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87-456: A festival called Agonia or Agonium Martiale , in honor of Mars , was celebrated March 17, the same day as the Liberalia , during a prolonged "war festival" that marked the beginning of the season for military campaigning and agriculture . The offering was a ram (aries) , the usual victim sacrificed to the guardian gods of the state . The presiding priest was the rex sacrificulus , and

174-785: 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 Virgil and the first few books of Livy 's 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 , and the fourth book of elegies by Propertius . Scenes from Roman myth also appear in Roman wall painting , coins , and sculpture , particularly reliefs . The Aeneid and Livy's early history are

261-502: A divine personification of Mars's 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, each paired with the name of a deity. 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, and

348-682: A few observances in October, the beginning and end of the season for military campaigning and agriculture. Festivals with horse racing took place in the Campus Martius. Some festivals in March retained characteristics of new year festivals, since Martius was originally the first month of the Roman calendar . Mars was also honored by chariot races at the Robigalia and Consualia , though these festivals are not primarily dedicated to him. From 217 BCE onward, Mars

435-464: A few of his cult titles, such as Mars Grabovius , but the usual offering was the bull, singly, in multiples, or in combination with other animals. The two most distinctive animal sacrifices made to Mars were the suovetaurilia , a triple offering of a pig (sus) , ram (ovis) and bull (taurus) , and the October Horse , the only horse sacrifice known to have been carried out in ancient Rome and

522-406: A force to be propitiated . In his book on farming , Cato invokes Mars Silvanus for a ritual to be carried out in silva , in the woods, an uncultivated place that if not held within bounds can threaten to overtake the fields needed for crops. Mars's character as an agricultural god may derive solely from his role as a defender and protector, or may be inseparable from his warrior nature, as

609-473: A guarantor of treaties, Mars Quirinus is thus a god of peace: "When he rampages, Mars is called Gradivus , but when he's at peace Quirinus ." The deified Romulus was identified with Mars Quirinus. In the Capitoline Triad of Jupiter , Mars, and Quirinus , however, Mars and Quirinus were two separate deities, though not perhaps in origin. Each of the three had his own flamen (specialized priest), but

696-508: A manner that resembles Ares, youthful, beardless, and often nude. In the Renaissance, Mars's nudity was thought to represent his lack of fear in facing danger. The spear is the instrument of Mars in the same way that Jupiter wields the lightning bolt, Neptune the trident, and Saturn the scythe or sickle. A relic or fetish called the spear of Mars was kept in a sacrarium at the Regia ,

783-451: A mortal woman, the infant Hercules , on Juno 's breast while she is asleep so the baby will drink her divine milk and thus become immortal, an act which would endow the baby with godlike qualities. When Juno woke and realized that she was breastfeeding an unknown infant, she pushed him away, some of her milk spills, and the spurting milk became the Milky Way . In another version of the myth,

870-463: A native mythology. This perception is a product of Romanticism and the classical scholarship of the 19th century, which valued Greek civilization as more "authentically creative." 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

957-566: A prelude to war. His cult title is most often taken to mean "the Strider" or "the Marching God", from gradus , "step, march." The poet Statius addresses him as "the most implacable of the gods," but Valerius Maximus concludes his history by invoking Mars Gradivus as "author and support of the name 'Roman'": Gradivus is asked – along with Capitoline Jupiter and Vesta , as the keeper of Rome's perpetual flame – to "guard, preserve, and protect"

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1044-621: A rare instance of a victim the Romans considered inedible. The earliest center in Rome for cultivating Mars as a deity was the Altar of Mars ( Ara Martis) in the Campus Martius ("Field of Mars") outside the sacred boundary of Rome ( pomerium ) . The Romans thought that this altar had been established by the semi-legendary Numa Pompilius , the peace-loving successor of Romulus. According to Roman tradition,

1131-455: A short curly beard and moustache. His helmet is a plumed neo-Attic - type . He wears a military cloak ( paludamentum ) and a cuirass ornamented with a gorgoneion . Although the relief is somewhat damaged at this spot, he appears to hold a spear garlanded in laurel , symbolizing a peace that is won by military victory. The 1st-century statue of Mars found in the Forum of Nerva (pictured at top)

