Romulus and Remus

Numitor, a descendant of Aeneas, was deposed from the rule of Alba Longa by his younger brother Amulius, who not only killed Numitor's sons but forced his only daughter, Rhea Silvia, to become a Vestal Virgin so that no children might be born of her. But the god Mars layed with the girl and she bore him twin sons, Romulus and Remus. Flinging her into prison, Amulius ordered the babies to be thrown into the river Tiber, but the basket in which they layfloated safely to the shore near a fig tree, the Ficus Ruminalis, later held to be sacred.

Here a she-wolf, hearing the infants' cries, came and suckled them and a woodpecker fed them scraps of food. Both creatures were sacred to Mars. The royal shepherd, Faustulus, chanced by and saw the she-wolf tenderly licking the babies as if they were her own young. Guessing the boys' royal parentage, he took them home and he and his wife, Acca Larentia, brought them up as their own.

They grew into fine, strong young men who often led a band of young shepherds on daring exploits. One day Remus was captured and handed over to Numitor to be punished. Numitor suspected that Remus and his brother might be his lost grandsons and had his suspicions confirmed by Faustulus. Romulus and Remus, with the help of their loyal band of young men, attacked the palace and killed the usurper Amulius. Numitor once more became king.

The brothers now decided to found a city of their own. They chose a site not far from Alba Longa and near the Tiber where they had been cast out to die. But now they quarrelled as to who should name the city and become its king. Since they could not know which twin was the elder, they left it to the gods to send a sign, with Remus taking up a position on the Aventine Hill and Romulus on the Palatine. Remus first saw six vultures, then Romulus saw twelve. Each of them was named king by their own followers, Remus on the grounds of priority, Romulus of quantity. In the brawl that followed, Remus was slain.

In another version of his death, Remus spoke slightingly of the new city walls and jumped over them at which he was killed either by Romulus or by his henchman Celer. Romulus declared in anger, "So perish anyoneelse who shall leap over my walls." Now he was left alone to found the city, which he called Rome after himself.

Source: March, Jennifer, "Cassell's Dictionary of classical mythology", Cassell&Co, London, 1998

Apollo

Apollo (Attic, Ionic, and Homeric Greek: Ἀπόλλων, Apollōn (gen.: Ἀπόλλωνος); Doric: Ἀπέλλων, Apellōn; Arcadocypriot: Ἀπείλων, Apeilōn; Aeolic:Ἄπλουν, Aploun; Latin: Apollō) is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in ancient Greek and Roman religion and Greekand Roman mythology. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo

Aurora

Aurora (Latin: [awˈroːra]) is the Latin word for dawn, and the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry. Like Greek Eos and RigvedicUshas (and possibly Germanic Ostara), Aurora continues the name of an earlier Indo-European dawn goddess, Hausos.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(mythology)

Bellona

Bellona was an Ancient Roman goddess of war, similar to the Ancient Greek Enyo. Bellona's attribute is a sword and she is depicted wearing a helmet and armed with a spear and a torch.

Politically, all Senate meetings relating to foreign war were conducted in the Templum Bellonae (Temple of Bellona) on the Collis Capitolinus outside the pomerium.

Bellona's festival was celebrated on June 3.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellona_(goddess)

Ceres

In ancient Roman religion, Ceres (/ˈsɪəriːz/, Latin: Cerēs) was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. She was originally the central deity in Rome's so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad, then was paired with her daughter Proserpina in what Romans described as "the Greek rites of Ceres". Her seven-day April festival of Cerealia included the popular Ludi Ceriales (Ceres' games). She was also honoured in the Maylustration of fields at the Ambarvalia festival, at harvest-time, and during Roman marriages and funeral rites.

