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63-509: Vulcan belongs to the most ancient stage of Roman religion: Varro , the ancient Roman scholar and writer, citing the Annales Maximi , records that king Titus Tatius dedicated altars to a series of deities including Vulcan. The origin of the name is unclear. Roman tradition maintained that it was related to Latin words connected to lightning ( fulgur, fulgere, fulmen ), which in turn was thought of as related to flames. This interpretation

126-425: A beautiful necklace of silver and sapphires that Vulcan had made for her. Juno admired the necklace and asked where she could get one. Thetis became flustered, causing Juno to become suspicious; and, at last, the queen god discovered the truth: the baby she had once rejected had grown into a talented blacksmith . Juno was furious and demanded that Vulcan return home, a demand that he refused. However, he did send Juno

189-477: A beautifully constructed chair made of silver and gold, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Juno was delighted with this gift but, as soon as she sat in it her weight triggered hidden springs and metal bands sprung forth to hold her fast. The chair was a cleverly designed trap. It was Jupiter who finally saved the day: he promised that if Vulcan released Juno he would give him a wife, Venus the goddess of love and beauty. Vulcan agreed and married Venus. Vulcan later built

252-555: A building called the Hall of the Shoemakers ( atrium sutorium ) and involved the sacrifice of a ewe lamb . Romans who did not attend the ceremony would be reminded of the occasion by seeing the Salii dancing through the streets of the city. This article about the military history of Ancient Rome is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a religious festival

315-436: A local virgin (perhaps of royal descent) and generates a king. The first mention of a ritual connection between Vulcan and Vesta is the lectisternium of 217 BC. Other facts that seem to hint at this connection are the relative proximity of the two sanctuaries and Dionysius of Halicarnassus ' testimony that both cults had been introduced to Rome by Titus Tatius to comply with a vow he had made in battle. Varro confirms

378-533: A monster that inhabited the site of the Aventine in Rome, and Roman king Servius Tullius . In a variant of the story of the birth of Romulus the details are identical even though Vulcan is not explicitly mentioned. Some scholars think that Vulcan might be the unknown god who impregnated goddesses Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste and Feronia at Anxur . In this case, he would be the father of Jupiter . This view, however,

441-586: A poisoned gift for man. Vulcan's contribution to the beautiful and foolish Pandora was to mould her from clay and to give her form. He also made the thrones for the other gods on Mount Olympus . The main and most ancient sanctuary of Vulcan in Rome was the Volcanal , located in the area Volcani , an open-air space at the foot of the Capitolium , in the northwestern corner of the Roman Forum , with an area dedicated to

504-417: A sacrifice, to be consumed in the place of humans. The Vulcanalia was part of the cycle of the four festivities of the second half of August (Consualia on August 21, Vulcanalia on 23, Opiconsivia on 25 and Vulturnalia on 27) related to the agrarian activities of that month and in symmetric correlation with those of the second half of July (Lucaria on July 19 and 21, Neptunalia on 23 and Furrinalia on 25). While

567-410: A smithy under Mount Etna on the island of Sicily . It was said that whenever Venus was unfaithful, Vulcan grew angry and beat the red-hot metal with such a force that sparks and smoke rose up from the top of the mountain, creating a volcanic eruption. According to Virgil , Vulcan was the father of Caeculus . To punish mankind for stealing the secrets of fire, Jupiter ordered the other gods to make

630-555: A statue of himself and an inscription in Greek characters listing his successes. Plutarch states that Romulus was represented crowned by Victory . Moreover, he would have planted a sacred lotus tree in the sanctuary that was still living at the time of Pliny the Elder and was said to be as old as the city. The hypothesis has been presented that the Volcanal was founded when the Forum was still outside

693-489: A stronger association than Hephaestus with fire's destructive capacity, and a major concern of his worshippers was to encourage the god to avert harmful fires. The festival of Vulcan, the Vulcanalia, was celebrated on August 23 each year, when the summer heat placed crops and granaries most at risk of burning. During the festival, bonfires were created in honour of the god, into which live fish or small animals were thrown as

