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Roman Gods and Goddesses
The Roman pantheon: the great state gods, the older Italic deities, the spirits of house and field, and the eastern cults that arrived under the empire.
Quiz yourself on these in RomeDrill →| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Aesculapius | Aesculapius is the Latin form of Greek Asklepios, god of healing. After a plague the Sibylline Books ordered his cult fetched from Epidaurus; his temple on the Tiber Island was dedicated in 291 BC, and the sick practised incubation there. His attribute is the snake-entwined staff. |
| Apollo | Apollo is the one major Greek god the Romans adopted without changing his name. First worshipped as a healer (temple of Apollo Medicus, 431 BC, after a plague), he became Augustus' patron: the Palatine temple of 28 BC housed the Sibylline Books. Twin brother of Diana; attributes the lyre, bow and laurel. |
| Bacchus | Bacchus is the Roman name (from Greek Bakchos) for Dionysus, god of wine, revelry and ecstatic liberation, often equated with the native Liber Pater. His attributes are the thyrsus, vine, ivy and panther; the Senate suppressed his mystery rites, the Bacchanalia, in 186 BC. |
| Castor and Pollux | The Dioscuri (Greek Kastor and Polydeukes), twin sons of Jupiter and Leda, were adopted at Rome as the Castores, patrons of the cavalry and the equestrian order. Their Forum temple commemorated their epiphany at the battle of Lake Regillus (c. 496 BC); the annual parade of the equites (transvectio equitum, 15 July) honoured them. |
| Diana | Diana was goddess of the hunt, woodland, the moon and childbirth, identified with Greek Artemis. Her temple on the Aventine, attributed to Servius Tullius, was a federal sanctuary of the Latin League and its dedication day (13 August) was a holiday for slaves; she also had a famous grove at Nemi (Diana Nemorensis). |
| Isis | Isis was the most popular of the Egyptian deities in the Roman world, worshipped as universal mother, mistress of the sea and saviour. Repeatedly expelled from Rome in the late Republic and under Tiberius, her cult gained a great temple in the Campus Martius (Iseum Campense); the Navigium Isidis on 5 March opened the sailing season. |
| Janus | Janus was god of doors (ianuae), gates, transitions and beginnings, shown with two faces looking in opposite directions; he had no Greek counterpart. The gates of his shrine in the Forum stood open in wartime and were closed only when Rome was at peace everywhere — under Numa, in 235 BC, and three times under Augustus. |
| Juno | Juno, wife of Jupiter and member of the Capitoline Triad, protected women, marriage and childbirth (as Juno Lucina) and the state (as Juno Regina); identified with Greek Hera. The mint stood beside her temple as Juno Moneta on the Arx, giving us the word 'money', and her sacred geese warned of the Gallic night attack (c. 390 BC). |
| Jupiter | Jupiter (Iuppiter Optimus Maximus) was the supreme god of the Roman state, god of sky, lightning and oaths, identified with Greek Zeus. His attributes are the eagle, thunderbolt and oak; triumphs ended at his temple on the Capitoline, and he headed both the Archaic and Capitoline Triads. |
| Mars | Mars was second only to Jupiter in the state cult: war god, agricultural protector and father of Romulus. Identified with Greek Ares but far more honoured; his festivals cluster in March and October (the campaigning season), and Augustus built the temple of Mars Ultor ('the Avenger') in his forum. |
| Mercury | Mercury (from merx, 'merchandise') was god of trade and profit, messenger of the gods and guide of souls, identified with Greek Hermes. His temple near the Circus Maximus was dedicated in 495 BC, and merchants honoured him on 15 May; Caesar called him the most worshipped god in Gaul. |
| Minerva | Minerva, of Etruscan-Italic origin (Menrva), was goddess of wisdom, handicrafts, the arts and warfare, identified with Greek Athena. She shared the Capitoline temple with Jupiter and Juno, was the patron of artisans, teachers and doctors, and was honoured at the Quinquatrus (19–23 March); Domitian was her special devotee. |