Ceres is the only one of Rome's many agricultural deities to be listed among the Di Consentes, Rome's equivalent to the Twelve Olympians of Greek mythology. The Romans saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess Demeter, whose mythology was reinterpreted for Ceres in Roman art andliterature.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(Roman_mythology)

Concordia

In ancient Roman religion, Concordia is the goddess who embodies agreement in marriage and society. Her Greek equivalent is usually regarded as Harmonia, with musical harmony a metaphor for an ideal of social concord or entente in the political discourse of theRepublican era. She was thus often associated with Pax ("Peace") in representing a stable society. As such, she is more closely related to the Greek concept of homonoia (likemindedness), which was also represented by a goddess.

Concordia Augusta was cultivated in the context of Imperial cult. Dedicatory inscriptions to her, on behalf of emperors and members of the imperial family, were common.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_(mythology)

Consus

In ancient Roman religion, the god Consus was the protector of grains and storage bins, which among the Romans were subterranean silos. He was represented by a grain seed.^{[citation needed]}

His altar (ara) was located near the Circus Maximus. It was either underground, or according to other sources, covered with earth, which was swept off only during the two Consualia, his festivals on August 21 and December 15. He was thus a chthonic god. The Flamen Quirinalis and the Vestals officiated at his rites.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consus

Cupid

In classical mythology, Cupid (Latin Cupido, meaning "desire") is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus, and is known in Latin also as Amor ("Love"). His Greek counterpart is Eros.

Although Eros appears in Classical Greek art as a slender winged youth, during the Hellenistic period he was increasingly portrayed as a chubby boy. During this time, his iconography acquired the bow and arrow that represent his source of power: a person, or even a deity, who is shot by Cupid's arrow is filled with uncontrollable desire. In myths, Cupid is a minor character who serves mostly to set the plot in motion. He is a main character only in the tale of Cupid and Psyche, when wounded by his own weapons he experiences the ordeal of love. Although other extended stories are not told about him, his tradition is rich in poetic themes and visual scenarios, such as "Love conquers all" and the retaliatory punishment or torture of Cupid.

In art, Cupid often appears in multiples as the Amores, or amorini in the later terminology of art history, the equivalent of the Greek erotes. Cupids are a frequent motif of both Roman art and later Western art of the classical tradition. In the 15th century, the iconography of Cupid starts to become indistinguishable from the putto.

Cupid continued to be a popular figure in the Middle Ages, when under Christian influence he often had a dual nature as Heavenly and Earthly love. In the Renaissance, a renewed interest in classical philosophy endowed him with complex allegorical meanings. In contemporary popular culture, Cupid is shown drawing his bow to inspire romantic love, often as an icon of Valentine's Day.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid

Diana

In Roman mythology, Diana (lt. "heavenly" or "divine") was the goddess of the hunt, the moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy. Diana was worshipped in ancient Roman religion and is revered in Roman Neopaganism and Stregheria. Dianic Wicca, a largely feminist form of the practice, is named for her. Diana was known to be the virgin goddess of childbirth and women. She was one of the three maiden goddesses, Diana, Minerva and Vesta, who swore never to marry.

Oak groves were especially sacred to her. According to mythology, Diana was born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos, daughter ofJupiter and Latona. Diana made up a triad with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_(mythology)

Dis Pater

Dis Pater, or Dispater was a Roman god of the underworld, later subsumed by Pluto or Hades. Originally a chthonic god of riches,fertile agricultural land, and underground mineral wealth, he was later commonly equated with the Roman deities Pluto and Orcus, becoming an underworld deity.

Dis Pater was commonly shortened to simply Dis. This name has since become an alternative name for the underworld or a part of the underworld, such as the Dis of The Divine Comedy.

It is often thought that Dis Pater was also a Celtic god. This confusion arises from the second-hand citation of one of Julius Caesar's comments in his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars VI:18, where he says that the Gauls all claimed descent from Dis Pater. This, however, is of course an example of interpretatio romana: what Caesar meant was that the Gauls all claimed descent from a Gaulish god similar to the Roman Dis Pater, that is, a chthonic deity associated with prosperity and fertility. Different possible candidates exist for this role in Celtic religion, such as Gaulish Sucellus, Irish Donn and Welsh Beli Mawr, among others.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dis_Pater

Faunus

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the horned god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan.

