art, cult, and literature, but has little or no mythology as such.
In ancient Roman religion, Vica Pota was a goddess whose shrine (aedes) was located at the foot of the Velian Hill, on the site of the domus of Publius Valerius Publicola. This location would place the temple on the same side of the Velia as the Forum and perhaps not far from the Regia. Cicero explains her name as deriving from vincendi atque potiundi, "conquering and gaining mastery."
In Roman mythology, Virtus was the deity of bravery and military strength, the personification of the Roman virtue of virtus. The Greek equivalent deity was Arete. The deity was identified with the Roman god Honos and was often honoured together with him, such as in the Temple of Virtus and Honos at the Porta Capena in Rome.
In ancient Roman religion, Roma was a female deity who personified the city of Rome and more broadly, the Roman state. She was created and promoted to represent and propagate certain of Rome's ideas about itself, and to justify its rule. She was portrayed on coins, sculptures, architectural designs, and at official games and festivals. Images of Roma had elements in common with other goddesses, such as Rome's Minerva, her Greek equivalent Athena and various manifestations of Greek Tyche, who protected Greek city-states; among these, Roma stands dominant, over piled weapons that represent her conquests, and promising protection to the obedient. Her "Amazonian" iconography shows her "manly virtue" (virtus) as fierce mother of a warrior race, augmenting rather than replacing local goddesses. On some coinage of the Roman Imperial era, she is shown as a serene advisor, partner and protector of ruling emperors. In Rome, the Emperor Hadrian built and dedicated a gigantic temple to her as Roma Aeterna, and to Venus Felix,, emphasising the sacred, universal and eternal nature of the empire.
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Tellus Mater or Terra Mater is the personification of the Earth. Although Tellus and Terra are hardly distinguishable during the Imperial era, Tellus was the name of the original earth goddess in the religious practices of the Republic or earlier. The scholar Varro (1st century BC) lists Tellus as one of the di selecti, the twenty principal gods of Rome, and one of the twelve agricultural deities. She is regularly associated with Ceres in rituals pertaining to the earth and agricultural fertility.
In ancient Roman religion, a votum, plural vota, is a vow or promise made to a deity. The word comes from the past participle of the Latin verb voveo, vovere, "vow, promise". As the result of this verbal action, a votum is also that which fulfills a vow, that is, the thing promised, such as offerings, a statue, or even a temple building. The votum is thus an aspect of the contractual nature of Roman religion, a bargaining expressed by do ut des, "I give that you might give."
In ancient Roman religion, Annona is the divine personification of the grain supply to the city of Rome. She is closely connected to the goddess Ceres, with whom she is often depicted in art.
Tigranes V, also known as Tigran V was a Herodian prince who ruled as a Roman client king of Armenia from 6 AD to 12 AD.
Tutela was the ancient Roman concept of "guardianship", conceived of as a goddess in the Imperial period, and from the earliest period as a functional role that various tutelary deities might play, particularly Juno. Tutela had particular applications in Roman law.
The Sanctuary of the Three Gauls (Tres Galliae) was the focal structure within an administrative and religious complex established by Rome in the very late 1st century BC at Lugdunum. Its institution served to federalise and develop Gallia Comata as an Imperial province under Augustus, following the Gallic Wars of his predecessor Julius Caesar. The distinctively Gallo-Roman development of the Imperial sanctuary and its surrounding complex are well attested by literary, epigraphic, numismatic and archaeological evidence.
Roman Cyprus was a small senatorial province within the Roman Empire. While it was a small province, it possessed several well known religious sanctuaries and figured prominently in Eastern Mediterranean trade, particularly the production and trade of Cypriot copper. The island of Cyprus was situated at a strategically important position along Eastern Mediterranean trade routes, and had been controlled by various imperial powers throughout the first millennium BC. including: the Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Macedonians, and eventually the Romans. Cyprus was annexed by the Romans in 58 BC, but turbulence and civil war in Roman politics did not establish firm rule in Cyprus until 31 BC when Roman political struggles ended by Battle of Actium, and after about a decade, Cyprus was assigned a status of senatorial province in 22 BC. From then until the 7th century AD, Cyprus was controlled by the Romans. Cyprus officially became part of the Eastern Roman Empire in 293 AD.
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