118 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 three-chambered temple on the Capitoline Hill, a grouping probably borrowed from the Etruscans; some scholars think it displaced an older triad of Jupiter, Mars and a third god.

Which god, worshipped on the Roman hill that shares his name, completed the Archaic Triad with Jupiter and Mars?

Quirinus, worshipped on the Quirinal Hill, completed the Archaic Triad; by the late Republic Romans said Romulus had vanished in a storm and become this god, so the founder was honoured under 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 bear no heirs; she bore twins anyway and named the god Mars as their father.

Which shepherd found Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf and raised them as his own?

Faustulus, the king's herdsman, took the twins home to his wife Larentia; Roman writers added that some thought her nickname, 'she-wolf', slang for a prostitute, was the real origin of the tale.

In the augury contest to decide who would found Rome, which birds did Romulus and Remus count?

Vultures: Remus saw six first from the Aventine, then Romulus claimed twelve from the Palatine, and in one version 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 tests in the 2000s suggested, though the Capitoline Museums still label the wolf fifth century BC; the suckling twins are a Renaissance addition.

In the usual Roman telling, how did the war over the abducted Sabine women end?

The women ran between the armies, begging fathers on one side and husbands on the other to stop; the two peoples then merged, with the Sabine king Titus Tatius sharing Romulus's throne.

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, so rarely that Augustus boasted they had closed just twice before him and three times in his reign.

Which of these Roman gods had no Greek counterpart?

Janus, the two-faced god of doorways and beginnings, had no Greek counterpart; Romans invoked him first in every ceremony, and January, the opening month, bears his name.

What became of a condemned man who chanced to meet a Vestal Virgin?

Pardoned, provided the Vestal swore the meeting was an accident; the six priestesses were held so sacred that anyone who passed under a Vestal's litter was put to death.

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

Burial alive, in a sealed chamber by the Colline Gate, was arranged as a bloodless death: the Vestal was left a lamp, bread, water, milk and oil, as if to clear Rome of starving a consecrated priestess.

Which legal privilege did a Vestal Virgin gain on entering the priesthood?

Owning property without a male guardian: on entering the order a Vestal left her father's legal power, so she could manage her own affairs and make a will while he was still alive.

Which guardian gods of the Roman household received a prayer each morning at a small shrine in the home?

The Lares had their shrine, the lararium, in the house, and their statuettes were set on the table at family meals; a boy coming of age hung up his childhood amulet, the bulla, as a gift to them.

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.

Which Roman festival brought gift-giving, legal gambling and a mock king?

The Saturnalia began as a single day in mid-December and grew to a week when work stopped, dice came out in public and the mock king gave orders that the other guests had to obey.

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: citizens set aside the toga, and even slaves, normally forbidden the badge of freedom, wore one.

What did the Luperci priests do at the Lupercalia 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.

At the Lupercalia of 44 BC, who offered Julius Caesar a royal diadem that he pushed away?

Mark Antony, consul that year, held out the diadem; the crowd cheered each time Caesar pushed it away, 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.

Which Greek epic is the model for the Aeneid's second half?

The Iliad shapes the last six of the Aeneid's 12 books, a war for a new homeland, while the first six echo the Odyssey's wanderings: Homer's order reversed, voyage first and war second.

With which Latin words does the Aeneid begin?

Arma virumque cano, 'I sing of arms and the man', opens the Aeneid with war and a hero in three words; Shaw borrowed the phrase for the title of his comedy Arms and the Man.

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

His father Anchises, too old and frail to flee on foot, rides on Aeneas's shoulders clutching the household gods 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: offered only as much land as a hide could cover, Dido sliced one so thin that it ringed a whole hill, the Byrsa, whose name echoes the Greek word for hide.

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

The Cumaean Sibyl, the prophetess of 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 a Roman king end up buying after an old woman kept burning the prophecy books he refused?

Three, at the full price she had asked for all nine: the Sibylline Books were then guarded by a college of priests and opened only on the Senate's order when a crisis struck.

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 closes the poem's 15 books: his soul is carried skyward and becomes a star, the last transformation in a poem that began with chaos turning into order.

Ovid's Fasti, a poem on the Roman calendar, survives for only which months of the year?

January to June, one book a month, are all that survive of the poem; Ovid wrote that his banishment to the Black Sea in AD 8 broke it off.

