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Mars (mythology)

Ch. 1 of 8
— CH. 1 · INTRODUCTION —

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Mars (mythology)

8 sections

  • Mars, the Roman god of war, was not simply a deity of battle. He was also a guardian of crops, a father of the Roman people, and a protector whose sacred animals spoke prophecy from the branches of oak trees. His very name gave the world a month, a planet, and the word "martial." How did a single god come to stand at the center of Roman religion, Roman farming, and Roman empire all at once? And what does it mean that the Romans chose this particular figure to father Romulus and Remus, the twins who would one day build their city on seven hills? The answer runs deeper than war.

  • Romulus and Remus were not simply the legendary founders of Rome. They were, according to Roman myth, the sons of Mars himself, born after he raped Rhea Silvia. King Amulius ordered the twin boys exposed because he had usurped the throne from their grandfather Numitor and feared them. A she-wolf, one of Mars's sacred animals, suckled the infants. A woodpecker, equally sacred to the god, brought them nourishment as well.

    Mars's fatherhood was not just a story. It was a political fact in Roman religious life. When Augustus wanted to frame the Roman people as a chosen nation with a divine bloodline, the genealogy of Mars provided the architecture. Virgil, writing in the 1st century BCE, positioned Mars as the ancestor of Romulus and Venus as the ancestor of Aeneas, the Trojan hero credited as an earlier founder. Since Venus was associated in legend with the Julii family to which Augustus belonged, the emperor tied himself to both founders through a single divine couple.

    The union of Venus and Mars also carried a philosophical charge. The Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino observed that "only Venus dominates Mars, and he never dominates her." In Roman art, Mars is often shown disarmed and relaxed, or even sleeping beside Venus, a posture that reads as peace won through love rather than through conquest.

  • Cato the Elder, writing on farming, invokes Mars Silvanus for a ritual carried out in the woods, asking him to guard cattle from harm. The prescription is precise: three pounds of meal, four and a half pounds of bacon, four and a half pounds of meat, and three pints of wine, consumed on the spot after the ceremony, by the officiant alone. Women were forbidden to witness it.

    This agricultural Mars is not a metaphor borrowed from the god of war. The classicist Andrew Kilgour argues it is perhaps natural that a male deity in Roman culture would take a more combative role even in the realm of farming, warding off threats to the harvest the way a soldier wards off an enemy. The Arval Brothers, a priestly order specifically associated with ensuring high agricultural yields, chanted a hymn to Mars and called on him to drive off "rust," a Latin word that covered both wheat fungus and the red oxides that corrode iron tools and weapons.

    The Salian priests, Mars's own dedicated clergy, performed a ritualistic leaping dance in armor each March. According to Roman tradition, this dance was meant to accelerate the growth of crops. The same ritual calendar that opened the military campaigning season also opened the farming season. Mars stood at both thresholds.

  • The Latin word virtus, meaning "manly virtue," comes from vir, "man," and in its earliest Roman usage it described battlefield courage. Artotrogus, a character in the play The Braggart Soldier by the 3rd-century BCE playwright Plautus, tells the boastful soldier Pyrgopolynices that "Mars wouldn't dare to call himself such a warrior or compare his exploits to yours." The joke works only because Mars was understood as the absolute measure of warrior excellence.

    Over time, virtus expanded. Under the influence of Greek culture and its association between military prowess and intelligence, the concept came to include wisdom. Mars developed alongside it, becoming a god of generalship in addition to raw fighting ability. According to the classicist John Serrati, Mars as the personification of virtus came to exemplify ideal Roman masculinity in its fullest sense.

    By the 3rd century CE, Mars was worshipped primarily by the Roman military legions. The original seasonal rhythm linking his festivals to the spring departure and autumn return of armies had by then become obsolete. Roman soldiers no longer mobilized in March and stood down in October. They remained permanently stationed at forts and military installations across the empire, and the old connection between the military calendar and the farming calendar had lost its meaning.

