80 Fun Facts About Roman Mythology

Which three deities made up the Capitoline Triad, the centre of official Roman religion?

The older Archaic Triad was Jupiter, Mars and a third deity; the Capitoline version came under Etruscan influence and shared one temple on the Capitoline Hill.

Which god completed the Archaic Triad alongside Jupiter and Mars?

By the 2nd century BC Romans identified him with the deified Romulus; the Quirinal Hill and the word Quirites, for citizens, share his name.

Which second king of Rome, a Sabine, is credited with founding Roman religion and its priesthoods?

Legend says the nymph Egeria advised him; Livy and Ovid's Fasti are the main sources for the stories.

Who was the mother of Romulus and Remus?

Her usurping uncle Amulius had forced her into the priesthood so she would have no heirs; the god Mars had other ideas.

What was the name of the shepherd who found the twins with the she-wolf and raised them?

The cave where the wolf nursed them, the Lupercal, later gave its name to the Lupercalia festival.

In the augury contest to decide who would found the city, how many birds did Romulus claim to see?

Remus saw six first, Romulus twelve afterwards; the dispute over which counted ended with Remus dead.

What did modern dating suggest about the Capitoline Wolf, long thought to be Etruscan?

The suckling twins were added around 1471, probably by Antonio del Pollaiuolo; Mussolini handed out replicas, including one to Rome, Georgia.

At which religious gathering did Romulus's men abduct the Sabine women?

Rome had almost no women; when the Sabines came for revenge the women threw themselves between the armies, and Titus Tatius ruled jointly with Romulus.

Which Roman noblewoman's rape and suicide sparked the revolt that founded the Republic?

Lucius Junius Brutus paraded her body in the Forum and had the Tarquins banished; Shakespeare retold it in The Rape of Lucrece.

What did the doors of the Temple of Janus in Rome signify when they were closed?

They were shut only a handful of times: once in the third century BC, three times under Augustus and once by Nero.

Which Roman god had no Greek equivalent at all?

The two-faced god of doorways and beginnings was invoked first in every ceremony, whatever deity was being honoured.

How many Vestal Virgins served at any one time?

Chosen before puberty, they served at least 30 years and could pardon a condemned man simply by crossing his path.

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

The crime was called incestum; the burial site near the city boundary was the Campus Sceleratus, the 'field of wickedness'.

Which privilege did Vestal Virgins enjoy that ordinary Roman women did not?

They also had reserved seats at the games and could travel by carriage inside the city.

The Lares were guardian gods of the household. Where were they honoured?

They were shown as two lively dancing youths and their statues came to the table at meals; the Penates guarded the storeroom.

Which god's stone refused to be moved when the Temple of Jupiter was built on the Capitoline?

He was the god of boundary markers, honoured at the Terminalia on 23 February; his stone was simply enclosed within the new temple.

On what date was the Saturnalia originally held?

By the 1st century BC it ran to 23 December, with gambling allowed, masters serving slaves and a mock 'King of the Saturnalia'.

What did Roman citizens, normally bare-headed, wear during the Saturnalia?

Catullus called the festival 'the best of days'; several of its customs may have bled into Christmas.

At the Lupercalia on 15 February, what did the Luperci priests do after sacrificing goats and a dog?

The thongs were called februa, which gave February its name; women got in the way on purpose, believing it helped fertility.

Which famous refusal happened at the Lupercalia of 44 BC?

Antony was running as one of the Luperci; a month later Caesar was dead.

Who wrote the Aeneid?

He worked on it from 29 to 19 BC and wanted it burned when he died; Augustus overruled his executors and had it published.

How many books does the Aeneid have?

The first six, Aeneas's wanderings, echo the Odyssey; the last six, the war in Italy, echo the Iliad.

What are the opening words of the Aeneid?

'Of arms and the man I sing' - Virgil announces war and a hero in three words.

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

Creusa is lost in the escape; young Ascanius, also called Iulus, gave the Julian family its claim to descend from Venus.

How does Dido, queen of Carthage, die in the Aeneid?

Her dying curse of eternal hatred between Carthage and Troy's descendants foreshadows the Punic Wars.

According to legend, how did Dido acquire the land for Carthage?