Which nymph, struck by Cupid's leaden arrow, fled Apollo until she was turned into a laurel tree?

Daphne, in Ovid's telling, felt only aversion after Cupid's blunt leaden arrow, while his golden one set Apollo burning for her; as he caught her she begged her river-god father for help and became the laurel Apollo then wore as his wreath.

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

Apuleius's The Golden Ass, also known as the Metamorphoses, frames the tale inside the novel: an old woman tells it to calm a weeping young captive of the robbers she keeps house for.

Besides her famous wheel, Fortuna, goddess of luck, was typically shown holding which object?

A ship's rudder marks Fortuna as the pilot of human destinies; artists also gave her a horn of plenty for the abundance she brings and stood her on a ball to show how unsteady luck is.

Fortuna's Greek equivalent is which goddess?

Tyche, the Greek goddess of chance, matched Fortuna; at Fortuna's great sanctuary at Praeneste a child drew inscribed oak lots to answer worshippers' questions.

To declare war on a distant enemy, where did a Roman fetial priest cast his spear?

A column by Bellona's temple stood on a plot that a captured soldier of Pyrrhus was made to buy, so it counted as enemy soil and the spear could be cast there without a long journey.

Why did the Senate receive foreign envoys and returning generals in the Temple of Bellona?

It stood outside the sacred boundary, the pomerium, which neither generals still in command nor envoys of states not allied to Rome were allowed to cross, so the Senate came out to them.

Which Greek god did the Romans equate with their forest deity Faunus?

Pan, the goat-legged god of the wild, was Faunus's Greek match; Faunus's female counterpart Fauna later lent her name to the word for a region's animal life.

Which month did the Romans call Quintilis, meaning 'fifth', before renaming it for a ruler?

July was Quintilis, fifth in an old calendar whose year started two months later than ours; it was renamed in 44 BC for Julius Caesar, who was born in it, and Sextilis later became August.

The month of February takes its name from Roman rites of what kind?

Purification: the februa were cleansing rites held in mid-February, once the last month of the Roman year, so the old year ended with a ritual cleansing.

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; shepherds swept out the pens and then leapt through bonfires of burning 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 told the legends of Romulus and the seven kings in Book 1 of his vast history?

Livy opens his history From the Founding of the City with Aeneas and Romulus, yet warns in his preface that he will neither affirm nor refute such poetic legends.

Which bird was sacred to Juno, queen of the Roman gods?

A peacock was Juno's bird: in Ovid's telling she set the hundred eyes of her slain watchman Argus in its tail feathers.

Rome's mint stood beside the temple of Juno under which of her epithets?

Moneta: coins were struck beside the temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitoline citadel, so moneta came to mean both mint and coin, and English took 'money' and 'mint' from it.

In the usual telling, which god split Jupiter's head, letting Minerva spring out fully armed?

Vulcan, the smith god, split Jupiter's aching skull and Minerva sprang out fully armed; Jupiter had swallowed her pregnant mother Metis after a prophecy that her children would outdo him.

Minerva's festival, the Quinquatria, began on the fifth day from the Ides of which month?

March: the Quinquatria fell on 19 March, the fifth day from the Ides by inclusive Roman counting; its name meant only that, though Ovid took it for a festival five days long.

Which creature usually accompanies Minerva as her sacred animal?

An owl, inherited from the Greek Athena, perches beside Minerva; Hegel made it a byword for hindsight, writing that the owl of Minerva takes flight only as dusk falls.

Julius Caesar's family claimed descent from which goddess, to whom he dedicated a temple in his new forum?

Venus was the mother of Aeneas, whose son Iulus the Julian clan named as its founder; Caesar vowed her a temple on the eve of the battle of Pharsalus and dedicated it in 46 BC.

Venus Erycina, given a Capitoline temple in Hannibal's war, was named for a shrine on which island?

Sicily's Mount Eryx held the shrine of an eastern deity whom the Romans took for Venus; after Hannibal's first victories Rome vowed her a temple on the Capitol.

At Diana's sacred grove by Lake Nemi, how did a runaway slave become its priest-king?

Killing his predecessor: the 'King of the Wood' at Nemi won office in single combat and held it only until a stronger runaway killed him, the riddle Frazer built The Golden Bough around.

