79 Fun Facts About Roman Mythology

Which three deities made up the Capitoline Triad, the centre of official Roman religion?

Jupiter, Juno and Minerva shared one temple on the Capitoline Hill, a grouping adopted under Etruscan influence; the older Archaic Triad had paired Jupiter and Mars with a third god.

Which god completed the Archaic Triad alongside Jupiter and Mars?

Quirinus, the Sabine-origin god later identified with the deified Romulus, completed the Archaic Triad; the Quirinal Hill and Quirites, the word for citizens, share his name.

Which second king of Rome, a Sabine, is credited with founding Roman religion and its priesthoods?

Numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king, is credited with the calendar, the Vestals, the flamens and the pontiffs; legend says the nymph Egeria advised him.

Who was the mother of Romulus and Remus?

Rhea Silvia, a Vestal, was forced into the priesthood by her usurping uncle Amulius so that she would have no heirs; Mars fathered the twins on her anyway.

What was the name of the shepherd who found the twins with the she-wolf and raised them?

Faustulus, the royal herdsman, found the twins being suckled in the Lupercal cave below the Palatine and raised them with his wife Acca Larentia.

In the augury contest to decide who would found the city, how many birds did Romulus claim to see?

Twelve vultures for Romulus on the Palatine, double his brother's count on the Aventine, though Remus saw his first; the quarrel over which sign counted ended with Remus dead.

What did modern dating suggest about the Capitoline Wolf, long thought to be Etruscan?

It was cast in medieval times — radiocarbon and thermoluminescence tests dated the bronze to around the eleventh to twelfth century; the suckling twins were added around 1471, probably by Antonio del Pollaiuolo.

At which religious gathering did Romulus's men abduct the Sabine women?

Games for Neptune, the Consualia, drew neighbouring peoples to Rome; at a signal Romulus's men seized the visiting young women, and the later war ended when the women threw themselves between the armies.

Which Roman noblewoman's rape and suicide sparked the revolt that founded the Republic?

Lucretia, wife of Collatinus, killed herself after being raped by Sextus Tarquinius; Lucius Junius Brutus paraded her body and drove out the Tarquins, and Shakespeare retold it in The Rape of Lucrece.

What did the doors of the Temple of Janus in Rome signify when they were closed?

Peace: the doors stood open in wartime and were shut only when Rome was at peace everywhere — once in 235 BC, three times under Augustus and once by Nero.

Which Roman god had no Greek equivalent at all?

Janus, the two-faced god of doorways and beginnings, had no Greek counterpart and was invoked first in every ceremony, whatever deity was being honoured.

How many Vestal Virgins served at any one time?

Six Vestals served at a time, chosen between the ages of six and ten for at least three decades; a condemned man who chanced to meet one on his way to execution was pardoned.

What was the punishment for a Vestal Virgin who broke her vow of chastity?

Burial alive in an underground chamber with a little food and a lamp was the penalty for incestum; the site near the Colline Gate was the Campus Sceleratus, the 'field of wickedness'.

Which privilege did Vestal Virgins enjoy that ordinary Roman women did not?

Owning property without a male guardian: a Vestal was freed from her father's authority and could make a will, besides reserved seats at the games and travel by carriage in the city.

The Lares were guardian gods of the household. Where were they honoured?

They were shown as two lively dancing youths and their statues came to the table at meals; the Penates guarded the storeroom.

Which god's stone refused to be moved when the Temple of Jupiter was built on the Capitoline?

Terminus, god of boundary stones, refused to yield his place to Jupiter, so his stone was enclosed inside the new temple; his feast, the Terminalia, fell on 23 February.

On what date was the Saturnalia originally held?

17 December was the original single day; by the late Republic the Saturnalia stretched to 23 December, with gambling allowed, masters serving slaves and a mock 'King of the Saturnalia'.

What did Roman citizens, normally bare-headed, wear during the Saturnalia?

A freedman's felt cap, the pileus, went on every head during the Saturnalia as a sign of the holiday's licence; Catullus called the festival 'the best of days'.

At the Lupercalia on 15 February, what did the Luperci priests do after sacrificing goats and a dog?

Ran near-naked whipping women with thongs cut from the sacrificed goats' skins; women put themselves in the way on purpose, believing a blow brought fertility and easy childbirth.

Which famous refusal happened at the Lupercalia of 44 BC?

Julius Caesar declined a crown offered by Mark Antony, who was running as one of the Luperci; the crowd cheered each refusal, and a month later Caesar was assassinated.

Who wrote the Aeneid?