  • Numa Pompilius, the peace-loving second king of Rome and successor of Romulus, was said by Roman tradition to have established the Altar of Mars in the Campus Martius, the Field of Mars lying outside Rome's sacred boundary. For much of Roman history, Mars largely lacked intramural temples. His worship happened beyond the city walls.

    The main Temple of Mars built during the Republican period was also outside that boundary. It was constructed to fulfill a vow made by a Titus Quinctius in 388 BCE during the Gallic siege of Rome. Its founding day was commemorated on June 1. Soldiers assembled there before departing for war, and on July 15 each year a major parade of Roman cavalry set out from its steps.

    Augustus changed this fundamentally. He built the Temple of Mars Ultor inside his new forum, dedicating it in 2 BCE. He created the cult of "Mars the Avenger" to mark two events: his defeat of Caesar's assassins at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE, and the negotiated recovery of the Roman battle standards lost to the Parthians at Carrhae in 53 BCE. Those recovered standards were housed in the new temple. The Senate was required to meet there when deliberating questions of war and peace. Young men took the toga virilis, the garment marking adulthood at around age 14, through a sacrifice at the same temple.

  • In Celtic regions of Gaul, Roman Spain, and Britain, Mars merged with local deities and took on roles that would have been unfamiliar in the city of Rome. In Celtic settings, he was frequently invoked as a healer. Inscriptions suggest that his battlefield capacity to repel an enemy was transferred directly to the sick person's fight against illness.

    Mars Lenus, or Lenus Mars, maintained a major healing cult at the capital of the Treveri, the city now known as Trier, where votive offerings included images of children presenting doves. Mars Cocidius was worshipped in northwest Cumbria and along Hadrian's Wall; two votive plaques show him as a warrior bearing a shield and spear, while an altar depicts him as a huntsman with a dog and stag. Mars Vorocius was invoked at a curative spring shrine at Vichy as a curer of eye afflictions.

    Far to the south on Majorca, small bronze warrior figures found inside talayotic sanctuaries are interpreted by modern scholars as a local Mars cult, sometimes called "Mars Balearicus." These precincts contained extensive evidence of burnt offerings and appear to have been astronomically oriented toward the rising or setting of the constellation Centaurus. They were still in active use when Roman occupation of the island began in 123 BCE.

  • Plutarch records that the woodpecker is sacred to Mars because "it is a courageous and spirited bird and has a beak so strong that it can overturn oaks by pecking them until it has reached the inmost part of the tree." The beak of the picus Martius was carried as a charm against bee stings and leech bites. The bird also guarded a woodland herb used to treat the digestive or female reproductive systems, and those who sought to harvest it were advised to do so at night, lest the woodpecker jab out their eyes.

    The Italic Picenes, a people of ancient Italy, were said to have derived their tribal name from the woodpecker who served as their guide animal during a ritual migration known as a ver sacrum, or sacred spring, undertaken as a rite of Mars. Among the Aequi, another Italic people, Mars had an oracle of great antiquity where prophecies were delivered by a woodpecker perched on a wooden column.

    At the Battle of Sentinum in 295 BCE, the appearance of the wolf of Mars was read as a sign that Roman victory was coming. In Roman Gaul, the goose was associated with Celtic forms of Mars; archaeologists have found geese buried alongside warriors in graves. The goose was considered bellicose because it is easily provoked to aggression. A sculpture from Housesteads Roman Fort at Hadrian's Wall shows Mars Thincsus flanked by goddesses, with a goose as his companion.

  • Mars gave his name to March, the third month in the Roman calendar and once its very first. In the oldest Roman calendar, Martius opened the year, which is why the word "March" carries the god inside it to this day.