1218-479: A temple to Mars Ultor as a key religious feature of his new forum . Unlike Ares, who was viewed primarily as a destructive and destabilizing force, Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace , and was a father (pater) of the Roman people. In Rome's mythic genealogy and founding , Mars fathered Romulus and Remus through his rape of Rhea Silvia . His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled two different traditions of Rome's founding; Venus

1305-418: Is among the several gods invoked in the ritual of devotio , by means of which a general sacrificed himself and the lives of the enemy to secure a Roman victory. Father Mars is the regular recipient of the suovetaurilia , the sacrifice of a pig (sus) , ram (ovis) and bull (taurus) , or often a bull alone. To Mars Pater other epithets were sometimes appended, such as Mars Pater Victor ("Father Mars

1392-516: Is an important theme. When the stories illuminate Roman religious practices, they are more concerned with ritual, augury , and institutions than with theology or cosmogony . Roman mythology also draws on Greek mythology , primarily during the Hellenistic period of Greek influence and through the Roman conquest of Greece , via the artistic imitation of Greek literary models by Roman authors. The Romans identified their own gods with those of

1479-482: Is depicted as either bearded and mature, or young and clean-shaven. Even nude or seminude, he often wears a helmet or carries a spear as emblems of his warrior nature. Mars was among the deities to appear on the earliest Roman coinage in the late 4th and early 3rd century BCE. On the Altar of Peace (Ara Pacis) , built in the last years of the 1st century BCE, Mars is a mature man with a "handsome, classicizing " face, and

1566-475: Is impermanent. Virility as a kind of life force (vis) or virtue (virtus) is an essential characteristic of Mars. As an agricultural guardian, he directs his energies toward creating conditions that allow crops to grow, which may include warding off hostile forces of nature. The priesthood of the Arval Brothers called on Mars to drive off "rust" (lues) , with its double meaning of wheat fungus and

1653-518: Is often treated with contempt and revulsion in Greek literature . Mars's 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 ; in Republican times it was a focus of electoral activities. Augustus shifted the focus of Mars' cult to within the pomerium (Rome's ritual boundary), and built

1740-633: Is satisfactory. One possibility is that the sacrifice in its earliest form was offered on the Quirinal Hill , which was originally called Agonus , at the Colline gate , Agonensis . The sacrifice is explicitly located at the Regia, or the domus regis ("house of the king"), which in the historical period was at the top of the Via Sacra , near the arch of Titus , though one ancient source states that in earliest times,

1827-513: Is similar. In this guise, Mars is presented as the dignified ancestor of the Roman people. The panel of the Ara Pacis on which he appears would have faced the Campus Martius, reminding viewers that Mars was the god whose altar Numa established there, that is, the god of Rome's oldest civic and military institutions. Particularly in works of art influenced by the Greek tradition , Mars may be portrayed in

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1914-531: The Fasti Praenestini , albeit in mutilated form. In Ovid 's poem on the Roman calendar, he calls it once the dies agonalis ("agonal day") and elsewhere the Agonalia, and offers a number of etymologies of varied plausibility. Festus explains the word agonia as an archaic Latin term for hostia , a sacrificial victim. Augustine of Hippo thought the Romans had a god named Agonius, who might then have been

2001-586: The Aventine Triad – Ceres , Liber , and Libera – developed in association with the rise of plebeians to positions of wealth and influence. The gods represented distinctly the practical needs of daily life, and the Romans scrupulously accorded them the appropriate rites and offerings. Early Roman divinities included a host of "specialist gods" whose names were invoked in the carrying out of various specific activities. Fragments of old ritual accompanying such acts as plowing or sowing reveal that at every stage of

2088-610: The Imperial period , but under the first emperor Augustus it underwent a major program of urban renewal, marked by monumental architecture. The Altar of Augustan Peace ( Ara Pacis Augustae ) was located there, as was the Obelisk of Montecitorio , imported from Egypt to form the pointer ( gnomon ) of the Solarium Augusti , a giant sundial . With its public gardens, the Campus became one of

2175-473: The Proto-Indo-European god Perkwunos , having originally a thunderer character. Like Ares who was the son of Zeus and Hera , Mars is usually considered to be the son of Jupiter and Juno . In Ovid 's version of Mars' origin, he was the son of Juno alone. Jupiter had usurped the accepted function of women as mothers when he gave birth to Minerva directly from his forehead (or mind). Juno sought