Virgil worked on the Aeneid from 29 BC until his death in 19 BC and asked that the unfinished poem be burned; Augustus overruled his executors and had it published.

How many books does the Aeneid have?

12 books: the opening half, Aeneas's wanderings, echoes the Odyssey, and the second half, the war in Italy, echoes the Iliad.

What are the opening words of the Aeneid?

Arma virumque cano — 'Of arms and the man I sing' — opens the Aeneid, announcing war and a hero in three words.

Whom does Aeneas carry out of burning Troy on his shoulders?

His father Anchises, lame and clutching the household gods, rides on Aeneas's shoulders while young Ascanius holds his hand; Creusa, following behind, is lost in the escape.

How does Dido, queen of Carthage, die in the Aeneid?

Stabs herself on a pyre with Aeneas's own sword, her dying curse of eternal hatred between Carthage and the Trojans' descendants foreshadowing Rome's later wars with Carthage.

According to legend, how did Dido acquire the land for Carthage?

By cutting an oxhide into strips to encircle a hill: offered as much land as a hide would cover, Dido ringed the hill later called Byrsa, 'hide', after fleeing Tyre where her brother had murdered her husband.

Who guides Aeneas through the underworld in Book 6 of the Aeneid?

The Cumaean Sibyl, Apollo's prophetess at Cumae, leads Aeneas down through the cave by Lake Avernus with the golden bough as his passport to the dead.

How does the Aeneid end?

Aeneas kills Turnus in the final lines: he hesitates at Turnus's plea for mercy, then sees the belt of his dead friend Pallas and strikes — the poem stops there.

What did King Tarquinius end up with after an old woman kept burning the prophecy volumes he refused?

Three, at the full price she had asked for all nine: the Sibylline Books were then kept in the Capitoline temple of Jupiter and consulted in crises by a college of fifteen priests.

Which Roman general finally destroyed the Sibylline Books in the early 5th century AD?

Stilicho, the general who ran the western empire for Honorius, had the Sibylline Books burned around 405; they had already been lost once in the Capitoline fire of 83 BC and reassembled from oracles gathered elsewhere.

Ovid's Metamorphoses runs from the creation of the world to what final event?

The deification of Julius Caesar, with Augustus's reign foretold, closes the 15 books and more than 250 myths; Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet owes its plot to the Pyramus and Thisbe episode.

Ovid's Fasti, a poem on the Roman religious calendar, covers which months?

January to June are the months Ovid had covered before Augustus exiled him to Tomis on the Black Sea in AD 8; in exile he revised the poem and re-dedicated it to Germanicus.

Cupid, the Roman god of desire, is usually said to be the son of which two gods?

Venus and Mars are Cupid's usual parents in Roman tradition; his golden arrows kindle love and his leaden ones aversion, which is how Apollo came to chase an unwilling Daphne.

The tale of Cupid and Psyche survives in which Latin novel?

Apuleius's The Golden Ass, also titled Metamorphoses, is the only Latin novel to survive complete; an old woman tells the Cupid and Psyche story to a kidnapped bride inside it.

Fortuna, goddess of luck, was typically depicted with which object?

A wheel or a rudder: Fortuna turns the wheel of fortune or steers fate with a rudder, often with a cornucopia too; her wheel rolled on into the Middle Ages through Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy.

Fortuna's Greek equivalent is which goddess?

Tyche, the Greek goddess of chance, matched Fortuna; Fortuna Primigenia's great terraced sanctuary at Praeneste drew the Romans, who vowed her a temple in Rome in 204 BC.

Rome declared war on distant enemies by having a fetial priest throw a javelin over what?

A column by Bellona's temple, the columna bellica, stood in for enemy soil once wars were fought far away; the fetial priest cast his spear over it to declare war.

Why did the Senate meet in the Temple of Bellona rather than the Curia when receiving certain visitors?

It stood outside the sacred boundary, the pomerium, which armies and by custom foreign ambassadors could not cross, so envoys and generals awaiting a triumph were received at Bellona's temple.

Which Greek god was the horned Roman forest deity Faunus equated with?

Pan, the goat-horned Arcadian god, was Faunus's Greek equivalent; Faunus's festivals, the Faunalia, fell in February and December, and his sister-wife Fauna was identified with the Bona Dea.

Which two months are named for Julius Caesar and Augustus, replacing Quintilis and Sextilis?

July and August: Quintilis was renamed Iulius in 44 BC and Sextilis became Augustus in 8 BC; the Roman year once began in spring, which is why September means 'seventh'.

The name of the month of February most likely comes from what?

The februa were the goatskin thongs of the Lupercalia; April may come from aperire, 'to open', or the Etruscan goddess Apru.

Which shepherds' festival on 21 April was celebrated as Rome's birthday?

Parilia, the festival of the shepherd deity Pales on 21 April, was taken as the city's founding day; celebrants purified their flocks and leapt over bonfires of straw.

Which emperor's confiscation of its revenues in 382 AD effectively ended the cult of Vesta?

Gratian withdrew state funding and the Vestals' privileges in 382; Theodosius closed the temple in 391, and the last Vestal is recorded in 394, after a thousand years of the sacred fire.

Which Roman historian, with the Aeneid, is the best surviving source for Rome's founding myths?

Livy's Ab Urbe Condita gives the Romulus, Sabine and Lucretia stories in full; the Romans themselves identified their gods with Greek ones freely.

Which Roman goddess, queen of the gods and wife of Jupiter, had the peafowl as her sacred animal?

Juno, wife and sister of Jupiter and mother of Mars, was worshipped as Regina, Queen; the peacock, whose tail bears the eyes of her watchman Argus, was her bird.

Juno was worshipped under the epithet Moneta at a Capitoline temple that later gave its name to what?

The mint and the word money: Rome's coins were struck beside the temple of Juno Moneta on the Arx, so moneta came to mean both mint and coin, giving English 'money' and 'mint'.

Which god split Jupiter's head with a hammer, letting Minerva spring out fully armed?

Vulcan, the smith god, split Jupiter's skull to relieve his headache and Minerva sprang out fully armed; Jupiter had swallowed her mother Metis after tricking her into becoming a fly.

Minerva's festival, the Quinquatria, began five days after the Ides in which month?

March: the Quinquatria began on 19 March, five days after the Ides, and ran to 23 March as a holiday for artisans, teachers and the pupils who brought their fees.

Which creature usually accompanies Minerva as her sacred animal and a symbol of wisdom?

An owl, the little owl inherited from Athena, perches beside Minerva as her symbol of wisdom; less often she appears with a snake or an olive tree.

Which Roman leader dedicated a temple to Venus Genetrix in 46 BC, claiming her as his ancestor?

Julius Caesar vowed the temple before Pharsalus and dedicated it in his new Forum in 46 BC; the Julian line traced itself to Venus through her son Aeneas and his son Iulus.

Venus Erycina, worshipped on the Capitoline, was originally a statue of which Punic goddess?

Astarte, the Phoenician goddess worshipped at Eryx in western Sicily, was taken over as Venus Erycina; Rome vowed her a Capitoline temple in 217 BC after Hannibal's early victories.

Diana was venerated as a triple goddess at her sacred grove on the shores of which body of water?

Lake Nemi, in the Alban Hills south of Rome, held the grove of Diana Nemorensis, whose priest was a runaway slave who won office by killing his predecessor — the 'King of the Wood' of Frazer's Golden Bough.

Vesta, goddess of the hearth, was rarely shown in human form; what usually represented her instead?

The fire of her temple stood for Vesta herself, tended day and night by the Vestals in the round temple in the Forum; Theodosius had the flame extinguished in 391.

During the June Vestalia, how did privileged matrons approach Vesta's temple with offerings?

Barefoot: during the Vestalia, 7 to 15 June, matrons walked unshod to the temple with plates of food, the only days the inner sanctuary was open to them.

Ceres, goddess of grain, headed which grouping of deities worshipped on the Aventine?

The plebeian Triad — Ceres with the wine god Liber and his female counterpart — shared a temple on the Aventine from 493 BC; her seven-day April festival, the Cerealia, included the Ludi Ceriales.

Proserpina, Ceres's daughter, merged with which older Roman fertility goddess on the Aventine?

Libera, the female counterpart of the wine god Liber Pater, was identified with Proserpina; the pair shared Ceres's Aventine temple, dedicated in 493 BC.

Bellona, the war goddess whose temple hosted the Senate, is named from which Old Latin word?

Duellum, war, is the Old Latin root: duellum became bellum in classical Latin, and the goddess was earlier called Duellona.

Flora, Roman goddess of flowers and spring, corresponds to which Greek goddess?

Chloris, the Greek nymph of flowers, was Flora's counterpart — Ovid's Flora says she was once Chloris; her April-May festival, the Floralia, opened with theatrical shows.

The rites of Bona Dea allowed Roman women two things otherwise forbidden them; which?

Strong wine and blood sacrifice, both normally forbidden to women, were part of her rites; the wine was called 'milk' and kept in a 'honey pot', men were barred and only initiates learned her true name.

What did Romans call the personal guardian spirit of a man, honoured on his birthday?

Genius was a man's own protective spirit, receiving wine and cakes on his birthday; under the Empire the emperor's genius was given public cult alongside the Lares.

Pomona, goddess of fruitful abundance, takes her name from the Latin word for what?

Orchard fruit, pomum in Latin, gives Pomona her name; she has no clear Greek counterpart, and Ovid pairs her with the shape-shifting Vertumnus.

What were the sacred shields, said to have fallen from heaven, carried by the Salii called?

The ancilia were the figure-of-eight shields kept by the dancing priests of Mars; one fell from the sky in Numa's reign and eleven copies were made so thieves could not find it.

Rome imported the Phrygian mother goddess Cybele, the Magna Mater, in 204 BC in what form?

A black meteoric stone, brought from Pessinus in 204 BC after a Sibylline oracle promised it would drive Hannibal from Italy, was installed in a temple on the Palatine dedicated in 191 BC.

Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn, shares an Indo-European ancestor with which Greek goddess?

Eos, the Greek dawn goddess, and Aurora both descend from the Proto-Indo-European dawn deity Hausos, as does the Vedic Ushas.

Salus, goddess of safety and welfare, is sometimes equated with which Greek goddess of health?

Hygieia, daughter of Asclepius and goddess of health, was equated with Salus; Salus's own temple stood on the Collis Salutaris, one of the Quirinal's hilltops.

Which hero's cult at the Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium excluded women?

Hercules was honoured at the Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium, said to have been founded after he killed the fire-breathing Cacus there; women were barred from its rites.

The Trojan prince Aeneas was cast as the husband of Lavinia, daughter of which king of the Latins?

Latinus, king of the Latins, gave Lavinia to Aeneas, who founded Lavinium in her name; their line through Alba Longa made Romulus and Remus the Trojans' descendants.

Which Roman hero thrust his right hand into a fire to prove his loyalty to Rome?

Mucius Scaevola, 'left-handed', earned the name by holding his right hand in a brazier before Lars Porsena to show Roman resolve; the Etruscan king sent him home unharmed.

Which Roman woman, held hostage by Lars Porsena, escaped but returned voluntarily to save others?

Cloelia led the girl hostages across the Tiber to freedom, then went back to Porsena, who admired her courage and released her; Rome raised an equestrian statue to her on the Sacra Via.

Which deity, according to Roman belief, was the father of Jupiter, Ceres, Pluto, Neptune, Juno and Vesta?

Saturn, identified with Cronus, fathered Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Pluto, Ceres and Vesta by Ops; he was also a god of sowing, his festival coming after the autumn planting.

Per Georg Wissowa, how many di indigetes, Rome's original gods, had special festivals?

He contrasted them with the di novensides, later gods introduced at known dates; Arnaldo Momigliano disputed the distinction.

Which Persian-origin god's cult spread through the Roman army as far as Britain?

Mithras, the bull-slaying god of a Persian-derived mystery cult, was worshipped in underground mithraea by soldiers from the Rhine to Hadrian's Wall; London's Walbrook Mithraeum is a famous example.

Which Latin phrase, meaning 'I give that you might give', sums up the contractual nature of Roman religion?

Do ut des, 'I give that you might give', captures Roman religion as a contract: correct prayer, rite and sacrifice earned the gods' favour, with no creed or dogma required.

Which Etruscan king of Rome founded the Capitoline temple to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva?

Lucius Tarquinius Priscus vowed and began the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus; his son Superbus largely built it, and it was dedicated in 509 BC, the Republic's first year.

Roughly how many annual religious festivals do Roman calendars show?

About 40 named festivals, feriae, appear on surviving Roman calendars, from the Lupercalia in February to the Saturnalia in December.

Roman haruspices divined the will of the gods chiefly by examining which organ of a sacrificed animal?

The liver was the haruspex's chief text, its lobes read for the gods' will as on the bronze Liver of Piacenza; haruspices also interpreted prodigies and prescribed expiations.

Which Roman general lured Veii's goddess Juno to Rome by promising her a temple, a ritual called evocatio?

Camillus took Veii in 396 BC after promising its patron goddess a temple in Rome; her statue, moved 'with miraculous ease', was housed in a new temple on the Aventine.

Which general's devotio, offering his own life in battle to the underworld gods, did Livy describe?

Decius Mus rode into the Latin ranks at the Veseris in 340 BC after vowing himself and the enemy to the gods below; his son repeated the devotio at Sentinum in 295 BC.

What did the Latin word templum originally refer to, before it meant a temple building?

A sacred space plotted by augury: an augur marked out a templum in the sky or on the ground with his staff, and only later did the word attach to the building inside it.