| Saturn | Saturn was an agricultural god said to have ruled Latium in a Golden Age, identified with Greek Cronus. His temple at the foot of the Capitoline (traditionally 497 BC) held the aerarium, the state treasury; his cult statue's feet were bound with wool, loosed only for the Saturnalia in December. |
| Venus | Venus, originally an Italic goddess of gardens and charm, became goddess of love through identification with Greek Aphrodite. As mother of Aeneas she was Venus Genetrix, ancestress of the Julii, to whom Caesar dedicated a temple in his forum in 46 BC; Sulla and Pompey honoured her as Felix and Victrix. |
| Attis | Attis was the beloved of Cybele; his self-castration was the mythical model for her eunuch priests, the Galli. From the reign of Claudius his cult was officially celebrated in March, with the pine-tree procession (22 March), the Day of Blood (24 March) and the joyful Hilaria (25 March). He wears a Phrygian cap. |
| Bellona | Bellona was the Roman goddess of war, equated with Greek Enyo. In front of her temple near the Circus Flaminius stood the columna bellica, over which a fetial priest hurled a spear to declare war on a distant enemy. |
| Ceres | Ceres, goddess of grain and the harvest (hence 'cereal'), was identified with Greek Demeter. With Liber and Libera she formed the Aventine Triad, whose temple (493 BC) was the religious centre of the plebs; her festival, the Cerealia, ran 12–19 April. |
| Cupid | Cupid (Cupido, 'desire'), also called Amor, was the Roman Eros, son of Venus. He had little cult of his own but is ubiquitous in art and poetry; the tale of Cupid and Psyche is told in Apuleius' Golden Ass. |
| Fortuna | Fortuna was goddess of fortune, good or bad, identified with Greek Tyche. Her cult was attributed to Servius Tullius; major forms include Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste, Fortuna Redux (the emperor's safe return) and Fors Fortuna (24 June). |
| Hercules | Hercules, the Roman form of Greek Heracles, was worshipped as a god of victory and commercial enterprise at the Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium, where merchants offered him a tithe of profits and women were excluded. Legend said he slew the cattle-thief Cacus there; Commodus styled himself the Roman Hercules. |
| Magna Mater | Cybele, officially Mater Deum Magna Idaea, was brought from Pessinus in 204 BC and received by Scipio Nasica; her Palatine temple was dedicated in 191 BC. She is shown turret-crowned with lions; her eunuch priests were the Galli, and her festival, the Megalesia, ran 4–10 April. |
| Mithras | Mithras was the focus of a Roman mystery cult attested from the late 1st century AD. Initiates passed through seven grades (Raven, Bridegroom, Soldier, Lion, Persian, Sun-runner, Father) and shared ritual meals in a mithraeum beneath the bull-slaying image (tauroctony). Women were excluded; the cult vanished in the Christian 4th century. |
| Neptune | Neptune was originally a god of fresh water and springs who took on the sea and horse-racing (Neptunus Equester) through identification with Greek Poseidon. His festival, the Neptunalia, fell on 23 July in the summer drought. |
| Proserpina | Proserpina, daughter of Ceres and wife of Dis Pater, was the Roman Persephone; her annual return explained the seasons. Her cult with Dis at the Tarentum altar was introduced in 249 BC on the advice of the Sibylline Books. |
| Serapis | Serapis (Sarapis) was created or promoted under Ptolemy I Soter as a patron for Greek-ruled Egypt and became the partner of Isis across the Roman world; he was a god of healing, fertility and the underworld. Vespasian and the Severans favoured him, and Caracalla built him a temple on the Quirinal. |
| Sol Invictus | Sol Invictus was the official sun god of the later Empire. Aurelian, crediting the Sun with his victory over Palmyra, built him a temple in the Campus Agrippae in 274, founded the pontifices Solis and instituted four-yearly games. His birthday was celebrated on 25 December. |