Faunus was one of the oldest Roman deities, known as the di indigetes. According to the epic poet Virgil, he was a legendary king of the Latins who came with his people from Arcadia. His shade was consulted as a god of prophecy under the name of Fatuus, with oracles in the sacred grove of Tibur, around the well Albunea, and on the Aventine Hill in ancient Rome itself.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faunus

Feronia

In ancient Roman religion, Feronia was a goddess associated with wildlife, fertility, health and abundance. She was especially honored amongplebeians and freedmen. Her festival, the Feroniae, was November 13, Ides of November, during the Ludi Plebeii ("Plebeian Games"), in conjunction with Fortuna Primigenia; both were goddesses of Praeneste.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feronia_(mythology)

Flora

In Roman mythology, Flora (Latin: Flōra) was a goddess of flowers and the season of spring. While she was otherwise a relatively minor figure in Roman mythology, being one among several fertility goddesses, her association with the spring gave her particular importance at the coming of springtime. Her festival, the Floralia, was held between April 28 and May 3 and symbolized the renewal of the cycle of life, drinking, and flowers. The festival was first instituted in 240 B.C.E but on the advice of the Sibylline books she was given another temple in 238 B.C.E. Her Greek equivalent was Chloris, who was a nymph and not a goddess at all. Flora was married to Favonius, the wind god, and her companion was Hercules.

On May 23 another festival was held in her honor.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_(mythology)

Fontus

In ancient Roman religion, Fontus or Fons (plural Fontes, "Font" or "Source") was a god of wells and springs. A religious festival called the Fontinaliawas held on October 13 in his honor. Throughout the city, fountains and wellheads were adorned with garlands.

Fons was the son of Juturna and Janus. Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome, was supposed to have been buried near the altar of Fons (araFontis) on the Janiculum. William Warde Fowler observed that between 259 and 241 BC, cults were founded for Juturna, Fons, and the Tempestates, all having to do with sources of water. As a god of pure water, Fons can be placed in opposition to Liber as a god of wine identified with Bacchus.

An inscription includes Fons among a series of deities who received expiatory sacrifices by the Arval Brothers in 224 AD, when several trees in thesacred grove of Dea Dia, their chief deity, had been struck by lightning and burnt. Fons received two wethers. Fons was not among the deities depicted on coinage of the Roman Republic.

In the cosmological schema of Martianus Capella, Fons is located in the second of 16 celestial regions, with Jupiter, Quirinus, Mars, the Military Lar,Juno, Lympha, and the Novensiles.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontus

Fortuna

Fortuna (Latin: Fortūna, equivalent to the Greek goddess Tyche) was the goddess of fortune and personification of luck in Roman religion. She might bring good luck or bad: she could be represented as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Justice, and came to represent life's capriciousness. She was also a goddess of fate: as Atrox Fortuna, she claimed the young lives of the princeps Augustus' grandsons Gaius and Lucius, prospective heirs to the Empire.

Her father was said to be Jupiter and like him, she could also be bountiful (Copia). As Annonaria she protected grain supplies. June 11 was sacred to her: on June 24 she was given cult at the festival of Fors Fortuna.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortuna_(mythology)

Hercules

Hercules is the Roman name for the Greek divine hero Heracles, who was the son of Zeus (Roman equivalent Jupiter) and the mortal Alcmene. Inclassical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.

The Romans adapted the Greek hero's iconography and myths for their literature and art under the name Hercules. In later Western art and literature and in popular culture, Hercules is more commonly used than Heracles as the name of the hero. Hercules was a multifaceted figure with contradictory characteristics, which enabled later artists and writers to pick and choose how to represent him. This article provides an introduction to representations of Hercules in the later tradition.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules