ROMAN AGRICULTURAL DIVINITIES

 Faunus. 

Legend made Faunus the son of Picus and the grandson of Saturn. He was thought to have been one of the first kings of Latium. He gave laws to the still barbarous tribes and invented the shawm or rustic pipe. He deified his father Picus and his mother Canente who on the death of her husband wasted away with grief until there was nothing left of her. Faunus was one of thefirst Roman rustic divinities and, above all, a fertility god. He also possessed the gift of prophecy and caused voices to be heard in the countryside. But to obtain oracular information from him he had first to be bound, as King Numa succeeded in doing. Under the name Lupercus he had a temple on the Palatine, the Lupercal -the name of the grotto where the she-wolf suckled the twins, Romulus and Remus. 

The Lupercalia were celebrated on the fifteenth of February and were among the most important festivals on the Roman calendar. Their function was purificatory.

Goats Mercury.

Effigy on a Roman Coin. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. and he-goats were sacrificed, and perhaps dogs. After the animals were immolated two youths were led to the altar. The priests touched their brows with the bloody knife and wiped them with a wad of wool soaked in milk, after which the youths would burst out laughing. The priests of the college of the Luperci, half naked, draped only in the skins of the sacrificed goats, would then perform a ceremony during which women who wanted to become pregnant would hold out their hands and turn their backs to be struck with a whip of goat's hide. Ovid gives a rather amusing explanation of the nudity of the Luperci. One day Faunus surprised Hercules and Omphale asleep in a grotto. Faunus wished to take advantage of the sleeping young woman, but the lovers had playfully exchanged garments. In the darkness Faunus did not notice this and, deceived by the softness of the robe Hercules was wearing, approached him instead of Omphale. He was, as can be imagined, rudely repulsed. To avoid such misadventures in the future, Faunus insisted that his priests should be naked when they celebrated his festivals. The Lupercalia were only suppressed in 494 A.D. by Pope Gelasius.

Head of Minerva.

To the Romans Minerva was above all the goddess of handicrafts, learning and the arts and as such was particularly venerated by the guilds of artisans, artists and professional men. She later assumed Athene's other role as a warrior-goddess and was worshipped in association with Mars in the Quinquatrus - a. festival which finally came to be considered her own. Statue after the Athene Parthenos of Phidias. replaced them by a festival in honour of the ritual Purification of the Virgin. With Faunus, god of fertility, was associated Fauna, who was his wife or daughter. Fauna was invoked under the name of Bona Dea: women celebrated her cult at the beginning of December with a mysterious festival which was forbidden to men and degenerated into an orgy. Also associated with Faunus was Ops, a very ancient Sabine goddess whom Rome adopted. Ops was a personification of creative force and agricultural fertility. She was venerated in the Opalia on the nineteenth of December and invoked by sitting down and touching the earth with the hand. Fauna, or Bona Dea, was also closely related to Maia who symbolised the earth's Spring fertility and was honoured in May. Another goddess of Latium, Marica, was loved by Faunus who, according to Virgil's interpretation, made her the mother of the king, Latinus.

Census. 

Census was one of the most ancient gods of Rome. He presided over sowing. His festivals, the Consualia, consisted of two distinct ceremonies. In the first, which took place on the twenty-first of August after the harvest, Consus was associated with Ops. T,here were chariot races and horse races, entertainments, dancing and a curious race on oxhides rubbed with oil. The second ceremony of the Consualia took place on the fifteenth of December after the sowing. Chariot races with mules were held in the circus. Consus had an altar near the Circus Maximus. During the year this altar was covered with earth to evoke the idea of sowing. It was only swept for the Consualia. It was during the festivals of Consus that the Romans abducted the Sabine women.

Pales.

Pales was at first a masculine divinity attached to the person of Jupiter. Afterwards Pales took on feminine form and became the protectress of flocks, giving vigour to the males and fecundity to the females. Her festivals, the Palilia, were celebrated on the twenty-first of April, the date of the foundation of Rome. On the eve of the festival a purification ceremony took place in houses and stables in which a sacred mixture made by the Vestals was employed. Then the livestock and stables were sprinkled with lustral water. Pales gave her name to the hill where Roma Quadrata rose, the Palatine.

Liber Pater.

This Italic god's first function was to preside over the fertility of the fields. He was also a god of fecundity. He was honoured on the seventeenth of March in the Liberalia. This was the day on which adolescents left off wearing the praetexta and assumed the apparel of a man (the toga virilis). Liber Pater did not become the god of vine-growers until after he had been confused with lacchus Dionysus. His consort was Libera, an ancient Italic goddess about whom there is little information.

Silvanus. 

This Latin divinity was popular in Rome from very early days. As his name indicates Silvanus was a forest god. He "was, they said, the son of a shepherd of Sybaris and a she-goat or else a maiden named Valeria Tusculanaria. He watched chiefly over the work of clearing land and making pastures in wooded country. His province extended to all arboriculture, as well as to guarding herds and to the tilling of the soil. Domestic cattle were sacrificed to him. He was often confused with Faunus or with Pan whose physical aspect he had. Silvanus was particularly feared by children and by women in labour.