| Tellus | Tellus or Terra Mater was the goddess of the productive earth, often paired with Ceres and equated with Greek Gaia. Her temple on the Esquiline (Carinae) was vowed by P. Sempronius Sophus in 268 BC after an earthquake during battle; the Fordicidia on 15 April was her chief festival. |
| Vesta | Vesta was goddess of the hearth of home and state, identified with Greek Hestia. Her round shrine in the Forum held the sacred fire, relit each 1 March, and the Palladium; it contained no cult image. Her festival, the Vestalia, centred on 9 June. |
| Victoria | Victoria, the Roman Nike, had a temple on the Palatine (294 BC). Augustus set up her statue and altar in the Curia Julia in 29 BC; its removal by Gratian in 382 prompted Symmachus' famous plea for tolerance, rebuffed through Ambrose of Milan. |
| Vulcan | Vulcan (Volcanus) was god of fire, especially destructive fire, and later of metalworking through identification with Greek Hephaestus. His ancient open-air shrine, the Volcanal, stood in the Forum, but his temples were kept outside the city; the Vulcanalia was held on 23 August. |
| Archaic Triad | Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, the original leading gods of the Roman state, served respectively by the Flamen Dialis, Flamen Martialis and Flamen Quirinalis. The concept was developed by Georges Dumézil; the group was later eclipsed by the Capitoline Triad. |
| Aventine Triad | Ceres, Liber and Libera, worshipped in a temple on the Aventine slope vowed in 496 and dedicated in 493 BC. It was the headquarters of the plebeian aediles and a counterweight to the patrician-dominated Capitoline cult; the Greek parallel is Demeter, Dionysus and Kore. |
| Bona Dea | The 'Good Goddess', sometimes identified with Fauna, was worshipped exclusively by women. Her temple on the Aventine was dedicated on 1 May, and an annual nocturnal rite in December was held in the house of a magistrate with imperium — famously profaned by Clodius in 62 BC. |
| Capitoline Triad | Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Juno Regina and Minerva, worshipped together in the great temple on the Capitoline (traditionally dedicated 509 BC). The grouping was of Etruscan inspiration and replaced the older Archaic Triad; Roman colonies built their own Capitolia in imitation. |
| Carmenta | Carmenta (or Carmentis, from carmen, 'song, prophecy') was a prophetic goddess and protector of women in labour, with her own minor flamen. Her festival, the Carmentalia, fell on 11 and 15 January; leather was forbidden in her shrine beside the Porta Carmentalis. |
| Concordia | Concordia personified agreement between the orders of the state (Greek Harmonia/Homonoia). Her Forum temple, by tradition vowed by Camillus in 367 BC, was rebuilt by L. Opimius in 121 BC and by Tiberius (dedicated AD 10); the Senate often met there, as for Cicero's fourth Catilinarian. |
| Consus | Consus (from condere, 'to store') protected grain kept in underground silos. His subterranean altar at the first turning post of the Circus Maximus was exposed for the Consualia (21 August and 15 December), celebrated with horse and mule races; the Rape of the Sabines was set at the first Consualia. |
| Dii Consentes | The twelve great gods: Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Neptune, Mars, Venus, Apollo, Diana, Vulcan, Vesta, Mercury and Ceres (the list is from Ennius). They were honoured together at the lectisternium of 217 BC, and the Portico of the Dii Consentes in the Forum was restored as late as AD 367. |
| Elagabal | Elagabal (Ilah ha-Gabal, 'god of the mountain') was the baetyl-god of Emesa, Latinised as Sol Invictus Elagabalus. The emperor Varius Avitus, known by the god's name, installed the stone in a Palatine temple (the Elagabalium); after his murder in 222 it was sent back to Syria. |
| Epona | Epona (from Gaulish epos, 'horse') is shown seated side-saddle or between horses. Her cult spread from Gaul with the auxiliary cavalry across the frontier provinces and to Rome itself, where the imperial horse guard worshipped her. |
| Faunus | Faunus was an Italic god of the wild countryside, fertility of flocks and oracular utterance, identified with Greek Pan; his female counterpart was Fauna. He had a temple on the Tiber Island (dedicated 194 BC, feast 13 February) and a rustic festival on 5 December, and was associated with the Lupercalia. |
