Greek Mythology, Ares
Saturday, June 5, 1971
Wednesday, May 19, 1971
Aestas (Roman)
Aestas (Roman)
Aestas ("summer", or "summer heat") is the Roman personification of summer. She is mentioned by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, and She may be his own invention. He describes Her as standing by the emerald throne of Phoebus (the Sun-god), with the other personifications of Time such as the Day, Month, Year, Century, and the Hours and the other Seasons, Spring, Autumn and Winter. She is naked except for a garland of grain or wheat-sheaves in Her hair.
According to Pliny the Elder, the Summer Solstice takes place when the Sun is in the eighth degree of Cancer. What the Romans thought of as the first day of Summer was considered to take place on the forty-eighth day after the vernal equinox, which Pliny states as the day when the Sun enters the 8th degree of Aries. (By modern figuring, the Sun enters the 1st degree of Aries on the vernal equinox). Using the current calendar, that puts the Romans' first day of Summer on the 7th of May. Silvius, though, considers the first day of Summer to be the 27th of June.
Ovid's depiction of Aestas may owe something to the Greek depiction of the Horai, the Goddesses of the Seasons. Their number varied with the place and time of their worship, there sometimes being two, three, or four of them, but they were generally shown as garlanded with the fruits or flowers of their respective seasons.
http://www.thaliatook.com/OGOD/aestas.html
Aestas ("summer", or "summer heat") is the Roman personification of summer. She is mentioned by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, and She may be his own invention. He describes Her as standing by the emerald throne of Phoebus (the Sun-god), with the other personifications of Time such as the Day, Month, Year, Century, and the Hours and the other Seasons, Spring, Autumn and Winter. She is naked except for a garland of grain or wheat-sheaves in Her hair.
According to Pliny the Elder, the Summer Solstice takes place when the Sun is in the eighth degree of Cancer. What the Romans thought of as the first day of Summer was considered to take place on the forty-eighth day after the vernal equinox, which Pliny states as the day when the Sun enters the 8th degree of Aries. (By modern figuring, the Sun enters the 1st degree of Aries on the vernal equinox). Using the current calendar, that puts the Romans' first day of Summer on the 7th of May. Silvius, though, considers the first day of Summer to be the 27th of June.
Ovid's depiction of Aestas may owe something to the Greek depiction of the Horai, the Goddesses of the Seasons. Their number varied with the place and time of their worship, there sometimes being two, three, or four of them, but they were generally shown as garlanded with the fruits or flowers of their respective seasons.
http://www.thaliatook.com/OGOD/aestas.html
Thursday, April 15, 1971
Adonis (Greek)
Adonis
Alternative Names (異名): Ἄδωνις, 아도니스, Adonis
Categories: Greek mythology
Adonis (Greek Ἄδωνις, Adonis, from the Northwest Semitic 'A-D-N) is a figure of West Semitic origin, where he is a central cult figure in various mystery religions, who entered Greek mythology. He is closely related to the Egyptian Osiris, the Semitic Tammuz and Baal Hadad, the Etruscan Atunis and the Phrygian Attis, all of whom are deities of rebirth and vegetation. His cult belonged to women: the cult of dying Adonis was fully-developed in the circle of young girls around Sappho on Lesbos, about 600 BCE, as a fragment of Sappho reveals.
Adonis is one of the most complex cult figures in classical times. He has had multiple roles, and there has been much scholarship over the centuries concerning his meaning and purpose in Greek religious beliefs. He is an annually-renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity whose nature is tied to the calendar. His name is often applied in modern times to handsome youths.
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Mythology
Alternative Names (異名): Ἄδωνις, 아도니스, Adonis
Categories: Greek mythology
Adonis (Greek Ἄδωνις, Adonis, from the Northwest Semitic 'A-D-N) is a figure of West Semitic origin, where he is a central cult figure in various mystery religions, who entered Greek mythology. He is closely related to the Egyptian Osiris, the Semitic Tammuz and Baal Hadad, the Etruscan Atunis and the Phrygian Attis, all of whom are deities of rebirth and vegetation. His cult belonged to women: the cult of dying Adonis was fully-developed in the circle of young girls around Sappho on Lesbos, about 600 BCE, as a fragment of Sappho reveals.
Adonis is one of the most complex cult figures in classical times. He has had multiple roles, and there has been much scholarship over the centuries concerning his meaning and purpose in Greek religious beliefs. He is an annually-renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity whose nature is tied to the calendar. His name is often applied in modern times to handsome youths.
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Mythology
Wednesday, March 3, 1971
Acca Larentia (Roman)
Acca Larentia
Alternative Names (異名): Acca Larentia, Acca Larentina
Acca Larentia or Acca Larentina was a mythical woman, later goddess, in Roman mythology whose festival, the Larentalia, was celebrated on December 23.