    The planet Mars was named for him, and philosophical writers treated the planet and the god as sharing characteristics. In many languages, Tuesday is named after Mars or his equivalent. The Latin martis dies, "Mars's Day," survives in Portuguese as marte, in Spanish as martes, in French as mardi, in Italian as martedì. The English Tuesday descends from the Old English Tiwesdæg, meaning the day of Tiw, the Old English form of the Proto-Germanic war god *Tîwaz, cognate with the Norse Týr.

    From the name of Mars come the Latin adjectives Martius and mārtiālis, which gave English the word "martial," as in martial arts and martial law. Personal names including Marcus, Mark, and Martin all carry the same root. An inscription found in the Alps records a slave who dedicated a statue to Mars Augustus as the preserver of his own body, vowed, the text says, "by the order of the numen himself" - a private act of gratitude from an individual at the far edge of the empire, tying his survival to the god whose name now runs through the days of the week and the months of the year.

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Common questions

Who were the parents of Mars in Roman mythology?

Mars was usually considered the son of Jupiter and Juno. In Ovid's account in the Fasti, however, Juno conceived Mars alone, using a magic flower obtained from the goddess Flora, after Jupiter had given birth to Minerva without a female partner.

Why was Mars considered a god of agriculture as well as war?

Mars functioned as an agricultural guardian because his role was to ward off hostile forces threatening crops and livestock, a protective function inseparable from his warrior nature. The Arval Brothers and Cato both invoked Mars to defend harvests from disease, poor weather, and other misfortune. The Roman farming and military campaigning seasons coincided, reinforcing his dual role.

What is the Temple of Mars Ultor and why did Augustus build it?

The Temple of Mars Ultor, dedicated in 2 BCE in the Forum of Augustus, honored Mars as the Avenger. Augustus built it to mark his defeat of Caesar's assassins at Philippi in 42 BCE and the recovery of Roman battle standards lost to the Parthians at Carrhae in 53 BCE. The Senate was required to meet there when deliberating war and peace.

What animals were sacred to Mars and why?

The woodpecker and the wolf were the wild animals most sacred to Mars. Plutarch explains the woodpecker's association by noting its aggressive courage and the strength of its beak. The wolf is familiar from the myth of the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus. In Roman Gaul, the goose was also linked to Celtic forms of Mars because of its easily provoked aggression.

How did the name of Mars influence languages and the calendar?

Mars gave his name to the month of March, originally the first month of the Roman calendar. The Latin adjective mārtiālis produced the English word "martial." Personal names including Marcus, Mark, and Martin all derive from his name. In Romance languages, Tuesday is named after Mars: martes in Spanish, mardi in French, martedì in Italian.

How was Mars worshipped differently in the Celtic provinces of the Roman Empire?

In Gaul, Roman Spain, and Britain, Mars was frequently identified with local Celtic deities and invoked as a healer. His battlefield ability to repel enemies was applied to illness. Mars Lenus had a major healing cult at the capital of the Treveri in present-day Trier, and Mars Vorocius was worshipped as a curer of eye afflictions at a curative spring shrine at Vichy.