| Fides (goddess) | Fides (Fides Publica) was the deified virtue of trustworthiness, her cult ascribed to Numa. Her Capitoline temple (A. Atilius Calatinus, mid-3rd century BC) displayed treaties and diplomas, and the Senate sometimes met there. The flamines drove to her shrine in a covered carriage and sacrificed with covered right hands. |
| Flora | Flora was an ancient Italic goddess of flowering plants, with her own minor flamen (Flamen Floralis) and a temple near the Circus Maximus founded in 238 BC. Her festival, the Floralia, featured mimes, prostitutes and the release of hares and goats; Ovid equates her with the Greek nymph Chloris. |
| Genius | The genius was a man's personal tutelary spirit; the household worshipped the genius of the paterfamilias at the lararium. Places and institutions had one too (genius loci, genius populi Romani). Cult of the Genius Augusti let Romans honour the living emperor without calling him a god. |
| Jupiter Dolichenus | Jupiter Dolichenus was the Romanised Baal of Doliche (near Gaziantep), whose mystery cult spread along the frontiers and had a sanctuary on the Aventine. It collapsed after the Persians sacked Doliche in the mid-3rd century. |
| Juturna | Juturna was a water nymph whose spring, the Lacus Iuturnae, lay in the Forum next to the Temple of Castor, where the Dioscuri were said to have watered their horses after Lake Regillus. She also had a temple in the Campus Martius, and her festival, the Juturnalia, fell on 11 January. |
| Juventas | Juventas (Iuventas) protected the iuvenes, men of military age, and was identified with Greek Hebe. Her shrine stood within the cella of Minerva in the Capitoline temple, and she received a temple near the Circus Maximus in 191 BC, vowed at the Metaurus. |
| Lares | The Lares were protective spirits of a place: the Lar familiaris guarded the household and was honoured at the lararium, the Lares Compitales protected neighbourhood crossroads, and the Lares Praestites the city. Augustus reorganised the crossroads cult in 7 BC as the Lares Augusti. |
| Lemures | Lemures (also called larvae) were the hostile, wandering dead, in contrast to the benign Manes. They were appeased at the Lemuria on 9, 11 and 13 May. Linnaeus borrowed the word for the nocturnal primates of Madagascar. |
| Liber | Liber Pater ('the Free Father') was an Italic god of viticulture, fertility and liberty, worshipped with Ceres and Libera in the Aventine Triad and later assimilated to Bacchus/Dionysus. His festival, the Liberalia, fell on 17 March. |
| Libertas | Libertas personified both personal freedom and republican liberty; her attributes are the pileus (freedman's cap) and the rod (vindicta). She had a temple on the Aventine built by Ti. Sempronius Gracchus c. 238 BC, and appears on the coins of Brutus and of Galba. |
| Libitina | Libitina presided over burial. Undertakers (libitinarii) hired out equipment at her grove, and by a rule ascribed to Servius Tullius a coin was deposited there for every death; her name became a poetic synonym for death itself (Horace, Odes 3.30). The gate by which dead gladiators left the arena was the Porta Libitinensis. |
| Manes | The Di Manes ('the good gods', a euphemism) were the spirits of the departed, honoured at the Parentalia in February. Tombstones from the late 1st century BC onwards begin Dis Manibus (D.M.), 'to the spirits of the dead'. |
| Mater Matuta | Mater Matuta was an Italic dawn goddess and protector of childbirth, equated with Greek Leucothea (Ino). Her temple in the Forum Boarium (the Sant'Omobono sanctuary), ascribed to Servius Tullius, was restored by Camillus after the capture of Veii in 396 BC. Her festival was the Matralia. |
| Ops | Ops (Ops Consiva) personified plenty and the stored harvest; as Saturn's consort she was equated with Greek Rhea. She had a shrine in the Regia entered only by the Vestals and the pontifex maximus, and a temple on the Capitoline where Caesar deposited a vast treasure. Festivals: Opiconsivia (25 August) and Opalia (19 December). |