2262-432: The Roman army spread his cult as far afield as Roman Britain . The important Roman deities were eventually identified with the more anthropomorphic Greek gods and goddesses, and assumed many of their attributes and myths. Many astronomical objects are named after Roman deities, like the planets Mercury , Venus , Mars , Jupiter , Saturn , and Neptune . In Roman and Greek mythology, Jupiter places his son born by

2349-462: The Roman calendar . It may explain why the Matronalia , a festival celebrated by married women in honor of Juno as a goddess of childbirth , occurred on the first day of Mars's month, which is also marked on a calendar from late antiquity as the birthday of Mars. In the earliest Roman calendar, March was the first month, and the god would have been born with the new year. Ovid is the only source for

2436-685: The Tubilustrium March 23. A note on the holiday from Varro indicates that this Agonia was of more recondite significance than the Liberalia held on the same day. Varro's source is the books of the Salian priests surnamed Agonenses , who call it the Agonia instead. According to Masurius Sabinus , the Liberalia was called the Agonium Martiale by the pontiffs . Modern scholars are inclined to think that

2523-589: The ancient Greeks and reinterpreted myths about Greek deities under the names of their Roman counterparts. The influence of Greek mythology likely began as early as Rome's protohistory . Classical mythology is the amalgamated tradition of Greek and Roman mythologies, as disseminated especially by Latin literature in Europe throughout the Middle Ages , into the Renaissance , and up to present-day uses of myths in fiction and movies. The interpretations of Greek myths by

2610-463: The red oxides that affect metal, a threat to both iron farm implements and weaponry. In the surviving text of their hymn , the Arval Brothers invoked Mars as ferus , "savage" or "feral" like a wild animal. Mars's potential for savagery is expressed in his obscure connections to the wild woodlands, and he may even have originated as a god of the wild, beyond the boundaries set by humans, and thus

2697-459: The state of Rome , the peace, and the princeps (the emperor Tiberius at the time). A source from Late Antiquity says that the wife of Gradivus was Nereia , the daughter of Nereus , and that he loved her passionately. Mars Quirinus was the protector of the Quirites ("citizens" or "civilians") as divided into curiae (citizen assemblies), whose oaths were required to make a treaty. As

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2784-403: The war with Hannibal , any distinction between "indigenous" and "immigrant" gods begins to fade, and the Romans embraced diverse gods from various cultures as a sign of strength and universal divine favor. The absorption of neighboring local gods took place as the Roman state conquered neighboring territories. The Romans commonly granted the local gods of a conquered territory the same honors as

2871-584: The Archaic Triad – an unusual example within Indo-European religion of a supreme triad formed of two female deities and only one male. The cult of Diana became established on the Aventine Hill , but the most famous Roman manifestation of this goddess may be Diana Nemorensis , owing to the attention paid to her cult by J.G. Frazer in the mythographic classic The Golden Bough . What modern scholars call

2958-534: The Archaic Triad, with Vofionus equivalent to Quirinus. Tables I and VI describe a complex ritual that took place at the three gates of the city. After the auspices were taken, two groups of three victims were sacrificed at each gate. Mars Grabovius received three oxen. "Father Mars" or "Mars the Father" is the form in which the god is invoked in the agricultural prayer of Cato, and he appears with this title in several other literary texts and inscriptions. Mars Pater

3045-552: The Campus Martius had been consecrated to Mars by their ancestors to serve as horse pasturage and an equestrian training ground for youths. During the Roman Republic (509–27 BCE), the Campus was a largely open expanse. No temple was built at the altar, but from 193 BCE a covered walkway connected it to the Porta Fontinalis , near the office and archives of the Roman censors . Newly elected censors placed their curule chairs by

3132-504: The Italic Picenes were supposed to have derived their name from the picus who served as their guide animal during a ritual migration ( ver sacrum ) undertaken as a rite of Mars. In the territory of the Aequi , another Italic people, Mars had an oracle of great antiquity where the prophecies were supposed to be spoken by a woodpecker perched on a wooden column. Mars's association with

3219-469: The Regia was on the Quirinal. The Circus Agonensis, as it is called, is supposed by some to have occupied the place of the present Piazza Navona , and to have been built by the emperor Alexander Severus on the spot where the victims were sacrificed at the Agonalia. It may not, however, have been a circus at all, and Humphrey omits the site in his work on Roman circuses. An Agonium occurs on January 9 in

