mars (mythology)

 

  • 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 the Roman state were presented on couches as if present and participating.

  • [19] This role was later taken in the Roman pantheon by several other gods, such as Summanus or Jupiter.

  • In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars (Latin: Mārs, pronounced [maːrs])[4] was the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome.

  • [108] Mars Pater[edit] “Father Mars” or “Mars the Father” is the form in which the god is invoked in the agricultural prayer of Cato,[109] and he appears with this title in
    several other literary texts and inscriptions.

  • The consort of Mars Loucetius is Nemetona, whose name may be understood as pertaining either to “sacred privilege” or to the sacred grove (nemeton),[172] and who is also identified
    with the goddess Victoria.

  • [128] The temple also became the site at which sacrifice was made to conclude the rite of passage of young men assuming the toga virilis (“man’s toga”) around age 14.

  • [110] Mars Pater 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.

  • [8] 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.

  • [citation needed] The two most distinctive animal sacrifices made to Mars were the suovetaurilia, a triple offering of a pig (sus), ram (ovis) and bull (taurus),[61] and the
    October Horse, the only horse sacrifice known to have been carried out in ancient Rome and a rare instance of a victim the Romans considered inedible.

  • [141] Provincial epithets[edit] In addition to his cult titles at Rome, Mars appears in a large number of inscriptions in the provinces of the Roman Empire, and more rarely
    in literary texts, identified with a local deity by means of an epithet.

  • [169] • Mars Lenus, or more often Lenus Mars, had a major healing cult at the capital of the Treveri (present-day Trier).

  • [93] Name and cult epithets In Classical Roman religion, Mars was invoked under several titles, and the first Roman emperor Augustus thoroughly integrated Mars into Imperial
    cult.

  • His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled two different traditions of Rome’s founding; Venus 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 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.

  • [33] 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 is impermanent.

  • [114] Although pater and mater were fairly common as honorifics for a deity,[115] 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.

  • [129] On various Imperial holidays, Mars Ultor was the first god to receive a sacrifice, followed by the Genius of the emperor.

  • 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.

  • [21] 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.

  • “[99] The poet Statius addresses him as “the most implacable of the gods,”[100] but Valerius Maximus concludes his history by invoking Mars Gradivus as “author and support
    of the name ‘Roman'”:[101] Gradivus is asked – along with Capitoline Jupiter and Vesta, as the keeper of Rome’s perpetual flame – to “guard, preserve, and protect” the state of Rome, the peace, and the princeps (the emperor Tiberius at the
    time).

  • [53] Mars’s association with 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.

  • Wall-painting in Pompeii, c. 20 BC – 50s AD Venus and Mars[edit] The union of Venus and Mars held greater appeal for poets and philosophers, and the couple were a frequent
    subject of art.

  • [a] The cult title is probably related to the place name Condate, often used in Gaul for settlements at the confluence of rivers.

  • [6] Under the influence of Greek culture, Mars was identified with the Greek god Ares,[7] whose myths were reinterpreted in Roman literature and art under the name of Mars.

  • Augustus shifted the focus of Mars’ cult to within the pomerium (Rome’s ritual boundary), and built a temple to Mars Ultor as a key religious feature of his new forum.

  • The Celtic god Loucetios, Latinized as -ius, appears in nine inscriptions in present-day Germany and France and one in Britain, and in three as Leucetius.

  • [124] The Temple of Mars Ultor, dedicated in 2 BCE in the center of the Forum of Augustus, gave the god a new place of honor.

  • [55] The wolf appears elsewhere in Roman art and literature in masculine form as the animal of Mars.

  • [148] Albiorix probably means “King of the Land” or “King of the World”, with the first element related to the geographical name Albion and Middle Welsh elfydd, “world, land”.

  • [131] Mars Augustus[edit] See also: Augustus (honorific) Fragmentary dedication stele to Mars Augustus from Roman Gaul Augustus or Augusta was appended far and wide, “on monuments
    great and small,”[132] to the name of gods or goddesses, including Mars.

  • At the Romano-British site in Bath, a dedication to Mars Loucetius as part of this divine couple was made by a pilgrim who had come from the continental Treveri of Gallia
    Belgica to seek healing.

  • From 217 BCE onward, Mars was among the gods honored at the lectisternium, a banquet given for deities who were present as images.