All sources

214 references cited across the entry

  1. 1Based 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 a
  2. 2BookThe History and Practice of Ancient AstronomyJames Evans — Oxford University Press — 1998
  3. 3Later represented in the astronomical and astrological symbol for the planet Mars, and the male gender (♂)
  4. 4Chapter 3, Charles E. Bennett (1907) The Latin Language – a historical outline of its sounds, inflections, and syntax. Allyn & Bacon, Boston.
  5. 5Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A History (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 47–48.
  6. 6John 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
  7. 7Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia, The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215.
  8. 8Kurt A. Raaflaub, War and Peace in the Ancient World (Blackwell, 2007), p. 15.
  9. 9Paul Rehak and John G. Younger, Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), pp. 11–12.
  10. 10Isidore of Seville calls Mars Romanae gentis auctorem, the originator or founder of the Roman people as a gens (Etymologiae 5.33.5).
  11. 11The classical Latin declension of the name is as follows: nominative and vocative case, Mars; genitive, Martis; accusative, Martem; dative, Marti; ablative Marte.
  12. 12Virgil, Aeneid VIII, 630
  13. 13BookEncyclopedia of Indo-European CultureJ. P. Mallory — Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers — 1997
  14. 14Michiel de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Brill, 2008, p. 366.
  15. 15Larissa Bonfante, Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies (Wayne State University Press, 1986), p. 226.
  16. 16Dictionnaire des mythologies et des religions des societes traditionnelles et du monde antiqueMassimo Pallottino — University of Chicago Press — November 15, 1992
  17. 17Studies in Roman Literature, Culture and ReligionHendrik Wagenvoort — Brill — 1956
  18. 18Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen WeltJohn F. Hall III — 1986
  19. 19Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan StudiesLarissa Bonfante — Wayne State University Press — 1986
  20. 20martial
  21. 21Albert Dauzat, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de famille et prénoms de France, Larousse, Paris 1980. p. 420. New completed edition by Marie-Thérèse Morlet.
  22. 22York, Michael. Romulus and Remus, Mars and Quirinus. Journal of Indo-European Studies 16:1 & 2 (Spring/Summer, 1988), 153–172.
  23. 23Hesiod, Theogony p. 79 in the translation of Norman O. Brown (Bobbs-Merrill, 1953); 921 in the Loeb Classical Library numbering; Iliad, 5.890–896.
  24. 24Ovid, Fasti 5.229–260
  25. 25William Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1908), p. 35f., discusses this interpretation to question it.
  26. 26Carole E. Newlands, Playing with Time: Ovid and the Fasti (Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 105–106.
  27. 27Aulus 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 Sa
  28. 28Robert E.A. Palmer, The Archaic Community of the Romans (Cambridge University Press, 1970, 2009), p. 167.
  29. 29Plautus, Truculentus 515.
  30. 30Johannes Lydus, De mensibus 4.60 (42).
  31. 31Porphyrion, Commentum in Horatium Flaccum, on Epistula II.2.209.
  32. 32William 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),
  33. 34John 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
  34. 35Laura 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.
  35. 36Ficino, On Love, speech 5, chapter 8, as summarized in the entry on "Mars", The Classical Tradition (Harvard University Press, 2010), p. 564.
  36. 37Entry on "Mars" in The Classical Tradition, p. 564.
  37. 38Onians, 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,
  38. 39Dessau. 13.
  39. 40Book"Take the sword away from that girl!" Combat, gender, and vengeance in the middle RepublicJohn Serrati — Taylor & Francis — 2019
  40. 41Plautus. Miles Gloriosus. 11–12. Transl. by Wolfgang de Melo.
  41. 42Plautus. Casina. 88.
  42. 43BookClassical art forms and Celtic mutations: Figural art in Roman BritainClaire Lindgren — Noyes Press — 1980
  43. 44JournalMars, the Lustral GodVincent J. Rosivach — 1983
  44. 45Servius, Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil. 8.3.
  45. 46BookReligion and Classical Warfare: The Roman RepublicChristopher Matthew et al. — Pen and Sword Books — 2020-08-18
  46. 47BookRoman in the Provinces: Art on the Periphery of EmpireT. Franconi — McMullen Museum of Art — 2014-09-26
  47. 48Schilling, "Mars", p. 135.
  48. 49BookDecayed gods: origin and development of Georges Dumézil's "idéologie tripartie"Wouter W. Belier — E.J. Brill — 1991
  49. 50Beard et al., Religions of Rome: A History, pp. 47–48.