Vesta was rarely shown in human form; what usually represented her instead?

The fire of her temple stood for Vesta herself: Ovid found no image of the goddess under its dome, only the undying flame, and a Vestal who let that flame die was whipped.

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

Barefoot: during the Vestalia, 7 to 15 June, matrons walked unshod to the temple with their offerings, the only days of the year its inner sanctuary was opened to them.

The Aventine temple of Ceres, goddess of grain, was the headquarters of which class of Romans?

The plebeians made Ceres's temple their own: the plebeian aediles, who also supervised the grain market, had charge of it and kept the plebs' records there.

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.

The goddess Bellona takes her name from which Old Latin word?

Duellum, war, softened into bellum in classical Latin, turning the goddess Duellona into Bellona; the old form lived on to give English the word duel.

In Ovid, which wind god carried off the nymph Chloris, who became Flora?

Zephyrus, the west wind, seized Chloris and made amends by marrying her and giving her rule over flowers; Botticelli painted the pursuit at the right of his Primavera.

How did Clodius get into the women's rites of the Bona Dea in 62 BC?

Disguised as a female musician, Clodius slipped into Julius Caesar's house, where the rites were being held; he was caught, and Caesar divorced his wife, saying she must be above suspicion.

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

Genius was the spirit born with every Roman man, a woman's being her juno; it was given wine, incense and cakes on his birthday, and its name became English for inborn talent.

The goddess Pomona takes her name from the Latin word for what?

Orchard fruit, pomum in Latin, gives Pomona her name; in Ovid the shape-shifting Vertumnus slips into her orchard as an old woman to plead his own case, and wins her only once he takes his own shape again.

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

A black meteoric stone, shipped from Asia Minor after a Sibylline oracle promised the goddess would drive Hannibal from Italy, was housed in a new temple on the Palatine.

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

Eos, the Greek dawn goddess, matches Aurora, and both names go back to one ancient word for dawn; in the best-known tale the dawn goddess won immortality for her lover Tithonus but forgot to ask for eternal youth.

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

Hygieia, worshipped beside the healer Asclepius, was sometimes equated with Salus once her cult reached Rome; her emblem of a snake and a bowl is still a symbol of pharmacy worldwide.

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.

In Roman legend, the Trojan prince Aeneas married Lavinia, the daughter of which king in Italy?

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 show an enemy king that pain could not frighten him?

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 girl, a hostage of Lars Porsena, led her fellow captives to freedom across the Tiber?

Cloelia got the other girl hostages across the Tiber; Rome sent her back to honour the treaty, but in the best-known telling Porsena so admired her nerve that he freed her with half his hostages, chosen by her.

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

Saturn, identified with the Greek Cronus, was said to swallow each of his children at birth, until the infant Jupiter was hidden from him and a stone wrapped in cloth went down his throat instead.

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 was shown killing a sacred bull inside a cave, and the temples where soldiers from the Rhine to Hadrian's Wall worshipped him were usually windowless rooms sunk below ground to imitate one.

Which Latin phrase sums up the bargain at the heart of Roman religion, an offering for a favour?

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 vowed the great temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill?

Tarquinius Priscus vowed the temple during a Sabine war, but Tarquin the Proud, the last king, did most of the building, and it was the new Republic that dedicated it, by tradition in 509 BC, after driving him out.

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 of a sacrificed sheep was the haruspex's chief text, read region by region for the gods' will; Cato said he wondered how one haruspex could look at another without laughing.

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

Camillus took Veii in 396 BC and, before her statue was moved, the goddess was asked whether she would come to Rome; tradition says the statue itself gave its consent, and she got a new temple on the Aventine.

Which Roman general charged to his death in battle after vowing himself to the underworld gods, a rite called devotio?

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 mean 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.

Which planet is the only one of the eight named after a Greek sky god rather than a Roman deity?

Uranus is the Greek sky god; his Roman counterpart was Caelus, a name the astronomer who proposed the planet's title in the 1780s apparently overlooked.

Which bird, sacred to Jupiter above all others, was carried on a pole as the standard of every Roman legion?

An eagle standard was so revered that Rome spent decades after the Teutoburg Forest disaster trying to win back the ones its legions lost there.

Which Shakespeare tragedy grew out of Pyramus and Thisbe, the doomed Babylonian lovers in Ovid's Metamorphoses?