3306-424: The Roman state were presented on couches as if present and participating. Scenes of Venus and Mars in Roman art often ignore the adulterous implications of their union, and take pleasure in the good-looking couple attended by Cupid or multiple Loves (amores) . Some scenes may imply marriage, and the relationship was romanticized in funerary or domestic art in which husbands and wives had themselves portrayed as

3393-500: The Romans often had a greater influence on narrative and pictorial representations of myths than Greek sources. In particular, the versions of Greek myths in Ovid 's Metamorphoses , written during the reign of Augustus , came to be regarded as canonical . 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

3480-468: The Victorious"), to whom the Roman army sacrificed a bull on March 1. Although pater and mater were fairly common as honorifics for a deity, any special claim for Mars as father of the Roman people lies in the mythic genealogy that makes him the divine father of Romulus and Remus . In the section of his farming book that offers recipes and medical preparations, Cato describes a votum to promote

3567-429: The advice of the goddess Flora on how to do the same. Flora obtained a magic flower (Latin flos , plural flores , a masculine word ) and tested it on a heifer who became fecund at once. Flora ritually plucked a flower, using her thumb, touched Juno's belly, and impregnated her. Juno withdrew to Thrace and the shore of Marmara for the birth. Ovid tells this story in the Fasti , his long-form poetic work on

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3654-452: The altar, and when they had finished conducting the census, the citizens were collectively purified with a suovetaurilia there. A frieze from the so-called "Altar" of Domitius Ahenobarbus is thought to depict the census, and may show Mars himself standing by the altar as the procession of victims advances. The main Temple of Mars ( Aedes Martis) in the Republican period also lay outside

3741-552: The animal of Mars. A statue group that stood along the Appian Way showed Mars in the company of wolves. At the Battle of Sentinum in 295 BCE, the appearance of the wolf of Mars (Martius lupus) was a sign that Roman victory was to come. In Roman Gaul , the goose was associated with the Celtic forms of Mars , and archaeologists have found geese buried alongside warriors in graves. The goose

3828-504: The best extant sources for Rome's founding myths . Material from Greek heroic legend was grafted onto this native stock at an early date. The Trojan prince Aeneas was cast as husband of Lavinia , daughter of King Latinus , patronymical ancestor of the Latini , and therefore through a convoluted revisionist genealogy as forebear of Romulus and Remus . By extension, the Trojans were adopted as

3915-518: The city in a procession. In the 1st century AD, Quintilian remarks that the language of the Salian hymn was so archaic that it was no longer fully understood. In Classical Roman religion , Mars was invoked under several titles, and the first Roman emperor Augustus thoroughly integrated Mars into Imperial cult . The 4th-century Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus treats Mars as one of several classical Roman deities who remained "cultic realities" up to his own time. Mars, and specifically Mars Ultor,

4002-499: The city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities but a pervasive sense of divinely ordered destiny. In Rome's 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 and the founding fathers of the United States in 1776. What does it take to be

4089-448: The couple were a frequent subject of art. In Greek myth, the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite had been exposed to ridicule when her husband Hephaestus (whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan ) caught them in the act by means of a magical snare. Although not originally part of the Roman tradition, in 217 BCE Venus and Mars were presented as a complementary pair in the lectisternium , a public banquet at which images of twelve major gods of

4176-627: The earlier gods of the Roman state religion . In addition to Castor and Pollux , the conquered settlements in Italy seem to have contributed to the Roman pantheon Diana , Minerva , Hercules , Venus , and deities of lesser rank, some of whom were Italic divinities, others originally derived from the Greek culture of Magna Graecia . In 203 BC, Rome imported the cult object embodying Cybele from Pessinus in Phrygia and welcomed its arrival with due ceremony . Both Lucretius and Catullus , poets contemporary in

4263-533: The end of Julian's reign. As represented by Ammianus, Julian swore never to make sacrifice to Mars again—a vow kept with his death a month later. Gradivus was one of the gods by whom a general or soldiers might swear an oath to be valorous in battle. His temple outside the Porta Capena was where armies gathered. The archaic priesthood of Mars Gradivus was the Salii , the "leaping priests" who danced ritually in armor as