The hill was named Byrsa, 'hide'; she had fled Tyre after her brother murdered her husband.

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

He carries the golden bough as his passport and meets his father Anchises, who shows him the future heroes of Rome.

How does the Aeneid end?

He hesitates over Turnus's plea for mercy, then sees the belt of his dead friend Pallas and strikes - the poem stops there.

What did King Tarquinius end up with after an old woman kept burning the prophecy volumes he refused?

The Sibylline Books were kept under the Capitoline temple and consulted in crises by a college of fifteen priests until Stilicho burned them around 405.

Which Roman general finally destroyed the Sibylline Books in the early 5th century AD?

They had already been lost once, in the fire of 83 BC, and reassembled from oracles gathered across the Mediterranean.

Ovid's Metamorphoses runs from the creation of the world to what final event?

Its 15 books hold more than 250 myths; Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet owes its plot to the Pyramus and Thisbe episode.

Ovid's Fasti, a poem on the Roman religious calendar, covers which months?

He left it half finished when Augustus exiled him to the Black Sea in AD 8; he later re-dedicated it to Germanicus.

Cupid, the Roman god of desire, is usually said to be the son of which two gods?

His golden arrows cause love and his leaden ones aversion, which is how Apollo ended up chasing an unwilling Daphne.

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

Also called the Metamorphoses, it is the only Latin novel to survive complete.

Fortuna, goddess of luck, was typically depicted with which object?

Sometimes veiled and blind like Justice; her wheel rolled on into the Middle Ages through Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy.

Fortuna's Greek equivalent is which goddess?

Her great sanctuary at Praeneste, Fortuna Primigenia, was adopted by Rome at the end of the 3rd century BC.

Rome declared war on distant enemies by having a fetial priest throw a javelin over what?

The columna bellica stood in for foreign soil; Bellona's own priests cut their arms and legs as offerings.

Why did the Senate meet in the Temple of Bellona rather than the Curia when receiving certain visitors?

The sacred city boundary barred armies and, by custom, foreign ambassadors; the war goddess's temple stood just beyond it.

Which Greek god was the horned Roman forest deity Faunus equated with?

His festivals were the Faunalia in February and December; his sister-wife Fauna was identified with the Bona Dea, whose rites excluded men.

Which two months are named for Julius Caesar and Augustus, replacing Quintilis and Sextilis?

January honours Janus and March Mars; May and June probably Maia and Juno; the year originally began in March, which is why September is 'seventh'.

The name of the month of February most likely comes from what?

The februa were the goatskin thongs of the Lupercalia; April may come from aperire, 'to open', or the Etruscan goddess Apru.

Which people had a settlement on one of Rome's seven hills and later shared a king with Romulus?

Titus Tatius, the Sabine king, ended up ruling Rome jointly with Romulus after the affair of the Sabine women.

Which emperor's confiscation of its revenues in 382 AD effectively ended the cult of Vesta?

A last Vestal was reportedly still met in 394; the sacred fire had burned for a thousand years.

Which Roman historian, with the Aeneid, is the best surviving source for Rome's founding myths?

Livy's Ab Urbe Condita gives the Romulus, Sabine and Lucretia stories in full; the Romans themselves identified their gods with Greek ones freely.

Which Roman goddess, queen of the gods and wife of Jupiter, had the peafowl as her sacred animal?

She was mother of Mars, Vulcan, Bellona, Lucina and Juventas, and Rome called her Regina, Queen.

Juno was worshipped under the epithet Moneta at a Capitoline temple that later gave its name to what?

As Regina and Moneta she was a sovereign deity; as Curitis, spear-holder, an armed protectress.

Which god split Jupiter's head with a hammer, letting Minerva spring out fully armed?

Jupiter had swallowed her mother, the Titaness Metis, after tricking her into becoming a fly.

Minerva's festival, the Quinquatria, began five days after the Ides in which month?

It ran until 23 March and was an artisans' holiday.

Which creature usually accompanies Minerva as her sacred animal and a symbol of wisdom?

Less often she appears with a snake or an olive tree.

Which Roman leader dedicated a temple to Venus Genetrix in 46 BC, claiming her as his ancestor?

The Julian line traced itself to Venus through her son Aeneas.