  • [89] Denarius, issued 88 BCE, depicting the helmeted head of Mars, with Victory driving a two-horse chariot (biga) on the reverse • February 27: Equirria, involving chariot
    or horse races; • March 1: Mars’s dies natalis (“birthday”), a feria also sacred to his mother Juno;[90] • March 14: a second Equirria, again with chariot races; • March 14 or 15: Mamuralia, a new year festival when a figure called Mamurius
    Veturius (perhaps the “old Mars” of the old year) is driven out; • March 17: an Agonalia or Agonium Martiale, an obscure type of observance held at other times for various deities; • March 23: Tubilustrium, a purification of the deploying
    army March 23; • October 15: the ritual of the October Horse, with a chariot race and Rome’s only known horse sacrifice; • October 19: Armilustrium (“purification of arms”).

  • In the earliest Roman calendar, March was the first month, and the god would have been born with the new year.

  • [66] Remains of the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus, Rome The main Temple of Mars (Aedes Martis) in the Republican period also lay outside the sacred boundary[where?]

  • 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 the end of Julian’s
    reign.

  • 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.

  • [37] 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 a force to be propitiated.

  • [26] A source from late antiquity says that Mars and Neriene were celebrated together at a festival held on March 23.

  • The 1st-century statue of Mars found in the Forum of Nerva (pictured at top) is similar.

  • [122][125] Some rituals previously conducted within the cult of Capitoline Jupiter were transferred to the new temple,[126] which became the point of departure for magistrates
    as they left for military campaigns abroad.

  • [49] 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.

  • [160] The Celtic god Camulus appears independently in one votive inscription from Rome.

  • [106] Mars Grabovius[edit] 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.

  • 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.

  • [98] His cult title is most often taken to mean “the Strider” or “the Marching God,” from gradus, “step, march.

  • [165] • Mars Condatis occurs in several inscriptions from Roman Britain.

  • [162] About twenty dedications in all are known for the Celtic god Cocidius, mainly made by Roman military personnel, and confined to northwest Cumbria and along Hadrian’s
    Wall.

  • [30] 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).

  • A woman may not take part in this offering or see how it is performed.

  • [52] 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.

  • [80] Particularly in works of art influenced by the Greek tradition, Mars may be portrayed in a manner that resembles Ares, youthful, beardless, and often nude.

  • In this guise, Mars is presented as the dignified ancestor of the Roman people.

  • [74] 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.

  • [39] Mars’s character as an agricultural god may derive solely from his role as a defender and protector,[40] or may be inseparable from his warrior nature,[41] as the leaping
    of his armed priests the Salii was meant to quicken the growth of crops.

  • [65] 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.

  • [107] Tables I and VI describe a complex ritual that took place at the three gates of the city.

  • [9] 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.

  • Invocations of deities are often list-like, without connecting words, and the phrase should perhaps be understood as “Mars and Silvanus”.

  • [50] 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.

  • [58] Sacrificial animals[edit] The procession of the suovetaurilia, a sacrifice of a pig, ram, and bull, led by a priest with his head ritually covered 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.

  • [14] It has been explained as deriving from Maris, the name of an Etruscan child-god, though this is not universally agreed upon.

  • 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.

  • [32] The uniting of deities representing Love and War lent itself to allegory, especially since the lovers were the parents of Concordia.

  • [5] He was the son of Jupiter and Juno, and was pre-eminent among the Roman army’s military gods.

  • Mars appears with great frequency in Gaul among the Continental Celts, as well as in Roman Spain and Britain.

  • The influence of Greek mythology and its anthropomorphic gods may have caused Roman writers to treat these pairs as “marriages.

  • [56] 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.

  • As represented by Ammianus, Julian swore never to make sacrifice to Mars again—a vow kept with his death a month later.

  • [170] His consort Ancamna is also found with the Celtic god Smertrios.

  • [157] A reference in Pliny[158] suggests a connection to Mars’s agricultural function, with the Gaulish word bracis referring to a type of wheat; a medieval Latin gloss says
    it was used to make beer.

  • [citation needed] Roman hymns (carmina) are rarely preserved, but Mars is invoked in two.

  • [103] Mars Quirinus[edit] Mars celebrated as peace-bringer on a Roman coin issued by Aemilianus 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.