  50. 51Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome, p. 127
  51. 52Varro. De Lingua Latina. 5.85. "" (Transl. Roland G. Kent. " ‘Arval Brothers’ was the name given to those who perform public rites to the end that the ploughlands may bear fruits").
  52. 53JournalThe Ambarvalia and the Sacrificivm Deae DiaeAndrew Kilgour — 1938
  53. 54BookThe Gods of ancient Rome: Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to Imperial TimesRobert Turcan — Routledge — 2000
  54. 55JournalObredi lustracije u antičkom Rimu i kozmogonijski mitNada Bulić et al. — 2019-12-31
  55. 56BookIndo-European Poetry and MythMartin L. West — Oxford University Press — 2007
  56. 57Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome (University of California Press, 2005), p. 127
  57. 58Cato, 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 la
  58. 59Palmer, Archaic Community, pp. 113–114.
  59. 60BookThe religious experience of the Roman people, from the earliest times to the age of Augustus; the Gifford lectures for 1909–10William Warde Fowler — Macmillan and Co., limited — 1911
  60. 61BookThe Power of Images in the Age of AugustusPaul Zanker — University of Michigan Press — 1988
  61. 62Plutarch, Roman Questions 21, citing Nigidius Figulus.
  62. 63Plutarch, 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.
  63. 64Pliny, Natural History 29.29.
  64. 65Pliny, Natural History 27.60. Pliny names the herb as glycysīdē in Greek, Latin paeonia (see Peony: Name), also called pentorobos.
  65. 66A.H. Krappe, "Picus Who Is Also Zeus", Mnemosyne 9.4 (1941), p. 241.
  66. 67William Geoffrey Arnott, Birds in the ancient world from A to Z (Routledge, 2007), p. 63 online.
  67. 68Plutarch, Roman Questions 21. Athenaeus lists the woodpecker among delicacies on Greek tables (Deipnosophistae 9.369).
  68. 69Plautus, 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 C
  69. 70Dionysius of Halicarnassus 1.31; Peter F. Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion (Brill, 1992), p. 33.
  70. 71John Greppin, entry on "woodpecker", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997), p. 648.
  71. 72Dionysius 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.
  72. 73The 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, Remu
  73. 74Plutarch, Life of Romulus 4.
  74. 75Livy 22.1.12, as cited by Wiseman, Remus, p. 189, note 6, and Armstrong, The Significance of Certain Colors, p. 6.
  75. 76Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 10.27.
  76. 77Miranda Green, Animals in Celtic Life and Myth (Routledge, 1992), p. 126.
  77. 78Nicole 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 Cla
  78. 79As did Neptune, Janus and the Genius; John Scheid, "Sacrifices for Gods and Ancestors", in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 264.
  79. 80Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 153.
  80. 81C. Bennett Pascal, "October Horse", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85 (1981), pp. 263, 268, 277.
  81. 82Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 245.
  82. 83Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 5.13.2
  83. 84Livy 40.45.8, 1.44.1–2.
  84. 85Katja Moede, "Reliefs, Public and Private", in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 170.
  85. 86Vitruvius 1.7.1; Servius, note to Aeneid 1.292; Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 244.
  86. 87Livy 6.5.7; Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 244.
  87. 88Ovid, Fasti 6.191–192 and the Fasti Antiates (Degrassi 463), as cited by Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 244.
  88. 89CIL 6.473, 474 = 30774, 485; ILS 3139, 3144, as cited by Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 244.
  89. 90H.H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 127.
  90. 91Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies, pp. 127, 164.
  91. 92Pliny, Natural History 36.26; Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 245.
  92. 93Paul Rehak, Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), pp. 7–8.
  93. 94Rehak, Imperium and Cosmos, p. 145.
  94. 95Michele 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.
  95. 96Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 27.
  96. 97Robert 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.
  97. 98Jonathan Williams, "Religion and Roman Coins", in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 143.
  98. 99JournalArchaic Sanctuaries in UmbriaGuy Bradley — 1997
  99. 100Paul Rehak and John G. Younger, Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), p. 114.
  100. 101Rehak and Younger, Imperium and Cosmos, p. 114.
  101. 102Entry on "Mars", in The Classical Tradition, p. 564, citing Sebastiano Erizzo, On Ancient Medallions (1559), p. 120.