4350-505: The former residence of the Kings of Rome . The spear was said to move, tremble or vibrate at impending war or other danger to the state, as was reported to occur before the assassination of Julius Caesar . When Mars is pictured as a peace-bringer, his spear is wreathed with laurel or other vegetation, as on the Ara Pacis or a coin of Aemilianus . The high priest of Mars in Roman public religion

4437-614: The functions of the Flamen Martialis and Flamen Quirinalis are hard to distinguish. Mars is invoked as Grabovius in the Iguvine Tablets , bronze tablets written in Umbrian that record ritual protocols for carrying out public ceremonies on behalf of the city and community of Iguvium . The same title is given to Jupiter and to the Umbrian deity Vofionus. This triad has been compared to

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4524-558: The god of the Colline part of the city (see "Etymology" above ). This third occurrence of the Agonia or Agonalia shares the date of December 11 with the Septimontium or Septimontiale sacrum , which only very late Roman calendars take note of and which depends on a textual conjecture . The relation between the two observances, if any exists, is unknown. A fragmentary inscription found at Ostia that reads: "Agonind" testifies that this festival

4611-409: The gods Mars and Quirinus , who were often identified with each other. Mars was a god of both war and agriculture; he was honored in March and October. Quirinus was the patron of the armed community in time of peace. The 19th-century scholar Georg Wissowa thought that the Romans distinguished two classes of gods, the di indigetes and the di novensides or novensiles : the indigetes were

4698-415: The harvest. Jupiter , the ruler of the gods, was honored for the aid his rains might give to the farms and vineyards. In his more encompassing character he was considered, through his weapon of lightning, the director of human activity. Owing to his widespread domain, the Romans regarded him as their protector in their military activities beyond the borders of their own community. Prominent in early times were

4785-420: The health of cattle: Roman mythology Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans , and is a form of Roman folklore . "Roman mythology" may also refer to the modern study of these representations, and to the subject matter as represented in the literature and art of other cultures in any period. Roman mythology draws from

4872-634: The influences of other cultures in response to social change. The earliest pantheon included Janus, Vesta , and the so-called Archaic Triad of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, whose three patrician flamens were of the highest order . According to tradition, Numa Pompilius , the Sabine second king of Rome , founded Roman religion; Numa was believed to have had as his consort and adviser a Roman goddess or nymph of fountains and of prophecy, Egeria . The Etruscan-influenced Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva later became central to official religion, replacing

4959-517: The late 6th century BC from the Cumaean Sibyl . Some aspects of archaic Roman religion survived in the lost theological works of the 1st-century BC scholar Varro , known through other classical and Christian authors. Although traditional Roman religion was conservative in ritual rather than dogmatic in doctrine, the meaning of the rituals they perpetuated could be adapted, expanded, and reinterpreted by accretions of myths, etiologies , commentary, and

5046-452: The leaping of his armed priests the Salii was meant to quicken the growth of crops. It appears that Mars was originally a thunderer or storm deity, which explains some of his mixed traits in regards to fertility. This role was later taken in the Roman pantheon by several other gods, such as Summanus or Jupiter . The wild animals most sacred to Mars were the woodpecker and the wolf, which in

5133-434: The mid-1st century BC, offer disapproving glimpses of Cybele's wildly ecstatic cult. In some instances, deities of an enemy power were formally invited through the ritual of evocatio to take up their abode in new sanctuaries at Rome. Communities of foreigners ( peregrini ) and former slaves (libertini) continued their own religious practices within the city. In this way Mithras came to Rome and his popularity within

5220-496: The month named for him ( Latin Martius ), and in October, the months which traditionally began and ended the season for both military campaigning and farming. 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. The character and dignity of Mars differs in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart, who

5307-457: The most attractive places in the city to visit. Augustus made the centrepiece of his new forum a large Temple to Mars Ultor, a manifestation of Mars he cultivated as the avenger (ultor) of the murder of Julius Caesar and of the military disaster suffered at the Battle of Carrhae . When the legionary standards lost to the Parthians were recovered, they were housed in the new temple. The date of

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5394-416: The mythical ancestors of the Roman people. The characteristic myths of Rome are often political or moral, that is, they deal with the development of Roman government in accordance with divine law, as expressed by Roman religion , and with demonstrations of the individual's adherence to moral expectations ( mos maiorum ) or failures to do so. Narratives of divine activity played a more important role in

5481-457: The mythology of the Italic peoples and shares mythemes with Proto-Indo-European mythology . 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 individual's personal integrity relates to his or her responsibility to the community or Roman state. Heroism

5568-416: The name of an Etruscan child-god , though this is not universally agreed upon. Scholars have varying views on whether the two gods are related, and if so how. Latin adjectives from the name of Mars are martius and martialis , from which derive English "martial" (as in "martial arts" or " martial law ") and personal names such as "Marcus", "Mark" and "Martin". Mars may ultimately be a thematic reflex of

5655-409: The natural lore of the Romans were said always to inhabit the same foothills and woodlands. Plutarch notes that the woodpecker (picus) is sacred to Mars because "it is a courageous and spirited bird and has a beak so strong that it can overturn oaks by pecking them until it has reached the inmost part of the tree." As the beak of the picus Martius contained the god's power to ward off harm, it

5742-451: The operation a separate deity was invoked, the name of each deity being regularly derived from the verb for the operation. Tutelary deities were particularly important in ancient Rome. Thus, Janus and Vesta guarded the door and hearth, the Lares protected the field and house, Pales the pasture, Saturn the sowing, Ceres the growth of the grain, Pomona the fruit, and Consus and Ops

5829-486: The original gods of the Roman state, their names and nature indicated by the titles of the earliest priests and by the fixed festivals of the calendar, with 30 such gods honored by special festivals; the novensides were later divinities whose cults were introduced to the city in the historical period, usually at a known date and in response to a specific crisis or felt need. Arnaldo Momigliano and others, however, have argued that this distinction cannot be maintained. During

5916-460: The passionate divine couple. The uniting of deities representing Love and War lent itself to allegory , especially since the lovers were the parents of Concordia . The Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino notes that "only Venus dominates Mars, and he never dominates her". In ancient Roman and Renaissance art, Mars is often shown disarmed and relaxed, or even sleeping, but the extramarital nature of their affair can also suggest that this peace

6003-467: The sacred boundary and was devoted to the god's warrior aspect. It was built to fulfill a vow ( votum ) made by a Titus Quinctius in 388 BCE during the Gallic siege of Rome . The founding day ( dies natalis ) was commemorated on June 1, and the temple is attested by several inscriptions and literary sources. The sculpture group of Mars and the wolves was displayed there. Soldiers sometimes assembled at

6090-472: The sharing of the date was a coincidence, and that the two festivals were unrelated. Mars (mythology) In ancient Roman religion and mythology , Mars ( Latin : Mārs , pronounced [maːrs] ) 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,

6177-410: The site was the Regia , both of which could be employed only for ceremonies connected with the highest gods that affected the wellbeing of the whole state. But the purpose of this festival was disputed even among the ancients themselves. The etymology of the name was also a subject of much dispute among the ancients. The various etymologies proposed are given at length by Ovid . None of these, however,

6264-423: The story. He may be presenting a literary myth of his own invention, or an otherwise unknown archaic Italic tradition; either way, in choosing to include the story, he emphasizes that Mars was connected to plant life and was not alienated from female nurture. The consort of Mars was Nerio or Neriene, "Valor." She represents the vital force (vis) , power (potentia) and majesty (maiestas) of Mars. Her name

6351-552: The system of Greek religious belief than among the Romans, for whom ritual and cultus were primary. Although Roman religion was not based on scriptures and their exegesis , priestly literature was one of the earliest written forms of Latin prose . The books (libri) and commentaries (commentarii) of the College of Pontiffs and of the augurs contained religious procedures, prayers, and rulings and opinions on points of religious law. Although at least some of this archived material

6438-483: The temple before heading off to war, and it was the point of departure for a major parade of Roman cavalry held annually on July 15. A temple to Mars in the Circus Flaminius was built around 133 BCE, funded by Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus from war booty. It housed a colossal statue of Mars and a nude Venus. The Campus Martius continued to provide venues for equestrian events such as chariot racing during

6525-407: The temple's dedication on May 12 was aligned with the heliacal setting of the constellation Scorpio , the sign of war. The date continued to be marked with circus games as late as the mid-4th century AD. A large statue of Mars was part of the short-lived Arch of Nero , which was built in 62 CE but dismantled after Nero 's suicide and disgrace ( damnatio memoriae ) . In Roman art , Mars