 

Works Cited

[‘Based on an Augustan-era original that in turn used a Hellenistic Greek model of the 4th century BCE. Capitoline Museums in Rome, Italy. Capitoline Museums. “Colossal statue of Mars Ultor also known as Pyrrhus – Inv. Scu 58.” Capitolini.information.
Accessed 8 October 2016.
2. ^ Evans, James (1998). The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. Oxford University Press. pp. 296–7. ISBN 978-0-19-509539-5. Retrieved February 4, 2008.
3. ^ Later represented in the astronomical and astrological
symbol for the planet Mars, and the male gender (♂)
4. ^ Chapter 3, Charles E. Bennett (1907) The Latin Language – a historical outline of its sounds, inflections, and syntax. Allyn & Bacon, Boston.
5. ^ Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price,
Religions of Rome: A History (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 47–48.
6. ^ John Scheid, An Introduction to Roman Religion, translated by Janet Lloyd (Indiana University Press, 2003), pp. 51–52; Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome (Routledge,
2001; originally published in French 1998), p. 79.
7. ^ Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia, The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215.
8. ^ Kurt A. Raaflaub, War and Peace in the Ancient World (Blackwell, 2007), p. 15.
9. ^ Paul Rehak and John
G. Younger, Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), pp. 11–12.
10. ^ Isidore of Seville calls Mars Romanae gentis auctorem, the originator or founder of the Roman people as a gens (Etymologiae
5.33.5).
11. ^ The classical Latin declension of the name is as follows: nominative and vocative case, Mars; genitive, Martis; accusative, Martem; dative, Marti; ablative Marte.[1] Archived September 10, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
12. ^ Virgil,
Aeneid VIII, 630
13. ^ Mallory, J. P.; D. Q. Adams (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. pp. 630–631. ISBN 1-884964-98-2.; some of the older literature assumes an Indo-European form closer to *Marts,
and see a connection with the Indic wind gods, the Maruts “Māruta”. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011. Retrieved July 8, 2010. However, this makes the appearance of Mavors and the agricultural cults of Mars difficult to explain.
14. ^
Michiel de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Brill, 2008, p. 366.
15. ^ Larissa Bonfante, Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies (Wayne State University Press, 1986), p. 226.
16. ^ Massimo
Pallottino, “Religion in Pre-Roman Italy,” in Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1992, from the French edition of 1981), pp. 29, 30; Hendrik Wagenvoort, “The Origin of the Ludi Saeculares,” in Studies in Roman Literature,
Culture and Religion (Brill, 1956), p. 219 et passim; John F. Hall III, “The Saeculum Novum of Augustus and its Etruscan Antecedents,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.16.3 (1986), p. 2574; Larissa Bonfante, Etruscan Life and Afterlife:
A Handbook of Etruscan Studies (Wayne State University Press, 1986), p. 226.
17. ^ “martial”. The American Heritage Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
18. ^ Albert Dauzat, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de famille et prénoms de France,
Larousse, Paris 1980. p. 420. New completed edition by Marie-Thérèse Morlet.
19. ^ Jump up to:a b York, Michael. Romulus and Remus, Mars and Quirinus. Journal of Indo-European Studies 16:1 & 2 (Spring/Summer, 1988), 153–172.
20. ^ Hesiod, Theogony
p. 79 in the translation of Norman O. Brown (Bobbs-Merrill, 1953); 921 in the Loeb Classical Library numbering; Iliad, 5.890–896.
21. ^ Jump up to:a b Ovid, Fasti 5.229–260
22. ^ William Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic
(London, 1908), p. 35f., discusses this interpretation in order to question it.
23. ^ Carole E. Newlands, Playing with Time: Ovid and the Fasti (Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 105–106.
24. ^ Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 13.23. Gellius says
the word Nerio or Nerienes is Sabine and is supposed to be the origin of the name Nero as used by the Claudian family, who were Sabine in origin. The Sabines themselves, Gellius says, thought the word was Greek in origin, from νεῦρα (neura), Latin
nervi, meaning the sinews and ligaments of the limbs.
25. ^ Robert E.A. Palmer, The Archaic Community of the Romans (Cambridge University Press, 1970, 2009), p. 167.
26. ^ Plautus, Truculentus 515.
27. ^ Johannes Lydus, De mensibus 4.60 (42).
28. ^
Porphyrion, Commentum in Horatium Flaccum, on Epistula II.2.209.
29. ^ William Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People (London, 1922), p. 150–154; Roger D. Woodard, Indo-European Sacred Space: Vedic and Roman Cult (University