Foster mother
In one mythological tradition (that of Licinius Macer, et al.), she was the wife of the shepherd Faustulus, and therefore the adoptive mother of Romulus and Remus, whom she is said to have saved after they were thrown into the Tiber on the orders of Amulius. She had twelve sons, and on the death of one of them Romulus took his place, and with the remaining eleven founded the college of the Arval brothers (Fratres Arvales). She is therefore identified with the Dea Dia of that collegium. The flamen Quirinalis acted in the role of Romulus (deified as Quirinus) to perform funerary rites for his foster mother.
Benefactor of Rome
Another tradition holds that Larentia was a beautiful girl of notorious reputation, roughly the same age as Romulus and Remus, during the reign of Ancus Marcius in the 7th century BC. She was awarded to Hercules as a prize in a game of dice, and locked in his temple with his other prize, a feast. When the god no longer had need of her, he advised her to marry the first wealthy man she met, who turned out to be an Etruscan named Carutius (or Tarrutius, according to Plutarch). Larentia later inherited all his property and bequeathed it to the Roman people. Ancus, in gratitude for this, allowed her to be buried in the Velabrum, and instituted an annual festival, the Larentalia, at which sacrifices were offered to the Lares. Plutarch explicitly states that this Laurentia was a different person from the Laurentia who was married to Faustulus, although other writers, such as Licinius Macer, relate their stories as belonging to the same being.
Prostitute
Yet another tradition holds that Larentia was neither the wife of Faustulus nor the consort of Hercules, but a prostitute called "lupa" by the shepherds (literally "she-wolf", but colloquially "courtesan"), and who left the fortune she amassed through sex work to the Roman people.
Connection to Lares
Whatever may be thought of the contradictory accounts of Acca Laurentia, it seems clear that she was of Etruscan origin, and connected with the worship of the Lares, from which her name may or may not be derived. This relation is also apparent in the number of her sons, which corresponds to that of the twelve country Lares. T.P. Wiseman explores the connections among Acca Larentia, Lara, and Larunda in his books Remus: A Roman Myth and The Myths of Rome.
Functions
Like Ceres, Tellus, Flora and others, Acca Laurentia symbolized the fertility of the earth, in particular the city lands and their crops. Acca Larentia is also identified with Larentina, Mana Genita, and Muta.
Tag
Roman mythology | Roman goddesses | Agricultural goddesses | Courtesans of antiquity |
Alternative Names (異名): Acca Larentia, Acca Larentina
Acca Larentia or Acca Larentina was a mythical woman, later goddess, in Roman mythology whose festival, the Larentalia, was celebrated on December 23.
Foster mother
In one mythological tradition (that of Licinius Macer, et al.), she was the wife of the shepherd Faustulus, and therefore the adoptive mother of Romulus and Remus, whom she is said to have saved after they were thrown into the Tiber on the orders of Amulius. She had twelve sons, and on the death of one of them Romulus took his place, and with the remaining eleven founded the college of the Arval brothers (Fratres Arvales). She is therefore identified with the Dea Dia of that collegium. The flamen Quirinalis acted in the role of Romulus (deified as Quirinus) to perform funerary rites for his foster mother.
Benefactor of Rome
Another tradition holds that Larentia was a beautiful girl of notorious reputation, roughly the same age as Romulus and Remus, during the reign of Ancus Marcius in the 7th century BC. She was awarded to Hercules as a prize in a game of dice, and locked in his temple with his other prize, a feast. When the god no longer had need of her, he advised her to marry the first wealthy man she met, who turned out to be an Etruscan named Carutius (or Tarrutius, according to Plutarch). Larentia later inherited all his property and bequeathed it to the Roman people. Ancus, in gratitude for this, allowed her to be buried in the Velabrum, and instituted an annual festival, the Larentalia, at which sacrifices were offered to the Lares. Plutarch explicitly states that this Laurentia was a different person from the Laurentia who was married to Faustulus, although other writers, such as Licinius Macer, relate their stories as belonging to the same being.
Prostitute
Yet another tradition holds that Larentia was neither the wife of Faustulus nor the consort of Hercules, but a prostitute called "lupa" by the shepherds (literally "she-wolf", but colloquially "courtesan"), and who left the fortune she amassed through sex work to the Roman people.
Connection to Lares
Whatever may be thought of the contradictory accounts of Acca Laurentia, it seems clear that she was of Etruscan origin, and connected with the worship of the Lares, from which her name may or may not be derived. This relation is also apparent in the number of her sons, which corresponds to that of the twelve country Lares. T.P. Wiseman explores the connections among Acca Larentia, Lara, and Larunda in his books Remus: A Roman Myth and The Myths of Rome.
Functions
Like Ceres, Tellus, Flora and others, Acca Laurentia symbolized the fertility of the earth, in particular the city lands and their crops. Acca Larentia is also identified with Larentina, Mana Genita, and Muta.
Tag
Roman mythology | Roman goddesses | Agricultural goddesses | Courtesans of antiquity |
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