The Temple of Pudicitia Plebeia was an ancient Roman temple on the Quirinal Hill, along the Vicus Longus, on what is now via Nazionale. It was dedicated to 'plebeian chastity' and built in 296 BC by Virginia, wife of the future consul Lucius Volumnius, in a section of her own house. [1]
The Quirinal Hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome, at the north-east of the city center. It is the location of the official residence of the Italian head of state, who resides in the Quirinal Palace; by metonymy "the Quirinal" has come to stand for the Italian president. The Quirinal Palace has an extension of 1.2 million square feet.
Via Nazionale is a street in Rome from Piazza della Repubblica leading towards Piazza Venezia.
The plebs were, in ancient Rome, the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census. The precise origins of the group and the term are unclear, though it may be that they began as a limited political movement in opposition to the elite (patricians) which became more widely applied.
According to Livy, (10.23.6-10), it was built in opposition to a shrine or temple to Pudicitia Patricia (whose existence is not definite and may be a conflation with the Temple of Fortuna) after the patrician-born Virginia was excluded from the latter after her marriage to a plebeian. Livy states that the cult declined and was forgotten due to women's extreme openness and opposition to the concept of chastity, though Festus in the 2nd century AD stated that its cult was still active. [2] If still in use by the 4th-and 5th century, it would have been closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire.
Titus Livius – simply rendered as Livy in English – was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people – Ab Urbe Condita Libri – covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional foundation in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on familiar terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and even in friendship with Augustus, whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, he exhorted to take up the writing of history.
The Temple of Pudicitia Patricia was a small shrine in ancient Rome, located in the Forum Boarium. It was described as being next to the Temple of Hercules Victor.
Sextus Pompeius Festus, usually known simply as Festus, was a Roman grammarian who probably flourished in the later 2nd century AD, perhaps at Narbo (Narbonne) in Gaul.
The Bacchanalia were Roman festivals of Bacchus based on various ecstatic elements of the Greek Dionysia. They seem to have been popular and well-organised throughout the central and southern Italian peninsula. They were almost certainly associated with Rome's native cult of Liber, and probably arrived in Rome itself around 200 BC. However, like all mystery religions of the ancient world, very little is known of their rites.
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 lustratio of the fields at the Ambarvalia festival, at harvest-time, and during Roman marriages and funeral rites.
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Liber, also known as Liber Pater, was a god of viticulture and wine, 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.
Bona Dea was a goddess in ancient Roman religion. She was associated with chastity and fertility in Roman women, healing, and the protection of the state and people of Rome. 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.
Pudicitia was a central concept in ancient Roman sexual ethics. The word is derived from the more general pudor, the sense of shame that regulated an individual's behavior as socially acceptable. Pudicitia was most often a defining characteristic of women, but men who failed to conform to masculine sexual norms were said to exhibit feminizing impudicitia, sexual shamelessness. The virtue was personified by the Roman goddess Pudicitia, whose Greek equivalent was Aidos.
The Aventine Hill is one of the Seven Hills on which ancient Rome was built. It belongs to Ripa, the twelfth rione, or ward, of Rome.
The patricians were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in Roman Kingdom, and the early Republic, but its relevance waned after the Conflict of the Orders, and by the time of the late Republic and Empire, membership in the patriciate was of only nominal significance.
Religion in Ancient Rome includes the ancestral ethnic religion of the city of Rome that the Romans used to define themselves as a people, as well as the religious practices of peoples brought under Roman rule, in so far as they became widely followed in Rome and Italy. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety (pietas) in maintaining good relations with the gods. The Romans are known for the great number of deities they honored, a capacity that earned the mockery of early Christian polemicists.
Verginia, or Virginia, was the subject of a story of ancient Rome, related in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita.
The Sibylline Books were a collection of oracular utterances, set out in Greek hexameters, that according to tradition were purchased from a sibyl by the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, and were consulted at momentous crises through the history of the Republic and the Empire. Only fragments have survived, the rest being lost or deliberately destroyed.
In ancient Roman religion, Feronia was a goddess associated with wildlife, fertility, health, and abundance. 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.
Sacrosanctity was the declaration of physical inviolability of a temple, a sacred object or a person through the lex sacrata, which had religious connotations. Festus explained that: “Sacred laws are laws which have the sanction that anyone who broke them becomes accursed to one of the gods, together with his family and property”. In some cases the law may have been applied to protect temples from being defiled. It could also be applied to protect a person who was declared sacrosanct (inviolable). Those who harmed a sacrosanct person became sacer (accursed) through the declaration sacer esto!. The offender was considered as having harmed the gods/a god, as well as the sacrosanct person and therefore accursed to the gods/a god. This meant that the offender became forfeit to the god(s) and on his death he was surrendered to the god(s) in question. The implication was that anyone who killed him was considered as performing a sacred duty and enjoyed impunity.
Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens was a consul of the Roman Republic, a novus homo who was the first consul to come from his plebeian gens. Volumnius served as consul twice, in 307 BC and 296 BC, both times in partnership with the patrician Appius Claudius Caecus. He took an active role in leading Roman forces during the Third Samnite War.
Verginia, sometimes spelled Virginia, was the daughter of Aulus Verginius, a Roman patrician. Her example of modesty and virtue in the face of adversity became famous in antiquity, and during the Middle Ages, she was celebrated as one of Boccaccio's Famous Women.
Gaius Junius Bubulcus Brutus was a Roman general and statesman, he was elected consul of the Roman Republic thrice, he was also appointed dictator or magister equitum thrice, and censor in 307 BC. In 311, he made a vow to the goddess Salus that he went on to fulfill, becoming the first plebeian to build a temple. The temple was one of the first dedicated to an abstract deity, and Junius was one of the first generals to vow a temple and then oversee its establishment through the construction and dedication process.
The Aventine Triad is a modern term for the joint cult of the Roman deities Ceres, Liber and Libera. The cult was established ca. 493 BC within a sacred district (templum) on or near the Aventine Hill, traditionally associated with the Roman plebs. Later accounts describe the temple building and rites as "Greek" in style. Some modern historians describe the Aventine Triad as a plebeian parallel and self-conscious antithesis to the archaic Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus and the later Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Minerva and Juno. The Aventine Triad, temple and associated ludi served as a focus of plebeian identity, sometimes in opposition to Rome's original ruling elite, the patricians.
The Temple of Diana in ancient Rome was a Roman temple which, according to the early semi-legendary history of Rome, was built in the 6th century BC during the reign of the king Servius Tullius.
The Temple of Asclepius was an ancient Roman temple to Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, on the Isola Tiberina in Rome.
Venus Verticordia was an epithet of the Roman goddess Venus, alluding to the goddess' ability to change hearts from lust to chastity.