The Temple of Flora was an ancient sanctuary on the Quirinal Hill in Ancient Rome, erected in 238 BCE and dedicated to the goddess Flora. [1]
In 240 B.C.E, the festival Floralia was introduced in Rome on the advice of the Sibylline books, and two years later a temple was erected, also with the support of the Sibylline books. Because of their sexual connotations, the festival and the cult centered in the temple of Flora were hated by the Christians, who attempted to have the popular worship discredited by claiming that it had been founded in honor of a prostitute.[ citation needed ] The cult was likely suppressed in the 4th-century during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire, when the sanctuary would have been closed.
Diana is a goddess in Roman and Hellenistic religion, primarily considered a patroness of the countryside and nature, hunters, wildlife, childbirth, crossroads, the night, and the Moon. She is equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, and absorbed much of Artemis' mythology early in Roman history, including a birth on the island of Delos to parents Jupiter and Latona, and a twin brother, Apollo, though she had an independent origin in Italy.
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Liber, also known as Liber Pater, was a god of viticulture and wine, male fertility and freedom. He was a patron deity of Rome's plebeians and was part of their Aventine Triad. His festival of Liberalia became associated with free speech and the rights attached to coming of age. His cult and functions were increasingly associated with Romanised forms of the Greek Dionysus/Bacchus, whose mythology he came to share.
Mater Matuta was an indigenous Latin goddess, whom the Romans eventually made equivalent to the dawn goddess Aurora and the Greek goddess Eos. She was the goddess of female maturation and later also of the dawn. Her cult is attested to in several places in Latium; her most famous temple was located at Satricum.
Summanus was the god of nocturnal thunder in ancient Roman religion, as counterposed to Jupiter, the god of diurnal (daylight) thunder. His precise nature was unclear even to Ovid.
Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has been questioned as anachronistic. The ancient Greeks did not have a word for 'religion' in the modern sense. Likewise, no Greek writer known to us classifies either the gods or the cult practices into separate 'religions'. Instead, for example, Herodotus speaks of the Hellenes as having "common shrines of the gods and sacrifices, and the same kinds of customs."
The Floralia was a festival of ancient Roman religion in honor of the goddess Flora, held on 27 April during the Republican era, or 28 April in the Julian calendar. The festival included Ludi Florae, the "Games of Flora", which lasted for six days under the empire.
The Sibylline Books were a collection of oracular utterances, set out in Greek hexameter verses, that, according to tradition, were purchased from a sibyl by the last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, and consulted at momentous crises through the history of the Roman Republic and the Empire.
The Veneralia was an ancient Roman festival celebrated April 1 in honor of Venus Verticordia and Fortuna Virilis.
In Etruscan and Sabine religion, Feronia was a goddess associated with wildlife, fertility, health, and abundance, also venerated by the Faliscans and later adopted into ancient Roman religion. As the goddess who granted freedom to slaves or civil rights to the most humble part of society, she was especially honored among plebeians and freedmen. Her festival, the Feroniae, was November 13 during the Ludi Plebeii, in conjunction with Fortuna Primigenia; both were goddesses of Praeneste.
Flora is a Roman goddess of flowers and spring. She was one of the twelve deities of traditional Roman religion who had their own flamen, the Floralis, one of the flamines minores. Her association with spring gave her particular importance at the coming of springtime, as did her role as goddess of youth. She is one several fertility goddesses and a relatively minor figure in Roman mythology. Her Greek counterpart is Chloris.
A serapeum is a temple or other religious institution dedicated to the syncretic Greco-Egyptian deity Serapis, who combined aspects of Osiris and Apis in a humanized form that was accepted by the Ptolemaic Greeks of Alexandria. There were several such religious centers, each of which was called a serapeion/serapeum or poserapi, coming from an Egyptian name for the temple of Osiris-Apis.
Greek temples were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in ancient Greek religion. The temple interiors did not serve as meeting places, since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective ouranic deity took place outside them, within the wider precinct of the sanctuary, which might be large. Temples were frequently used to store votive offerings. They are the most important and most widespread surviving building type in Greek architecture. In the Hellenistic kingdoms of Southwest Asia and of North Africa, buildings erected to fulfill the functions of a temple often continued to follow the local traditions. Even where a Greek influence is visible, such structures are not normally considered as Greek temples. This applies, for example, to the Graeco-Parthian and Bactrian temples, or to the Ptolemaic examples, which follow Egyptian tradition. Most Greek temples were oriented astronomically.
Pessinus was an Ancient city and archbishopric in Asia Minor, a geographical area roughly covering modern Anatolia. The site of the city is now the modern Turkish village of Ballıhisar, in a tributary valley of the Sakarya River on the high Anatolian plateau at ca. 950 m above sea level, 13 km from the small town of Sivrihisar. Pessinus remains a Catholic titular see.
The sanctuary of Minerva at Portonaccio is an archaeological site on the western side of the plateau on which the ancient Etruscan city of Veii, north of Rome, Italy, was located. The site takes its name from the locality within the village of Isola Farnese, part of Municipio XX, city of Rome.
Lagina or Laginia (Λαγινία) was a town and religious centre in ancient Caria. It contained an important monumental temple of Hecate, at which great festivals were celebrated every year. For most of antiquity, it was a part of the territory of Stratonicea.
The concept of Hellenistic religion as the late form of Ancient Greek religion covers any of the various systems of beliefs and practices of the people who lived under the influence of ancient Greek culture during the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire. There was much continuity in Hellenistic religion: people continued to worship the Greek gods and to practice the same rites as in Classical Greece.
The Temple of Apollo Palatinus, sometimes called the Temple of Actian Apollo, was a temple of the god Apollo in Rome, constructed on the Palatine Hill on the initiative of Augustus between 36 and 28 BCE. It was the first temple to Apollo within the city's ceremonial boundaries, and the second of four temples constructed by Augustus. According to tradition, the site for the temple was chosen when it was struck by lightning, which was interpreted as a divine portent. Augustan writers situated the temple next to Augustus's personal residence, which has been controversially identified as the structure known as the domus Augusti.
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Mars is the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He is the son of Jupiter and Juno, and was pre-eminent among the Roman army's military gods. Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him, and in October, the months which traditionally began and ended the season for both military campaigning and farming.
The Temple of Bona Dea was an ancient sanctuary in Aventine Hill of Ancient Rome, erected the 3rd century BC and dedicated to the goddess Bona Dea.
The Temple of Tellus was a sanctuary in Ancient Rome, erected after 268 BCE and dedicated to the goddess Tellus.
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