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756-543: A temple on the Campus Martius , which was in existence by 214 BC. The Romans identified Vulcan with the Greek smith -god Hephaestus . Vulcan became associated like his Greek counterpart with the constructive use of fire in metalworking . A fragment of a Greek pot showing Hephaestus found at the Volcanal has been dated to the 6th century BC, suggesting that the two gods were already associated at this date. However, Vulcan had

819-560: Is a young god of Mediterranean or Near Eastern origin who has mastership of fire and is the companion of the Great Goddess . These traits are preserved in Latium only in his sons Cacus , Caeculus , and Servius Tullius . At Praeneste the uncles of Caeculus are known as Digiti, a noun that connects them to the Cretan Dactyli . Velchanos was the supreme god of early Cretan religion, where

882-480: Is based on the traditional sequence of the consuls of the Roman Republic —supplemented, where necessary, by inserting "dictatorial" and "anarchic" years. It has been demonstrated to be somewhat erroneous but has become the widely accepted standard chronology, in large part because it was inscribed on the arch of Augustus in Rome; though that arch no longer stands, a large portion of the chronology has survived under

945-446: Is in conflict with that which links the goddess to Jupiter, as his daughter ( puer Jovis ) and his mother too, as primigenia , meaning "primordial". In all of the above-mentioned stories, the god's fertilizing power is related to that of the fire of the house hearth. In the case of Caeculus, his mother was impregnated by a spark that dropped on her womb from the hearth while she was sitting nearby. Servius Tullius ' mother Ocresia

1008-525: Is probable that Varro was discontented with the course on which Pompey entered when the First Triumvirate formed c. 60 BC, and he may thus have lost his chance of rising to the consulship. He actually ridiculed the coalition in a work entitled the Three-Headed Monster ( Τρικάρανος in the Greek of Appian , The Civil Wars , II.ii.9). He was one of the commission of twenty that carried out

1071-503: Is supported by Walter William Skeat in his etymological dictionary as meaning lustre . It has been supposed that his name was not Latin but related to that of the Cretan god Velchanos , a god of nature and the nether world. Wolfgang Meid has disputed this identification as fantastic . Meid and Vasily Abaev have proposed on their side a matching theonym in the Ossetic legendary smith of

1134-572: The Latin Anthology about the litigation between a cook and a baker. According to Hyginus ' Fabulae, the sons of Vulcan are Philammon, Cecrops , Erichthonius , Corynetes, Cercyon, Philottus, and Spinther. The origin of the Roman god of fire Vulcan has been traced back to the Cretan god Velchanos by Gérard Capdeville, primarily under the suggestion of the close similarity of their names. Cretan Velchanos

1197-545: The Academic philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon (died 68 BC). Varro proved a highly productive writer and turned out more than 74 Latin works on a variety of topics. Aside from his many lost works (known through fragments), two endeavors stand out for historians: Nine Books of Disciplines and his compilation of the Varronian chronology . His Nine Books of Disciplines became a model for later encyclopedists , especially for Pliny

1260-448: The Irish name Olcan (Ogamic Ulccagni , in the genitive). Gérard Capdeville finds a continuity between Cretan Minoan god Velchanos and Etruscan Velchans . The Minoan god's identity would be that of a young deity, master of fire and companion of the Great Goddess . According to Martin L. West , Volcanus may represent a god of the fire named *Volca and attached to the suffix -no- ,

1323-561: The Nart saga Kurd-Alä-Wärgon ("the Alan smith Wärgon"), and postulated an original PIE smith god named * wl̩kānos . But since the name in its normal form is stable and has a clear meaning— kurd ("smith") + Alaeg (the name of one of the Nartic families)+ on ("of the family")—this hypothesis has been considered unacceptable by Dumezil . Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc'h has proposed the identification with