Tellus Mater.

In the remotest times Tellus Mater was a goddess of fecundity in company with a male divinity, Telluno. Afterwards she was associated with Jupiter. In her role of mother she watched over marriage and the procreation of children. The bride would offer her a sacrifice when she entered her husband's house. She had her part in the porca praecidanea, the sow immolated to Ceres 'before the harvest'. As an agricultural deity she protected the fruitfulness of the soil and all the states which the seed passes through when it is sown in the soil.

Flora.

In primitive central Italy Flora was the goddess of budding springtime, of cereals, fruit trees, the vine and flowers. With Robigus (or Robigo) she prevented wheat-rust. With Pomona she watched over fruit trees. She had a temple on the Quirinal and another near the Circus Maximus. Her festivals, the Floralia, lasted from the twenty-eighth of April to the third of May and were rather licentious. On the twenty-third of May there was another festival in her honour, a rose festival. The Sabines and the Latins venerated another goddess, Feronia, who shared some of Flora's functions and watched over spring flowers and vegetation. It is possible that Feronia was originally an underworld divinity. She was associated with Soranus, a Sabine divinity who became a solar god after first having been a god of the underworld. In the course of a sacrifice which mountaineers were offering on Mount Soracte wolves appeared and seized the offerings; they then took refuge in a cave from which escaped pestilential vapours. The oracle declared thai these wolves were under the protection of the god Soranus and instructed the mountaineers to live by rapine, like the wolves. Whence arose the name Hirpi Sorani which was given to them. The name was perpetuated in a Roman family, especially devoted to the cult of Soranus and Feronia. During the festivals of Feronia members of this family, the Hirpini, would walk bare-footed over glowing coals without burning themselves.

Divinities of the Waters.

All stretches of water, all springs and all rivers were deified. The nymph Juturna - or rather Diuturna - a native of Latium, was the goddess of still waters and of rivers over which Jupiter gave her empire in reward for her love. She was venerated in the Juturnalia on the eleventh of January by the college of the Fontani who were artisans assigned to aqueducts and fountains. Neptunus was perhaps originally a water-god or a protector against drought. During the Neptunalia on the twenty-third of July they would build huts of branches for shelter against the sun. As for the Nymphs, they were in a general way water divinities. Usually they were associated with some superior deity like Jupiter, Diana or Ceres. Their cult originated in Latium. Their springs were found near the Capena gate. The most famous was the fountain of the nymph Egeria whom Numa, the king, would come to consult during the night. According to Ovid she married Numa and after his death retired to the woods in the valley of Aricia where Diana changed her into a fountain. She is reputed to have foretold the fate of new-bom babies. Among the other nymphs may be mentioned the Camenae who were prophetic nymphs. One of them, Antevorta, knew the past; another, Postvorta, the future. The most important of the Camenae was Carmenta who first dwelt in Arcadia where she had a son by Mercury, Evander. When Evander left his native land and came to Italy, where he founded the town of Pallantium, Carmenta came with him. She changed the fifteen Greek letters brought by Evander into Roman letters; she had the gift of prophecy and lived until she was a hundred and ten. After her death she received divine honours.

Ceres and Diana.

In their aspect of Italic divinities Ceres and Diana offer no particular interest. Ceres, who came from Campania, had a temple in Rome; but her rites, like the temple itself, were Greek. Diana retained only briefly her primitive character as a goddess of light, mountains and woods. She was rapidly hellenised. Among other sanctuaries Diana had a temple on the shores of Lake Nemi whose priest was traditionally an escaped slave. In order to obtain this office he had first to kill his predecessor in single combat. From then on he, too, was a target for any assassin who might wish to supplant him.

Venus.

Venus, too, in early days occupied a very modest position in the Roman pantheon. With Feronia and Flora she symbolised spring and fruitfulness. She had her place in the Floralia (twenty-eighth of April to the third of May) and in the Vinalia rustica on the ninth of August.

Vertumnus. 

It is not known whether Vertumnus was Etruscan or Latin. In any case the origin of his name is clearly Latin: vertere, 'to change'. He was a god of fruit trees like Ceres and Pomona. Pomona was courted by all the rural gods, but she yielded only to Vertumnus. In order to seduce  her he was forced to assume several different guises, appearing before her as a labourer, a vinegrower and a harvester. In the end he overcame her suspicions by assuming the aspect of an old woman. Vertumnus was also associated with Silvanus, and he was venerated with the god of the Tiber, the course of which he was supposed to have altered. Tradition shows him revolving in the assembly of gods, where he was constantly changing shape.

Excerpted from "New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology",Introduction by Robert Graves, Translation by Richard Aldington and Delano Ames, Crescent Books, New York, 2001, p.216-219. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.