of Illinois Press, 2006), pp. 113–114; Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War (University of California Press, 2005), p. 145. The prayer is recorded in the passage on Nerio in Aulus Gellius.
30. ^
Robert Schilling, “Venus,” in Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1992, from the French edition of 1981), p. 147.
31. ^ John R. Clarke, The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250: Ritual, Space, and Decoration (University
of California Press, 1991), pp. 156–157
32. ^ Laura Salah Nasrallah, Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church amid the Spaces of Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 284–287.
33. ^ Ficino, On Love,
speech 5, chapter 8, as summarized in the entry on “Mars,” The Classical Tradition (Harvard University Press, 2010), p. 564.
34. ^ Entry on “Mars” in The Classical Tradition, p. 564.
35. ^ Onians, The Origins of European Thought about the Body,
the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate (Cambridge University Press, 1951), pp. 470–471. Onians connects the name of Mars to the Latin mas, maris, “male” (p. 178), as had Isidore of Seville, saying that the month of March (Martius) was named
after Mars “because at that time all living things are stirred toward virility (mas, gen. maris) and to the pleasures of sexual intercourse” (eo tempore cuncta animantia agantur ad marem et ad concumbendi voluptatem): Etymologies 5.33.5, translation
by Stephen A. Barney, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 128. In antiquity, vis was thought to be related etymologically to vita, “life.” Varro (De lingua latina 5.64, quoting Lucilius) notes that vis is vita:
“vis drives us to do everything.”
36. ^ On the relation of Mars’s warrior aspect to his agricultural functions with respect to Dumézil’s Trifunctional hypothesis, see Wouter W. Belier, Decayed Gods: Origin and Development of Georges Dumézil’s
‘idéologie tripartie’ (Brill, 1991), pp. 88–91 online.
37. ^ Schilling, “Mars,” in Roman and European Mythologies, p. 135; Palmer, Archaic Community, pp. 113–114.
38. ^ Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome (University of California
Press, 2005), p. 127; Fowler, Religious Experience, p. 134.
39. ^ Cato, On Agriculture 141. In pre-modern agricultural societies, encroaching woodland or wild growth was a real threat to the food supply, since clearing land for cultivation required
intense manual labor with minimal tools and little or no large-scale machinery. Fowler says of Mars, “As he was not localised either on the farm or in the city, I prefer to think that he was originally conceived as a Power outside the boundary in
each case, but for that very reason all the more to be propitiated by the settlers within it” (Religious Experience, p. 142).
40. ^ Schilling, “Mars,” p. 135.
41. ^ Beard et al., Religions of Rome: A History, pp. 47–48.
42. ^ Forsythe, A Critical
History of Early Rome, p. 127
43. ^ Plutarch, Roman Questions 21, citing Nigidius Figulus.
44. ^ Plutarch, Roman Questions 21; also named as sacred to Mars in his Life of Romulus. Ovid (Fasti 3.37) calls the woodpecker the bird of Mars.
45. ^
Pliny, Natural History 29.29.
46. ^ Pliny, Natural History 27.60. Pliny names the herb as glycysīdē in Greek, Latin paeonia (see Peony: Name), also called pentorobos.
47. ^ A.H. Krappe, “Picus Who Is Also Zeus,” Mnemosyne 9.4 (1941), p. 241.
48. ^
William Geoffrey Arnott, Birds in the ancient world from A to Z (Routledge, 2007), p. 63 online.
49. ^ Plutarch, Roman Questions 21. Athenaeus lists the woodpecker among delicacies on Greek tables (Deipnosophistae 9.369).
50. ^ Plautus, Asinaria
259–261; Pliny, Natural History 10.18. Named also in the Iguvine Tables (6a, 1–7), as Umbrian peiqu; Schilling, “Roman Divination,” in Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 96–97 and 105, note 7.
51. ^ Dionysius
of Halicarnassus 1.31; Peter F. Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion (Brill, 1992), p. 33.
52. ^ John Greppin, entry on “woodpecker,” Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997), p. 648.
53. ^ Dionysius
Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities I.14.5, as noted by Mary Emma Armstrong, The Significance of Certain Colors in Roman Ritual (George Banta Publishing, 1917), p. 6.
54. ^ The myth of the she-wolf, and the birth of the twins with Mars as their father,
is a long and complex tradition that weaves together multiple stories about the founding of Rome. See T.P. Wiseman, Remus: A Roman Myth (Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. xiii, 73ff. et passim.
55. ^ Plutarch, Life of Romulus 4.
56. ^ Livy
22.1.12, as cited by Wiseman, Remus, p. 189, note 6, and Armstrong, The Significance of Certain Colors, p. 6.
57. ^ Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 10.27.
58. ^ Miranda Green, Animals in Celtic Life and Myth (Routledge, 1992), p. 126.
59. ^ Nicole Belayche,
“Religious Actors in Daily Life: Practices and Related Beliefs,” in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 283; C. Bennett Pascal, “October Horse,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85 (1981), pp. 268, 277.
60. ^ As did Neptune,
Janus and the Genius; John Scheid, “Sacrifices for Gods and Ancestors,” in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 264.
61. ^ Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook (Cambridge University Press, 1998),
p. 153.
62. ^ C. Bennett Pascal, “October Horse,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85 (1981), pp. 263, 268, 277.
63. ^ Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 245.
64. ^
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 5.13.2
65. ^ Livy 40.45.8, 1.44.1–2.
66. ^ Katja Moede, “Reliefs, Public and Private,” in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 170.
67. ^ Vitruvius 1.7.1; Servius, note to Aeneid 1.292;
Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 244.
68. ^ Livy 6.5.7; Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 244.
69. ^ Ovid, Fasti 6.191–192 and the Fasti Antiates (Degrassi 463), as cited by Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 244.
70. ^
CIL 6.473, 474 = 30774, 485; ILS 3139, 3144, as cited by Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 244.
71. ^ H.H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 127.
72. ^ Scullard, Festivals
and Ceremonies, pp. 127, 164.
73. ^ Pliny, Natural History 36.26; Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 245.
74. ^ Paul Rehak, Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), pp. 7–8.
75. ^
Rehak, Imperium and Cosmos, p. 145.
76. ^ Michele Renee Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), p. 122.
77. ^ Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary,
p. 27.
78. ^ Robert Schilling, “Mars,” in Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1992, from the French edition of 1981), p. 135 online. The figure is sometimes identified only as a warrior.
79. ^ Jonathan Williams, “Religion
and Roman Coins,” in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 143.
80. ^ Paul Rehak and John G. Younger, Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), p. 114.
81. ^ Rehak and Younger, Imperium and
Cosmos, p. 114.
82. ^ Entry on “Mars”, in The Classical Tradition, p. 564, citing Sebastiano Erizzo, On Ancient Medallions (1559), p. 120.
83. ^ Martianus Capella 5.425, with Mars specified as Gradivus and Neptune named as Portunus.
84. ^ Varro,
Antiquitates frg. 254* (Cardauns); Plutarch, Romulus 29.1 (a rather muddled account); Arnobius, Adversus nationes 6.11.
85. ^ Michael Lipka, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach (Brill, 2009), p. 88.
86. ^ Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 4.6.1; Cassius
Dio 44.17.2 (because Caesar was pontifex maximus); Veit Rosenberger, “Republican Nobiles: Controlling the Res Publica,” in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 295.
87. ^ Imperium and Cosmos p. 114.
88. ^ Christopher Smith, “The Religion of Archaic
Rome,” in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 39.
89. ^ Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, p. 84.
90. ^ Marked as such only on the Chronography of 354.
91. ^ The hymn is preserved in an inscription (CIL 6.2104); Frances
Hickson Hahn, “Performing the Sacred,” in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 237.
92. ^ Hahn, “Performing the Sacred,” p. 237, citing Dionysius of Halicarnassus 2.70.1–5.
93. ^ Quintilian, Institutiones 1.6.40, as cited by Frances Hickson Hahn,
in “Performing the Sacred,” in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 236.
94. ^ Guiliano Bonfante and Larissa Bonfante, The Etruscan Language: An Introduction (Manchester University Press, 1983, 2002 rev.ed.), p. 26; Donald Strong and J.M.C. Toynbee,
Roman Art (Yale University Press, 1976, 1988), p. 33; Fred S. Kleiner, introduction to A History of Roman Art (Wadsworth, 2007, 2010 “enhanced edition”), p. xl.
95. ^ R.L. Rike, Apex Omnium: Religion in the Res Gestae of Ammianus (University of
California Press, 1987), p. 26.
96. ^ Ammianus Marcellinus 24.6.17; Rike, Apex Omnium, p. 32.
97. ^ Livy 2.45.
98. ^ Livy, 1.20, Livy; Warrior, Valerie M (1884). The History of Rome, Books 1–5. Hackett Publishing. ISBN 1-60384-381-7., with note
by Valerie M. Warrior, The History of Rome Books 1–5 (Hackett, 2006), p. 31.
99. ^ Compare Gradiva. The second-century grammarian Sextus Pompeius Festus offers two other explanations in addition. The name, he says, might also mean the vibration
of a spear, for which the Greeks use the word kradainein; others locate the origin of Gradivus in the grass (gramine), because the Grass Crown is the highest military honor; see Carole Newlands, Playing with Time: Ovid and the Fasti (Cornell University
Press, 1995), p. 106. Maurus Servius Honoratus says that grass was sacred to Mars (note to Aeneid 12.119).
100. ^ Statius, Thebaid 9.4. See also 7.695.
101. ^ Valerius Maximus 2.131.1, auctor ac stator Romani nominis.
102. ^ Hans-Friedrich Mueller,
Roman Religion in Valerius Maximus (Routledge, 2002), p. 88.
103. ^ Martianus Capella, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury 1.4.
104. ^ Palmer, R. E. A. (1970). The Archaic Community of the Romans. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-07702-6.,
p. 167.
105. ^ Mars enim cum saevit Gradivus dicitur, cum tranquillus est Quirinus: Maurus Servius Honoratus, note to Aeneid 1.292, at Perseus. At Aeneid 6.860, Servius further notes: “Quirinus is the Mars who presides over peace and whose cult
is maintained within the civilian realm, for the Mars of war has his temple outside that realm.” See also Belier, Decayed Gods, p. 92: “The identification of the two gods is a reflection of a social process. The men who till the soil as Quirites in
times of peace are identical with the men who defend their country as Milites in times of war.”
106. ^ Palmer, The Archaic Community of the Romans, pp. 165–171. On how Romulus became identified with Mars Quirinus, see the Dumézilian summary of Belier,
Decayed Gods, p. 93–94.
107. ^ Etymologically, Quirinus is *co-uiri-no, “(the god) of the community of men (viri),” and Vofionus is *leudhyo-no, “(the god) of the people”: Oliver de Cazanove, “Pre-Roman Italy, Before and Under the Romans,” in A
Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 49. It has also been argued that Vofionus corresponds to Janus, because an entry in Sextus Pompeius Festus (204, edition of Lindsay) indicates there was a Roman triad of Jupiter, Mars, and Janus, each
having quirinus as a title; C. Scott Littleton, The New Comparative Mythology (University of California Press, 1966, 1973), p. 178, citing Vsevolod Basanoff, Les dieux Romains (1942).
108. ^ O. de Cazanove, “Pre-Roman Italy,” pp. 49–50.
109. ^
The Indo-European character of this prayer is discussed by Calvert Watkins, “Some Indo-European Prayers: Cato’s Lustration of the Fields,” in How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 197–213.
110. ^
Celia E. Schultz, “Juno Sospita and Roman Insecurity in the Social War,” in Religion in Republican Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 217, especially note 38.
111. ^ For the text of this vow, see The invocation of Decius Mus.
112. ^
Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 71ff. for examples of a bull offering, p. 153 on the suovetaurilia.
113. ^ Beard et al., “Religions of Rome, p. 370.
114. ^ Martin
Henig, Religion in Roman Britain (London, 1984, 1995), p. 27, citing the military calendar from Dura-Europos.
115. ^ Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War (University of California Press, 2005),
p. 168.
116. ^ Newlands, Playing with Time, p. 104.
117. ^ Votum pro bubus, uti valeant, sic facito. Marti Silvano in silva interdius in capita singula boum votum facito. Farris L. III et lardi P.39 IIII S et pulpae P. IIII S, vini S.40 III, id
in unum vas liceto coicere, et vinum item in unum vas liceto coicere. Eam rem divinam vel servus vel liber licebit faciat. Ubi res divina facta erit, statim ibidem consumito. Mulier ad eam rem divinam ne adsit neve videat quo modo fiat. Hoc votum
in annos singulos, si voles, licebit vovere. Cato the Elder, On Farming 83, English translation from the Loeb Classical Library, Bill Thayer’s edition at LacusCurtius.
118. ^ Robert Schilling, “Silvanus,” in Roman and European Mythologies (University
of Chicago Press, 1992, from the French edition of 1981), p. 146; Peter F. Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion (Brill, 1992), pp. 8–9, 49.
119. ^ Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus, pp. 9 and 105ff.
120. ^ William Warde Fowler,
The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1908), p. 55.
121. ^ “Statue of Mars Ultor, Balmuildy”. May 11, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2018.
122. ^ Jump up to:a b Diana E. E. Kleiner. Augustus Assembles His Marble City (Multimedia
presentation). Yale University.
123. ^ Michael Lipka, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach (Brill, 2009), p. 91.
124. ^ Clark, Divine Qualities, pp. 23–24.
125. ^ Robert Schilling, “Mars,” Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press,
1992, from the French edition of 1981), p. 135; Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 80.
126. ^ For instance, during the Republic, the dictator was charged with the ritual