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1386-505: The Elder ( c.  23 to 79 AD). The most noteworthy portion of the Nine Books of Disciplines is its use of the liberal arts as organizing principles. Varro decided to focus on identifying nine of these arts: grammar , rhetoric , logic , arithmetic , geometry , astronomy , musical theory, medicine, and architecture . Using Varro's list, mediated through Martianus Capella 's early-5th century allegory, subsequent writers defined

1449-541: The Kalendae of May. In Piso's view, the companion of the god is Maiestas . According to Gellius as well, Maia was associated with Vulcan; and he backs up his view by quoting the ritual prayers in use by Roman priests. Vulcan is the patron of trades related to ovens (cooks, bakers, confectioners) as attested in the works of Plautus , Apuleius (the god is the cook at the wedding of Amor and Psyche ) and in Vespa 's short poem in

1512-460: The Volcanal was originally the site where corpses were cremated. Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome 's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Virgil and Cicero ). He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus ('Varro of Rieti') to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus . Varro

1575-560: The ancient Cretan god honoured in the Βελχ?νια who presided over initiation rites, the Consualia must have a meaning of integration into the citizenship. This provides an explanation for the choice of the festival of the Parilia as the date of the foundation of Rome, since these are first of all the festival of the iuniores . Festus writes: "Parilibus Romulus Vrbem condidit, quem diem festum praecipue habebant iuniores." The date of April 21 marked

1638-399: The dangers of the excessive strength of the two elements of fire (Vulcanalia) and wind (Vulturnalia) reinforced by dryness. It is recorded that during the Vulcanalia people used to hang their clothes and fabrics under the sun. This habit might reflect a theological connection between Vulcan and the divinized Sun. Another custom observed on this day required that one should start working by

1701-617: The day of the Volcanalia (August 23) a sacrifice was offered to Hora Quirini, paredra of Quirinus with whom the deified Romulus was identified. As the Consualia were mentioned first in connection with the founding of Rome in the episode of the abduction of the Sabine women, as the Volcanalia are celebrated two days later and two days before the Opiconsivia , and as the name Volcanus resembles that of

1764-411: The dedication of the arms of the defeated enemies, as well as those of the surviving general in a devotion ritual to the god. Through comparative interpretation this aspect has been connected by Dumézil to the third or defensive fire in the theory of the three Vedic sacrificial fires. In such theory three fires are necessary to the discharge of a religious ceremony: the hearth of the landlord, which has

1827-420: The fact. Vulcan is related to two equally ancient female goddesses, Stata Mater , perhaps the goddess who stops fires and Maia . Herbert Jennings Rose interprets Maia as a goddess related to growth by connecting her name with IE root *MAG. Macrobius relates Cincius' opinion that Vulcan's female companion is Maia. Cincius justifies his view on the grounds that the flamen Volcanalis sacrificed to her at

1890-492: The festival of the βελχάνια (Velchania) as well as a month Ϝελχάνιοσ (Welchanios) are attested: a gloss by Hesychius states that "Velchanos is Zeus among the Cretan". He was the first god of the cavern of Mount Ida , where he had an oracle, and was honoured also in Cyprus. His name is very similar to that of Latin god Volcanus, who himself was considered to be the father of Caeculus and Servius Tullius , not to mention Romulus in

1953-552: The festivals of July dealt with untamed nature (woods) and waters (superficial waters the Neptunalia and underground waters the Furrinalia) at a time of danger caused by their relative deficiency, those of August were devoted to the results of human endeavour on nature with the storing of harvested grain (Consualia) and their relationship to human society and regality (Opiconsivia) which at that time were at risk and required protection from

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2016-419: The first aspect, he is worshipped in the Volcanalia , to avert its potential danger to harvested wheat. His cult is located outside the boundaries of the original city to avoid the risk of fires caused by the god in the city itself. This power is, however, considered useful if directed against enemies and such a choice for the location of the god's cult could be interpreted in this way too. The same idea underlies