  102. 103Martianus Capella 5.425, with Mars specified as Gradivus and Neptune named as Portunus.
  103. 104Varro, Antiquitates frg. 254* (Cardauns); Plutarch, Romulus 29.1 (a rather muddled account); Arnobius, Adversus nationes 6.11.
  104. 105Michael Lipka, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach (Brill, 2009), p. 88.
  105. 106Aulus 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.
  106. 107Imperium and Cosmos p. 114.
  107. 108Christopher Smith, "The Religion of Archaic Rome", in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 39.
  108. 109Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, p. 84.
  109. 110Marked as such only on the Chronography of 354.
  110. 111The hymn is preserved in an inscription (CIL 6.2104); Frances Hickson Hahn, "Performing the Sacred", in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 237.
  111. 112Hahn, "Performing the Sacred", p. 237, citing Dionysius of Halicarnassus 2.70.1–5.
  112. 113Quintilian, Institutiones 1.6.40, as cited by Frances Hickson Hahn, in "Performing the Sacred", in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 236.
  113. 114Guiliano 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 Pr
  114. 115R.L. Rike, Apex Omnium: Religion in the Res Gestae of Ammianus (University of California Press, 1987), p. 26.
  115. 116Ammianus Marcellinus 24.6.17; Rike, Apex Omnium, p. 32.
  116. 117Livy 2.45.
  117. 118BookThe History of Rome, Books 1–5Livy — Hackett Publishing — 1884
  118. 119Compare 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 t
  119. 120Statius, Thebaid 9.4. See also 7.695.
  120. 121Valerius Maximus 2.131.1, auctor ac stator Romani nominis.
  121. 122Hans-Friedrich Mueller, Roman Religion in Valerius Maximus (Routledge, 2002), p. 88.
  122. 123Martianus Capella, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury 1.4.
  123. 124BookThe Archaic Community of the RomansR. E. A. Palmer — Cambridge University Press — 1970
  124. 125Mars 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 presi
  125. 126Palmer, 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.
  126. 127Etymologically, 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
  127. 128O. de Cazanove, "Pre-Roman Italy," pp. 49–50.
  128. 129The 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 (Ox
  129. 130Celia 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.
  130. 131For the text of this vow, see The invocation of Decius Mus.
  131. 132Mary 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.
  132. 133Beard et al., Religions of Rome, p. 370.
  133. 134Martin Henig, Religion in Roman Britain (London, 1984, 1995), p. 27, citing the military calendar from Dura-Europos.
  134. 135Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War (University of California Press, 2005), p. 168.
  135. 136Newlands, Playing with Time, p. 104.
  136. 137Votum 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 li
  137. 138Robert 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 Fo
  138. 139Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus, pp. 9 and 105ff.
  139. 140William Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1908), p. 55.
  140. 141Statue of Mars Ultor, BalmuildyMay 11, 2018
  141. 142VideoAugustus Assembles His Marble CityYale University
  142. 143Michael Lipka, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach (Brill, 2009), p. 91.
  143. 144Clark, Divine Qualities, pp. 23–24.
  144. 145Robert 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 So
  145. 146For 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 L
  146. 147Lipka, Roman Gods, p. 109.
  147. 148Harry 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.
  148. 149Cassius Dio 55.10.2; Nicole Belyache, "Religious Actors in Daily Life," in A Companion to Roman Religion p. 279.
  149. 150Lipka, Roman Gods, pp. 111–112.
  150. 151CIL 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.
  151. 152Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 230.
  152. 153A.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 Lati
  153. 154Jonathan 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
  154. 155Edmondson, "The Cult of Mars Augustus," p. 563.
  155. 156Edmondson, "The Cult of Mars Augustus," p. 562.
  156. 157ILS 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.
  157. 158William 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.
  158. 159Edmondson, "The Cult of Mars Augustus," pp. 541–575.
  159. 160Ittai 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 Tibe
  160. 161The 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
  161. 162Miranda Green, Animals in Celtic Life and Myth (Routledge, 1992), p. 198.