Romeo and Juliet reuses the Roman poet's ingredients: parents who forbid the match, a secret meeting, and a lover who dies wrongly believing the other is dead.

The cackling of which sacred temple birds woke Rome's defenders when Gauls tried to scale the Capitoline by night?

Geese kept on the hill for the queen of the gods raised the alarm, and the soldier Marcus Manlius threw the first climbers back down the cliff.

Which Roman messenger god, shown with winged sandals and a snake-twined staff, shares his name with a planet?

Mercury also guided the souls of the dead down to the underworld, and Roman merchants honoured him as the god of commerce and profit.

Which god of music, healing and prophecy was worshipped under the same name by both the Greeks and the Romans?

Apollo had no native Roman equivalent, so his cult was imported whole; his first temple in Rome went up in 431 BC after a plague and honoured him as a healer.

Which twin gods, said to have fought for Rome at Lake Regillus, give their names to the two brightest stars of Gemini?

Castor and Pollux were said to have watered their horses at a spring in the Forum after the battle, announcing the victory on the spot where Rome built their temple.

Which Roman god of wine, the Greek Dionysus, had secret rites so wild that the Senate cracked down on them?

Bacchus gave his name to the Bacchanalia, and a Senate decree of 186 BC limited their size and priesthoods on pain of death.

Before a battle, Roman generals judged the gods' favour by watching how eagerly which caged sacred birds ate?

Chickens that refused their feed were a terrible omen; an admiral who ignored them in 249 BC went on to have 93 ships captured at Drepana.

In the best-known version of Rome's founding legend, Romulus killed Remus for mockingly jumping over what?

His new city boundary is a ploughed furrow or trench in some tellings and a newly built wall in others; Remus leapt it to mock how little it would stop invaders.

In Ovid, Cupid's sharp gold arrows kindle love, while his blunt ones are tipped with which metal to drive it away?

Lead was the tip Cupid chose for the nymph he wanted to flee in disgust from a god he had just struck with gold.

At the Lemuria festival, what did a Roman householder throw over his shoulder at midnight to buy off restless ghosts?

Black beans were spat or tossed behind him while he chanted a ransom formula nine times, and then bronze pots were clashed to drive the spirits out.

On which of Rome's seven hills did Romulus found his city in the traditional legend?

The Palatine, whose name later gave English the word palace, was where legend placed the she-wolf's cave, and emperors from Augustus onward built their residences on it.

Which Roman god of sleep is the father of the dream-shaper Morpheus in Ovid's Metamorphoses?

Somnus lived in the underworld, and Ovid gave him a thousand sons, the dream-shapes, of whom Morpheus was the one who appeared in human guise.

Which god of healing was said to have reached Rome as a snake that swam ashore on Tiber Island during a plague?

Aesculapius was fetched from Greece by ship after plague struck in 293 BC, and Rome built his temple exactly where the serpent slid ashore.

Tarpeia let the Sabines into Rome's citadel hoping for their gold bracelets; with what did they crush her instead?

Their shields were carried on the same left arm as the bracelets, so the bargain was kept to the letter, and the cliff where Rome later executed traitors took her name.

Which Roman hero held the only Tiber bridge against Lars Porsena's army while comrades destroyed it behind him?

Horatius Cocles then leapt into the river in full armour; in the usual telling he swam to safety, a feat even Rome's own historians found hard to believe.

Which bird sacred to Mars was said to have joined the wolf in feeding the infants Romulus and Remus?

A woodpecker was so closely tied to the war god that the Latin peoples refused to eat its flesh, and one of his oracles was said to speak through the bird.

Which household gods of the Roman store cupboard were said to have travelled from Troy to Italy with Aeneas?

The Penates took their name from the penus, the innermost storeroom, and at every family meal a morsel was thrown onto the hearth for them.

In Ovid, the nymph Daphne escapes a lovestruck god by becoming which tree, later woven into victory wreaths?

Laurel became the god's sacred tree in consolation, which is why victorious Roman commanders were crowned with its leaves at their triumphs.

As Trivia, a title invoked by the sorceress Medea in Roman drama, the goddess Diana was the guardian of which places?

Crossroads where the road forked were hers: the name comes from the Latin trivium, a triple way, and the poet Catullus hails her by it in his hymn to her.

The seeds of what did Proserpina eat in the underworld, binding her to return there for part of every year?

Pomegranate seeds offered by the king of the dead did it: anyone who had tasted the food of his realm could never fully return to the living.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Minerva turns the boastful weaver Arachne into which creature after their tapestry contest?

A spider was the goddess's act of pity: Arachne had hanged herself in shame, and in her new shape she could go on spinning thread for ever.

Which day of the week do French and Spanish name after Venus, where English honours a Germanic goddess instead?

Friday was dies Veneris to the Romans, which survives as vendredi and viernes; English swapped in Frigg, the northern goddess thought to match her.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the hunter Actaeon stumbles on Diana bathing and is turned by her into which animal?

A stag was a cruel choice for a hunter: Actaeon was chased down and killed by his own pack of fifty hounds.

Which Roman goddess, a renaming of the Greek Nike, received a sacrifice at her altar before every Senate meeting?

Victoria first appeared in Rome during the First Punic War, and unlike her Greek model she has almost no myths of her own.

Cloacina, sometimes merged with Venus, was the Roman goddess who presided over which part of the city's infrastructure?

The main sewer, the Cloaca Maxima, was in her care, and as Venus Cloacina she had a shrine in the Forum beside the Sacred Way.

Nona, Decima and Morta, the last of whom chose the manner of each person's death, were which trio of Roman goddesses?

The Fates, known to Romans as the Parcae, shared one thread for every life: Nona spun it, Decima measured it with her rod, and Morta cut it.

The chariot of Cybele, the Great Mother whose cult Rome brought in from Phrygia, was drawn by which animals?

Lions flank her throne, sit in her lap or pull her car in nearly every image, a sign of her mastery over wild nature.

Fama, pictured in the Aeneid as a feathered monster covered in eyes, ears and mouths, was the Roman goddess of what?

Rumour personified, she spreads the news of Dido's affair with Aeneas, striding across the earth so tall that her head is hidden in the clouds.

Laverna, a Roman goddess of gain and the underworld, was described by the poet Horace as the patron of which group?

Thieves worked in the dark, which suited an underworld goddess, and a gate of Rome on the Aventine, the Porta Lavernalis, was named after her nearby altar.

Cardea, one of a trio of minor deities said to share the guarding of a Roman doorway, watched over which part?

The hinges were hers, while two obscure gods took the sill and the door leaves, a division of labour that St Augustine mocked as absurdly fussy.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the goddess Latona turns Lycian peasants who refuse her a drink of water into which animals?

Frogs, cursed to live in that pond for ever, also sit as gilded sculptures around the Latona Fountain in the gardens of Versailles.

At the Veneralia, the 1 April festival of Venus, Roman women bathed wearing garlands of which plant?

Myrtle was so closely tied to the goddess that one of her Roman titles, Venus Murcia, was understood as Venus of the Myrtle.

In Ovid's story of Venus and Adonis, which flower springs up where the blood of the dying young hunter falls?

Anemone flowers were said to grow wherever the blood of Adonis fell after a wild boar gored him on a hunting trip, as the goddess wept over his body.

At the Cerealia, the spring festival of Ceres, blazing torches were tied to the tails of which animals?

Foxes were being punished, Ovid explains, for one that escaped a farm boy while alight and set the ripening crops of the goddess ablaze.

At the Vestalia, the annual festival of Vesta, which working animals were garlanded with flowers and bits of bread?

Donkeys turned the millstones in Rome's bakeries, and Ovid adds that the bray of one startled an attacker away from the sleeping goddess just in time.

Which shape-shifting Roman god of the seasons wooed the nymph Pomona while disguised as an old woman?

Vertumnus told her a cautionary tale about a girl who spurned her suitor, but in Ovid it fell flat; she was won over only when he dropped the disguise.

In Ovid's tale of Baucis and Philemon, the old couple who sheltered two disguised gods are finally changed into what?

A pair of trees, an oak and a linden with their branches intertwined, grew where the two had lived out their days as keepers of a temple.

In some accounts, a Roman general celebrating a triumph had his face painted which colour, like the image of Jupiter?

Red paint, like the purple and gold toga he wore that day, belonged to the costume of Jupiter Capitolinus, so the general paraded as the god's double.