2079-431: The function of establishing a referential on Earth in that precise location connecting it with Heaven; the sacrificial fire, which conveys the offer to Heaven; and the defensive fire, which is usually located on the southern boundary of the sacred space and has a protective function against evil influences. Since the territory of the city of Rome was seen as a magnified temple in itself, the three fires should be identified as

2142-492: The god and a perennial fire. It was one of the most ancient Roman shrines. According to Roman tradition the sanctuary had been dedicated by Romulus . He had placed on the site a bronze quadriga dedicated to the god, a war trophy from the Fidenates . According to Plutarch, though, the war in question was that against Cameria , that occurred sixteen years after the foundation of Rome. There Romulus would have also dedicated to Vulcan

2205-470: The great agrarian scheme of Caesar for the resettlement of Capua and Campania (59 BC). During Caesar's civil war of 49 to 45 he commanded one of Pompey's armies in the Ilerda campaign of 49 BC. He escaped the penalties of having backed the losing side in the civil war through two pardons granted by Julius Caesar , before and after the 48 BC Battle of Pharsalus . Caesar appointed him to oversee

2268-420: The hearth of the landlord in the temple of Vesta ( aedes Vestae ); the sacrificial fires of each temple, shrine or altar; and the defensive fire in the temple of Vulcan. Another meaning of Vulcan is related to male fertilizing power. In various Latin and Roman legends he is the father of famous characters, such as the founder of Praeneste Caeculus , Cacus , a primordial being or king, later transformed into

2331-408: The light of a candle, probably to propitiate a beneficial use of fire by the god. In addition to the Vulcanalia of August 23, the date of May 23, which was the second of the two annual Tubilustria or ceremonies for the purification of trumpets, was sacred to Vulcan. The Ludi Vulcanalici , were held just once on August 23, 20 BC, within the temple precinct of Vulcan, and used by Augustus to mark

2394-485: The month of March was the traditional start of the campaign season, and the Tubilustrium was a ceremony to make the army fit for war. The ceremony involved sacred trumpets called tubae . Johannes Quasten , however, argues that the common term for war trumpets being tubae is not the same as the tubi form here. He states that tubi was only used for trumpets used in sacrifices and goes on to show how this ceremony

2457-514: The name of Fasti Capitolini . Varro's literary output was prolific; Ritschl estimated it at 74 works in some 620 books, of which only one work survives complete, although we possess many fragments of the others, mostly in Gellius' Attic Nights . He was called "the most learned of the Romans" by Quintilian , and also recognized by Plutarch as "a man deeply read in Roman history". Varro

2520-462: The people, before the building of the rostra . On the Volcanal there was also a statue of Horatius Cocles that had been moved here from the Comitium , locus inferior , after it had been struck by lightning. Aulus Gellius writes that some haruspices were summoned to expiate the prodigy and they had it moved to a lower site, where sunlight never reached, out of their hatred for the Romans. The fraud

2583-583: The public library of Rome in 47 BC, but following Caesar's death Mark Antony proscribed him, resulting in his losing much of his property, including his library. As the Republic gave way to the Empire c.  27 BC , Varro gained the favour of Augustus , under whose protection he found the security and quiet to devote himself to study and writing. Varro had studied under the Roman philologist Lucius Aelius Stilo (died 74 BC), and later at Athens under

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2646-427: The remains of a draining channel made of tufaceous slabs. The hypothesis has been suggested that this was Vulcan's area itself. The rock shows signs of damages and repairs. On the surface there are some hollows, either round or square, that bear resemblance to graves and were interpreted as such in the past, particularly by Von Duhn . After the discovery of cremation tombs in the Forum the latter scholar maintained that

2709-450: The remains of a fisherman's fire on the beach and became fascinated with an unextinguished coal, still red-hot and glowing. Vulcan carefully shut this precious coal in a clamshell, took it back to his underwater grotto, and made a fire with it. On the first day after that, Vulcan stared at this fire for hours on end. On the second day, he discovered that when he made the fire hotter with bellows, certain stones sweated iron, silver or gold. On