| Pax | Pax, the Roman Eirene, became prominent under Augustus as the embodiment of the Pax Augusta. The Ara Pacis Augustae was vowed in 13 BC and dedicated in 9 BC; Vespasian dedicated the Temple of Peace in AD 75. Her attributes are the olive branch, cornucopia and caduceus. |
| Penates | The Di Penates guarded the household's food store (penus) and were honoured at family meals together with Vesta and the Lares. The Penates Publici of the Roman people, brought from Troy by Aeneas to Lavinium, had a temple on the Velia, and new consuls sacrificed to them at Lavinium. |
| Pluto | Pluto, called in Latin Dis Pater ('Rich Father') and sometimes Orcus, was god of the underworld and the dead, brother of Jupiter and Neptune and equivalent to Greek Hades/Plouton. He and Proserpina were worshipped at an underground altar at the Tarentum in the Campus Martius, focus of the Secular Games. |
| Pomona | Pomona (from pomum, 'fruit') was the goddess of orchard fruit, with no Greek equivalent and no known festival; her priest was the Flamen Pomonalis. In Ovid's Metamorphoses she is won by Vertumnus disguised as an old woman. |
| Portunus | Portunus was originally god of gates (portae) and then of ports (portus), identified with Greek Palaemon. He had his own flamen, and the Portunalia fell on 17 August. The well-preserved 'Temple of Fortuna Virilis' in the Forum Boarium is in fact his. |
| Quirinus | Quirinus was an ancient god, perhaps Sabine, of the Roman people in their civil capacity (Quirites), forming the Archaic Triad with Jupiter and Mars. By the late Republic he was identified with the deified Romulus; he had his own flamen, a temple on the Quirinal and a festival, the Quirinalia, on 17 February. |
| Roma | Dea Roma was the deified personification of Rome, shown helmeted and enthroned. Her cult began in the Greek East and became the vehicle of the provincial imperial cult ('Roma and Augustus'); at Rome itself she received a temple only under Hadrian, in the Temple of Venus and Roma (dedicated AD 135). |
| Salus | Salus personified public welfare (Salus Publica Populi Romani) and later health, through identification with Hygieia, daughter of Asclepius. Her Quirinal temple was dedicated in 302 BC by C. Junius Bubulcus; the augurs performed the augurium salutis to ask whether prayers for the state's safety might be made. |
| Silvanus | Silvanus (from silva, 'forest') protected woods, fields, herds and property boundaries. He had no place in the official calendar, yet is among the most frequently named gods in inscriptions of the western provinces, especially from slaves, freedmen and soldiers. He is shown with a pruning knife, pine branch and dog. |
| Spes | Spes was the divine personification of hope, equivalent to Greek Elpis. Her temple in the Forum Holitorium was built by A. Atilius Calatinus during the First Punic War; its remains are built into the church of San Nicola in Carcere. Under the Empire Spes Augusta expressed hopes for the dynasty's heirs. |
| Terminus | Terminus was the divine power residing in boundary stones. When the Capitoline temple was planned, the augurs found that he (with Juventas) would not be moved — taken as an omen of Rome's permanence. Neighbours garlanded their shared boundary stones at the Terminalia on 23 February. |
| Tiberinus | Tiberinus (Pater Tiberinus) was the divine personification of the Tiber, invoked in prayers by augurs and pontiffs; legend made him an Alban king who drowned in the river Albula, which then took his name. His festival fell on 8 December, with a shrine on the Tiber Island. |
| Vejovis | Vejovis (Veiovis, Vediovis) had temples on the Capitoline 'between the two groves' (dedicated 192 BC; remains survive beneath the Palazzo Senatorio) and on the Tiber Island. A she-goat was sacrificed to him, and the Julian family maintained his cult at Bovillae. |
| Vertumnus | Vertumnus (Vortumnus, from vertere, 'to turn') was a god of seasonal change and plant growth brought from Etruscan Volsinii, with a temple on the Aventine built by M. Fulvius Flaccus. Propertius 4.2 is spoken by his statue, and Ovid tells of his courtship of Pomona. |
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