  162. 163Ton Derks, Gods, Temples, and Ritual Practices: The Transformation of Religious Ideas and Values in Roman Gaul (Amsterdam University Press, 1998), p. 79.
  163. 164RIB 1055, as cited by Bernhard Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture (Boydell & Brewer, 1997, originally published in German 1994), p. 11.
  164. 165RIB 218, as cited by Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 11.
  165. 166Phillips, 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. .
  166. 167Ross, Anne (1967). Pagan Celtic Britain. Routledge & Kegan Paul. .
  167. 168CIL 12.1300.
  168. 169Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 11.
  169. 170Planet and Satellite Names and DiscoverersUSGS Astrogeology
  170. 171Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 32.
  171. 172Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (Éditions Errance, 2003), p. 68.
  172. 173RIB 918, 948, 970, 1784, 2044, as cited by Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 33.
  173. 174Miranda Alhouse-Green, "Gallo-British Deities and Their Shrines," in A Companion to Roman Britain (Blackwell, 2004), p. 215.
  174. 175Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 33.
  175. 176RIB 278, as cited by Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, pp. 42–43.
  176. 177Eric 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
  177. 178Pliny the Elder, Natural History 18.62.
  178. 179In 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.
  179. 180ILTG 351; CIL 13.3980; CIL 13.8701; CIL 13.11818; RIV 2166; Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 57.
  180. 181CIL 6.32574; Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, pp. 56–57.
  181. 182RIB 602, 933, 1017, 2015, 2024; Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 75.
  182. 183RIB 1578.
  183. 184RIB 2007.
  184. 185RIB 986 and 987; Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 75.
  185. 186Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 80.
  186. 187Jones, Barri & Mattingly, David (1990). An Atlas of Roman Britain (p. 275). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. .
  187. 188RIB 213; Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 82.
  188. 189Miranda J. Green. "Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend" (p. 142.) Thames and Hudson Ltd. 1997
  189. 190Green, Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, p. 216.
  190. 191Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (Éditions Errance, 2003), 2nd edition, p. 200.
  191. 192Gaulish 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, origi
  192. 193Helmut Birkham, entry on "Loucetius," in Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, edited by John Koch (ABC-Clio, 2006), p. 1192.
  193. 194RIB 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 vic
  194. 195Martin Henig, Religion in Roman Britain (Taylor & Francis, 1984, 2005), p. 61.
  195. 196Duncan Fishwick, "Imperial Cult in Britain," Phoenix 15.4 (1961), p. 219.
  196. 197A 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 (
  197. 198Fishwick, "Imperial Cult in Britain," p. 219.
  198. 199John Ferguson, The Religions of the Roman Empire (Cornell University Press, 1970, 1985), p. 212.
  199. 200Perhaps related to Campesie Fells in Stirlingshire; Fishwick, "Imperial Cult in Britain," p. 219.
  200. 201CIL 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.
  201. 202CIL 13.3096 (Craon), CIL 13.3101 and 3102, at Nantes, ILTG 343–345 (Allones); Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 200.
  202. 203Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.19; David Rankin, Celts and the Classical World (Routledge, 1987), p. 260.
  203. 204Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture, p. 209.
  204. 205John Wacher, The Towns of Roman Britain (University of California Press, 1974), p. 384.
  205. 206Green, Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art, p. 115.
  206. 207CIL 1190 = ILS 4581; E. Birley, "Deities of Roman Britain," p. 48.
  207. 208Anthony Birley, The People of Roman Britain (University of California Press, 1979), p. 141.
  208. 209Delamarre, entry on rix, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise, pp. 260–261; Green, Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art, p. 113.
  209. 210Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins, Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome (Facts on File, 1994, 2004), p. 297.
  210. 211Miranda Green, Celtic Myths (University of Texas Press, 1993, 1998), p. 42.
  211. 212G. 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
  212. 213Jaume 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. 5
  213. 214"Mars," The Classical Tradition, p. 565.
  214. 215Online Etymology Dictionary.

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