2772-484: The same fire, Domitian (emperor 81–96) established a new altar to Vulcan on the Quirinal Hill . At the same time a red bull-calf and red boar were added to the sacrifices made on the Vulcanalia, at least in that region of the city. The nature of Vulcan is connected with religious ideas concerning fire; the Roman concept of Vulcan seems to associate him to both the destructive and the fertilizing powers of fire. In

2835-485: The seven classical "liberal arts" of the medieval schools. In c.  37 BC, in his old age, Varro wrote on agriculture for his wife Fundania, producing a "voluminous" work De re rustica (also called Res rusticae )—similar to Cato the Elder 's work De agri cultura —on the management of large slave-run estates . The compilation of the Varronian chronology was an attempt to determine an exact year-by-year timeline of Roman history up to his time. It

2898-621: The site by Titus Tatius , the Sabine co-king, with a traditional date in the 8th century BC. It was the view of the Etruscan haruspices that a temple of Vulcan should be located outside the city, and the Vulcanal may originally have been on or outside the city limits before they expanded to include the Capitoline Hill . The Volcanalia sacrifice was offered here to Vulcan, on August 23. Vulcan also had

2961-419: The sons of Vulcan and of a local divine being or a virgin as in the case of Caeculus. Cacus and Caca would represent the metallurgic and the domestic fire, projections of Vulcan and of Vesta . These legends date back to the time of preurban Latium . Their meaning is quite clear: at the divine level Vulcan impregnates a virgin goddess and generates Jupiter, the king of the gods; at the human level he impregnates

3024-476: The starting point of the process of initiation of the future new citizens which concluded four months later on the ceremony of the Consualia, which involves athletic games and marriages. Through his identification with the Hephaestus of Greek mythology , Vulcan came to be considered as the manufacturer of art, arms, iron , jewelry, and armor for various gods and heroes, including the lightning bolts of Jupiter. He

3087-626: The surrounding buildings until it was totally covered over. Nonetheless the cult was still alive in the first half of the imperial era, as is testified by the finding of a dedica of Augustus's dating from 9 BC. At the beginning of the 20th century, behind the Arch of Septimius Severus were found some ancient tufaceous foundations that probably belonged to the Volcanal and traces of a rocky platform, 3.95 meters long and 2.80 meters wide, that had been covered with concrete and painted in red. Into its upper surface are dug several narrow channels and in front of it are

3150-419: The third day he beat the cooled metal into shapes: bracelets, chains, swords and shields. Vulcan made pearl-handled knives and spoons for his foster mother, and for himself he made a silver chariot with bridles so that seahorses could transport him quickly. He even made slave-girls of gold to wait on him and do his bidding. Later, Thetis left her underwater grotto to attend a dinner party on Mount Olympus wearing

3213-451: The top of Mount Olympus . Vulcan fell down for a day and a night, landing in the sea. Unfortunately, one of his legs broke as he hit the water, and never developed properly. Vulcan sank to the depths of the ocean, where the sea-nymph Thetis found him and took him to her underwater grotto, wanting to raise him as her own son. Vulcan had a happy childhood with dolphins as his playmates and pearls as his toys. Late in his childhood, he found

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3276-401: The town walls. The Volcanal was perhaps used as a cremation site, as suggested by the early use of the Forum as a burial site. Livy mentions it twice, in 189 and 181 BC, for the prodigies of a rain of blood. The area Volcani was probably a locus substructus . It was five meters higher than the Comitium and from it the kings and the magistrates of the beginnings of the republic addressed

3339-640: The treaty with Parthia and the return of the legionary standards that had been lost at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. A flamen , one of the flamines minors , named flamen Vulcanalis was in charge of the cult of the god. The flamen Vulcanalis officiated at a sacrifice to the goddess Maia , held every year at the Kalendae of May. Vulcan was among the gods placated after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64. In response to

3402-695: The typical appendage indicating the god's domain in Indo-European languages . *Volca could therefore be a cognate of the Sanskrit words ulkā ("darting flame") and/or várcas- ("brilliance, glare"). Vulcan's oldest shrine in Rome, called the Vulcanal , was situated at the foot of the Capitoline in the Forum Romanum , and was reputed to date to the archaic period of the kings of Rome , and to have been established on

3465-516: The vast range of material, Varro towers above all his contemporaries and his successors: he was distinguished for learning as no other man had ever been or was to be. Most of the extant fragments of these works (mostly the grammatical works) can be found in the Goetz–Schoell edition of De Lingua Latina , pp. 199–242; in the collection of Wilmanns, pp. 170–223; and in that of Funaioli, pp. 179–371. Tubilustrium In Ancient Rome

3528-584: The version transmitted by Promathion, which is very similar to the legend of Servius. The founder of Rome has a close relationship with this god as he founded the Volcanal and there he dedicated a quadriga with his own statue after his first victory. It is there too that a part of the tradition locates the place of his death: the site was marked by the Lapis Niger : Festus writes "Niger lapis in Comitio locum funestum significat, ut ali, Romuli morti destinatum...". On

3591-545: The work is his anticipation of microbiology and epidemiology . Varro warned his readers to avoid swamps and marshland, since in such areas ...there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, but which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and cause serious diseases. A modern scholar, Bertha Tilly, assesses Varro's work as follows: For the immense mass of work completed, for his patriotic fervour, his high moral sentiments, for versatility in forms of writing and in subjects, for

3654-554: Was a feast to cleanse and purify the trumpets used in sacrifices - it is a good example, he argues, of the special connection between music and cult in Roman ritual. The festival was held on March 23, the last day of the Quinquatria festival held in tribute to the Roman God Mars and Nerine, a Sabine goddess. The event took place again on May 23 . The ceremony was held in Rome in

3717-500: Was born in or near Reate (now Rieti in Lazio) into a family thought to be of equestrian rank. He always remained close to his roots in the area, owning a large farm in the Reatine plain (reported as near Lago di Ripasottile, ) until his old age. He supported Pompey , reaching the office of praetor , after having served as tribune of the people , quaestor and curule aedile . It

3780-519: Was impregnated by a male sex organ that miraculously appeared in the ashes of the sacrificial ara, at the order of Tanaquil , Tarquinius Priscus ' wife. Pliny the Elder tells the same story, but states that the father was the Lar familiaris . The divinity of the child was recognized when his head was surrounded by flames and he remained unharmed. Through the comparative analysis of these myths, archaeologist Andrea Carandini opines that Cacus and Caca were

3843-583: Was recognized as an important source by many other ancient authors, among them Cicero , Pliny the Elder , Virgil in the Georgics , Columella , Aulus Gellius , Macrobius , Augustine , and Vitruvius , who credits him (VII.Intr.14) with a book on architecture. His only complete work extant, Rerum rusticarum libri tres ("Three Books on Agriculture"), has been described as "the well digested system of an experienced and successful farmer who has seen and practised all that he records." One noteworthy aspect of

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3906-469: Was revealed, however, and the haruspices were executed. Later it was found that the statue should be placed on a higher site, thus it was placed in the area Volcani . In 304 BC a sacellum to Concordia was built in the area Volcani : it was dedicated by aedilis curulis Cnaeus Flavius . According to Samuel Ball Platner , in the course of time the Volcanal would have been more and more encroached upon by

3969-450: Was the son of Jupiter and Juno , and the husband of Maia and Aphrodite (Venus) . His smithy was believed to be situated underneath Mount Etna in Sicily . As the son of Jupiter, the king of the gods, and Juno, the queen of the gods, Vulcan should have been quite handsome, but baby Vulcan was small and ugly with a red, bawling face. Juno was so horrified that she hurled the tiny baby off

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