clavi figendi causa, driving a nail into the wall of the Capitoline temple. According to Cassius Dio (55.10.4, as cited by Lipka, Roman Gods, p. 108), this duty was transferred to a censor under Augustus, and the ritual moved to the Temple of Mars
Ultor.
127. ^ Lipka, Roman Gods, p. 109.
128. ^ Harry Sidebottom, “International Relations,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare: Rome from the Late Republic to the Late Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2007), vol. 2, p. 15.
129. ^
Cassius Dio 55.10.2; Nicole Belyache, “Religious Actors in Daily Life,” in A Companion to Roman Religion p. 279.
130. ^ Lipka, Roman Gods, pp. 111–112.
131. ^ CIL VI.1, no. 2086 (edition of Bormann and Henzen, 1876), as translated and cited by
Charlotte R. Long, The Twelve Gods of Greece and Rome (Brill, 1987), pp. 130–131.
132. ^ Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 230.
133. ^ A.E. Cooley, “Beyond Rome and Latium: Roman Religion in the Age of
Augustus,” in Religion in Republican Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 247; Duncan Fishwick, The imperial cult in the Latin West (Brill, 2005), passim.
134. ^ Jonathan Edmondson, “The Cult of Mars Augustus and Roman Imperial Power at
Augusta Emerita (Lusitania) in the Third Century A.D.: A New Votive Dedication,” in Culto imperial: politica y poder («L’Erma» di Bretschneider, 2007), p. 562. These include an inscription that was later built into the castle walls at Sines, Portugal;
dedications at Ipagrum (Aguilar de la Frontera, in the modern province of Córdoba) and at Conobaria (Las Cabezas de San Juan in the province of Seville) in Baetica; and a statue at Isturgi (CIL II. 2121 = ILS II2/7, 56). A magister of the “Lares of
Augustus” made a dedication to Mars Augustus (CIL II. 2013 = ILS II2/5, 773) at Singili(a) Barba (Cerro del Castillón, Antequera).
135. ^ Edmondson, “The Cult of Mars Augustus,” p. 563.
136. ^ Edmondson, “The Cult of Mars Augustus,” p. 562.
137. ^
ILS 3160; Rudolf Haensch, “Inscriptions as Sources of Knowledge for Religions and Cults in the Roman World of Imperial Times,” in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 182.
138. ^ William Van Andringa, “Religions and the Integration
of Cities in the Empire in the Second Century AD: The Creation of a Common Religious Language,” A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 86.
139. ^ Edmondson, “The Cult of Mars Augustus,” pp. 541–575.
140. ^ Ittai Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion
(Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 238, note 11, citing Victor Ehrenberg and Arnold H.M. Jones, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius (Oxford University Press, 1955), no. 43.
141. ^ The chief priest of the three Dacian provinces
dedicated an altar pro salute, for the wellbeing of Gordian III, at an imperial cult center sometime between 238 and 244 AD; Edmondson, “The Cult of Mars Augustus,” p. 562.
142. ^ Miranda Green, Animals in Celtic Life and Myth (Routledge, 1992),
p. 198.
143. ^ Ton Derks, Gods, Temples, and Ritual Practices: The Transformation of Religious Ideas and Values in Roman Gaul (Amsterdam University Press, 1998), p. 79.
144. ^ RIB 1055, as cited by Bernhard Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion
and Culture (Boydell & Brewer, 1997, originally published in German 1994), p. 11.
145. ^ RIB 218, as cited by Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 11.
146. ^ Phillips, E.J. (1977). Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani, Great Britain,
Volume I, Fascicule 1. Hadrian’s Wall East of the North Tyne (p. 66). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-725954-5.
147. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Ross, Anne (1967). Pagan Celtic Britain. Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-902357-03-4.
148. ^ CIL
12.1300.
149. ^ Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 11.
150. ^ “Planet and Satellite Names and Discoverers”. Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology. Archived from the original on May 27, 2010. Retrieved May 1,
2010.
151. ^ Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 32.
152. ^ Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (Éditions Errance, 2003), p. 68.
153. ^ RIB 918, 948, 970, 1784, 2044, as cited by Maier, Dictionary of Celtic
Religion and Culture, p. 33.
154. ^ Miranda Alhouse-Green, “Gallo-British Deities and Their Shrines,” in A Companion to Roman Britain (Blackwell, 2004), p. 215.
155. ^ Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 33.
156. ^ RIB 278,
as cited by Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, pp. 42–43.
157. ^ Eric Birley, “The Deities of Roman Britain,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.18.1 (1986), pp. 43, 68; Delamarre, entry on bracis, Dictionnaire de la langue
gauloise, p. 85. In discussing the Celtiberian Mars Neto, Macrobius associates Mars and Liber, a Roman deity identified with Dionysus (Saturnalia 1.19).
158. ^ Pliny the Elder, Natural History 18.62.
159. ^ In Galatian, the form of Celtic spoken
by the Celts who settled in Anatolia, the word embrekton was a kind of beverage; Delamarre, Dictionnaire, p. 85.
160. ^ ILTG 351; CIL 13.3980; CIL 13.8701; CIL 13.11818; RIV 2166; Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 57.
161. ^
CIL 6.32574; Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, pp. 56–57.
162. ^ RIB 602, 933, 1017, 2015, 2024; Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 75.
163. ^ RIB 1578.
164. ^ RIB 2007.
165. ^ RIB 986 and 987; Maier, Dictionary
of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 75.
166. ^ Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 80.
167. ^ Jones, Barri & Mattingly, David (1990). An Atlas of Roman Britain (p. 275). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 1-84217-067-8.
168. ^ RIB
213; Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 82.
169. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Miranda J. Green. “Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend” (p. 142.) Thames and Hudson Ltd. 1997
170. ^ Green, Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, p. 216.
171. ^
Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (Éditions Errance, 2003), 2nd edition, p. 200.
172. ^ Gaulish nemeton was originally a sacred grove or space defined for religious purposes, and later a building: Bernhard Maier, Dictionary of
Celtic Religion and Culture (Boydell Press, 1997, 2000, originally published 1994 in German), p. 207.
173. ^ Helmut Birkham, entry on “Loucetius,” in Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, edited by John Koch (ABC-Clio, 2006), p. 1192.
174. ^
RIB 191: DEO MARTI MEDOCIO CAMPESIVM ET VICTORIE ALEXANDRI PII FELICIS AVGVSTI NOSI DONVM LOSSIO VEDA DE SVO POSVIT NEPOS VEPOGENI CALEDO (“To the god of the battlefields Mars Medocius, and to the victory of [Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Severus]
Alexander Pius Felix Augustus, Lossius Veda the grandson of Vepogenus Caledos, placed [this] offering out of his own [funds]”).
175. ^ Martin Henig, Religion in Roman Britain (Taylor & Francis, 1984, 2005), p. 61.
176. ^ Duncan Fishwick, “Imperial
Cult in Britain,” Phoenix 15.4 (1961), p. 219.
177. ^ A Saint Medocus is recorded in the early 16th century as the eponym for St. Madoes in Gowrie; Molly Miller, “Matriliny by Treaty: The Pictish Foundation-Legend,” in Ireland in Early Mediaeval
Europe (Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 159.
178. ^ Fishwick, “Imperial Cult in Britain,” p. 219.
179. ^ John Ferguson, The Religions of the Roman Empire (Cornell University Press, 1970, 1985), p. 212.
180. ^ Perhaps related to Campesie
Fells in Stirlingshire; Fishwick, “Imperial Cult in Britain,” p. 219.
181. ^ CIL 13.3148 and 3149 at Rennes; Paganism and Christianity, 100–425 C.E.: A Sourcebook, edited by Ramsay MacMullen and Eugene N. Lane (Augsburg Fortress, 1992), pp. 76–77.
182. ^
CIL 13.3096 (Craon), CIL 13.3101 and 3102, at Nantes, ILTG 343–345 (Allones); Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 200.
183. ^ Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.19; David Rankin, Celts and the Classical World (Routledge, 1987), p. 260.
184. ^
Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 209.
185. ^ John Wacher, The Towns of Roman Britain (University of California Press, 1974), p. 384.
186. ^ Green, Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art, p. 115.
187. ^ CIL 1190 = ILS 4581;
E. Birley, “Deities of Roman Britain,” p. 48.
188. ^ Anthony Birley, The People of Roman Britain (University of California Press, 1979), p. 141.
189. ^ Delamarre, entry on rix, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise, pp. 260–261; Green, Symbol and
Image in Celtic Religious Art, p. 113.
190. ^ Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins, Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome (Facts on File, 1994, 2004), p. 297.
191. ^ Miranda Green, Celtic Myths (University of Texas Press, 1993, 1998), p. 42.
192. ^ G.
Llompart, “Mars Balearicus,” Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología 26 (1960) 101–128; “Estatuillas de bronce de Mallorca: Mars Balearicus,” in Bronces y religión romana: actas del XI Congreso Internacional de Bronces Antiguos, Madrid,
mayo-junio, 1990 (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1993), p. 57ff.
193. ^ Jaume García Rosselló, Joan Fornés Bisquerra, and Michael Hoskin, “Orientations of the Talayotic Sanctuaries of Mallorca,” Journal of History of Astronomy,
Archaeoastronomy Supplement 31 (2000), pp. 58–64 (especially note 10) pdf.
194. ^ “Mars,” The Classical Tradition, p. 565.
195. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gaby1/8060338380/’]