6612-408: The wolf is familiar from what may be the most famous of Roman myths , the story of how a she-wolf (lupa) suckled his infant sons when they were exposed by order of King Amulius , who feared them because he had usurped the throne from their grandfather, Numitor . The woodpecker also brought nourishment to the twins. The wolf appears elsewhere in Roman art and literature in masculine form as

6699-522: Was among the gods honored at the lectisternium , a banquet given for deities who were present as images. Roman hymns ( carmina ) are rarely preserved, but Mars is invoked in two. The Arval Brothers , or "Brothers of the Fields", chanted a hymn to Mars while performing their three-step dance. The Carmen Saliare was sung by Mars's priests the Salii while they moved twelve sacred shields ( ancilia ) throughout

6786-452: Was among the gods who received sacrifices from Julian , the only emperor to reject Christianity after the conversion of Constantine I . In 363 AD, in preparation for the Siege of Ctesiphon , Julian sacrificed ten "very fine" bulls to Mars Ultor. The tenth bull violated ritual protocol by attempting to break free, and when killed and examined , produced ill omens , among the many that were read at

6873-454: Was available for consultation by the Roman senate , it was often occultum genus litterarum , an arcane form of literature to which by definition only priests had access. Prophecies pertaining to world history and to Rome's destiny turn up fortuitously at critical junctures in history, discovered suddenly in the nebulous Sibylline books , which Tarquin the Proud (according to legend) purchased in

6960-479: Was carried as a magic charm to prevent bee stings and leech bites. The bird of Mars also guarded a woodland herb ( paeonia ) used for treatment of the digestive or female reproductive systems ; those who sought to harvest it were advised to do so by night, lest the woodpecker jab out their eyes. The picus Martius seems to have been a particular species, but authorities differ on which one: perhaps Picus viridis or Dryocopus martius . The woodpecker

7047-441: Was considered a bellicose animal because it is easily provoked to aggression. Ancient Greek and Roman religion distinguished between animals that were sacred to a deity and those that were prescribed as the correct sacrificial offerings for the god. Wild animals might be viewed as already belonging to the god to whom they were sacred, or at least not owned by human beings and therefore not theirs to give . Since sacrificial meat

7134-534: Was dedicated to Sol Indiges. It was indeed the second festival celebrating this deity, after that of August 10. The Agonia to Mars occurs during a period of festivals in March (Latin Martius ), the namesake month of Mars. These were the chariot races of the Equirria February 27, a feria on the Kalends of March (a day sacred also to his mother Juno ), a second Equirria on March 14, his Agonalia March 17, and

7221-399: Was eaten at a banquet after the gods received their portion – mainly the entrails ( exta ) – it follows that the animals sacrificed were most often, though not always, domestic animals normally part of the Roman diet. Gods often received castrated male animals as sacrifices, and the goddesses female victims ; Mars, however, regularly received intact males. Mars did receive oxen under

7308-445: Was regarded as Sabine in origin and is equivalent to Latin virtus , "manly virtue" (from vir , "man"). In the early 3rd century BCE, the comic playwright Plautus has a reference to Mars greeting Nerio, his wife. A source from late antiquity says that Mars and Neriene were celebrated together at a festival held on March 23. In the later Roman Empire , Neriene came to be identified with Minerva . Nerio probably originates as

7395-497: Was revered by the Latin peoples , who abstained from eating its flesh. It was one of the most important birds in Roman and Italic augury , the practice of reading the will of the gods through watching the sky for signs. The mythological figure named Picus had powers of augury that he retained when he was transformed into a woodpecker; in one tradition, Picus was the son of Mars. The Umbrian cognate peiqu also means "woodpecker", and

7482-472: Was the Flamen Martialis , who was one of the three major priests in the fifteen-member college of flamens . Mars was also served by the Salii , a twelve-member priesthood of patrician youths who dressed as archaic warriors and danced in procession around the city in March. Both priesthoods extend to the earliest periods of Roman history, and patrician birth was required. The festivals of Mars cluster in his namesake month of March (Latin: Martius ), with

7569-546: Was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas , celebrated as the Trojan refugee who "founded" Rome several generations before Romulus laid out the city walls. The word Mārs (genitive Mārtis ), which in Old Latin and poetic usage also appears as Māvors ( Māvortis ), is cognate with Oscan Māmers ( Māmertos ). The oldest recorded Latin form, Mamart-, is likely of foreign origin . It has been explained as deriving from Maris ,

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