Venus Erycina, worshipped on the Capitoline, was originally a statue of which Punic goddess?

It came from Eryx, hence the epithet.

Diana was venerated as a triple goddess at her sacred grove on the shores of which body of water?

Horace called her diva triformis: huntress, moon and underworld.

Vesta, goddess of the hearth, was rarely shown in human form; what usually represented her instead?

Only her priestesses could enter the temple in the Forum, and Theodosius extinguished the flame in 391.

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

The festival ran from 7 to 15 June and was among Rome's most important.

Ceres, goddess of grain, headed which grouping of deities worshipped on the Aventine?

Her seven-day April festival, the Cerealia, included the popular Ludi Ceriales.

Proserpina, Ceres's daughter, merged with which older Roman fertility goddess on the Aventine?

She shared the temple there with Ceres and the wine god Liber Pater.

Bellona, the war goddess whose temple hosted the Senate, is named from which Old Latin word?

Duellum became bellum in classical Latin.

Flora, Roman goddess of flowers and spring, corresponds to which Greek goddess?

Her April festival, the Floralia, opened with theatrical performances.

The rites of Bona Dea allowed Roman women two things otherwise forbidden them; which?

Men were barred, and only initiates learned her true name.

Publius Clodius Pulcher's intrusion on the women-only rites of Bona Dea in 62 BC led to whose divorce?

Clodius was acquitted, but Caesar divorced Pompeia because 'Caesar's wife must be above suspicion'.

Pomona, goddess of fruitful abundance, takes her name from the Latin word for what?

She has no clear Greek counterpart, and Ovid pairs her with the shape-shifting Vertumnus.

Victoria, Roman goddess of victory, appears as a renaming of Nike beginning in which conflict?

Unlike Nike she has virtually no mythology of her own.

Libertas, goddess of liberty, is usually shown holding out which object in her right hand?

The pileus, worn by freed slaves, later inspired the liberty caps of the American and French revolutions.

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

A Sibylline oracle promised it would drive Hannibal out of Italy.

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

Both descend from the older dawn deity Hausos, as does the Vedic Ushas.

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

Her temple stood on the Collis Salutaris, one of the Quirinal's hilltops.

In Roman myth, whose spilled milk formed the Milky Way after she pushed away the infant Hercules?

Jupiter had placed his son by a mortal woman on the sleeping goddess's breast so he would drink divine milk and become immortal.

The Trojan prince Aeneas was cast as the husband of Lavinia, daughter of which king of the Latins?

Through a convoluted genealogy this made Aeneas the forebear of Romulus and Remus and the Trojans the ancestors of Rome.

Which Roman hero thrust his right hand into a fire to prove his loyalty to Rome?

Other moral tales include Horatius holding the bridge and Cloelia, the hostage who escaped Lars Porsena but returned to save the treaty.

Which Roman woman, held hostage by Lars Porsena, escaped but returned voluntarily to save others?

Her return preserved the peace treaty; Tarpeia, by contrast, gave her name to the rock from which traitors were thrown.

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

He was also the god of sowing, just as Ceres governed grain growth and Consus and Ops the harvest.

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?

Foreigners and former slaves kept their own rites in the city, which is how the cult first reached Rome.

Which Latin phrase, meaning 'I give that you might give', sums up the contractual nature of Roman religion?

Religion depended on correct prayer, rite and sacrifice rather than on faith or dogma.

Which Etruscan king of Rome founded the Capitoline temple to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva?

It became the model for the highest official cult throughout the Roman world.

Roughly how many annual religious festivals do Roman calendars show?

Sacred days, dies fasti, actually outnumbered the 'non-sacred' dies nefasti.

Roman haruspices divined the will of the gods chiefly by examining which organ of a sacrificed animal?

They also interpreted omens, prodigies and portents and prescribed how to expiate them.

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

He conquered the city in her name, brought her statue to Rome 'with miraculous ease' and built her a temple on the Aventine.

Which general's devotio, offering his own life in battle to the underworld gods, did Livy describe?

Family tradition held that his son and grandson, bearing the same name, also devoted themselves.

What did the Latin word templum originally refer to, before it meant a temple building?

Vitruvius always uses the word in that sense; Roman architecture was 'an art of shaping space around ritual'.