Greek and Roman Deities Glossary

1

Greek and Roman Deities

Glossary

In this glossary I have summarized what is said about Greek and Roman gods in the following sources:

• Aeschylus: Agamemon, Eumenides, Prometheus Bound, The Suppliant Maidens.

• Augustine: The City of God.

• Homer: Iliad, Odyssey.

About the Greek gods generally:

1.

They dwell on Olympus, “the everlasting home of the gods” (Odyssey VI.42). However, they are also associated with “the heights of Ida”, described as “many-fountained” and “mother of wild beasts.” The highest peak in this range is Gargarus:

“they found Jove seated on topmost Gargarus with a fragrant cloud encircling his head as with a diadem” (Iliad XV.151ff).

We are told: “Here no wind beats roughly, and neither rain nor snow can fall; but it abides in everlasting sunshine and in a great peacefulness of light, wherein the blessed gods are illumined for ever and ever” (Odyssey VI.43ff). In one extraordinary passage it is indicated that heaven, where the gods live above Mount Olympus, is not very high (by modern standards) since by adding the heights of Mount Olympus, Mount Ossa and Mount Pelion one has determined the height of heaven from earth, the height to be scaled in order to launch an assault on heaven (Odyssey XI.311ff).

2.

They wear ambrosial robes woven by the Graces (Iliad V.338). Juno uses ambrosia to cleanse all the dirt from her fair body and anoints herself with an ambrosial olive oil (XIV.171ff).

3.

They have immortal blood, or ichor, flowing in their veins (Iliad V.340-1).

4.

They can be wounded, in which case the immortal blood flows, but also may be miraculously healed. So when Mars is wounded, we are told, “[Jove] then bade Paeeon heal him, whereon Paeeon spread pain-killing herbs upon his wound and cured him, for he was not of mortal mould. As the juice of the fig-tree curdles milk, and thickens it in a moment though it is liquid, even so instantly did Paeeon cure fierce Mars. Then Hebe washed him, and clothed him in goodly raiment, and he took his seat by his father Jove all glorious to behold” (V.899ff). Jove threatens to inflict wounds on Juno and Minerva, when they show signs of defying his will, that would take 10 years to heal (VIII.403ff).

5.

They do not eat bread or drink wine (Iliad V.343)

6.

When necessary they ride in chariots driven by gold-bedizened steeds which feed on ambrosial forage (Iliad V.363ff). The wheels are made of bronze and have eight spokes. The axle is made of iron. Gold and silver also forms parts of the wheel and of the chariot itself (V.722ff.).

7.

The divine mounts: “As far as a man can see when he looks out upon the sea from some high beacon, so far can the loudneighing horses of the gods spring at a single bound. When they reached Troy and the place where its two flowing streams

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Simois and Scamander meet, there Juno stayed them and took them from the chariot. She hid them in a thick cloud, and

Simois made ambrosia spring up for them to eat; the two goddesses (sc. Juno and Minerva) then went on, flying like turtledoves in their eagerness to help the Argives” (V. 769ff). “With this [Jove] yoked his fleet horses, with hoofs of bronze and manes of glittering gold. He girded himself also with gold about the body, seized his gold whip and took his seat in his chariot” (VIII.51).

8.

The gates of heaven: “Juno lashed her horses, and the gates of heaven bellowed as they flew open of their own accord – gates over which the Hours preside, in whose hands are heaven and Olympus, either to open the dense cloud that hides them or to close it” (VIII.390ff).

9.

The Hours unyoke the horses of the gods, securing them in their ambrosial mangers, and parking their chariots (VIII.432ff).

10.

When the deities swear oaths they do so “by the dread waters of the river Styx.” So Sleep asks Juno: “lay one hand on the bounteous earth, and the other on the sheen of the sea, so that all the gods who dwell down below with Saturn may be our witnesses…” We read that Juno “swore, and invoked all the gods of the nether world, who are called Titans, to witness”

(XIV.269ff; cf. Odyssey V.182ff).

11.

All rivers are gods. So we read that when Jove summoned all the gods to assemble: “There was not a river absent except

Oceanus, nor a single one of the nymphs that haunt fair groves, or springs of rivers and meadows of green grass” (Iliad

XX.7-10).

12.

Making offerings to a deity [often referred to as a hecatomb: One or more living creatures slain and offered to a deity as part of a religious rite] may be a complete waste of time. Thus in Odyssey III.145ff, Agamemnon is called a fool for trying to appease the anger of Minerva by offering hecatombs to her: “he might have known that he would not prevail with her, for when the gods have made up their minds they do not change them lightly.” Menelaus confides to Telemachus, “I was trying to come here [home], but the gods detained me in Egypt, for my hecatombs had not given them full satisfaction, and the gods are very strict about having their dues” (Odyssey IV.351ff). Hecatombs are so desired by the gods that

Mercury tells Calypso, “Jove sent me; it was no doing of mine, who could possibly want to come all this way over the sea where there are no cites full of people to offer me sacrifices or choice hecatombs?” (Odyssey V.100ff).

13.

The gods have limited power to stave off death. So Minerva herself states, “Still, death is certain, and when a man’s hour is come, not even the gods can save him, no matter how fond they are of him” (Odyssey III.236ff).

14.

The gods are not able to disguise themselves from each other, so when Mercury visits Calypso we read: “Calypso knew him at once – for the gods all know each other, no matter how far they live from one another” (Odyssey V.77ff).

15.

Not one of the gods is truly omniscient. When Calypso is forced by Jove to let Ulysses go we read, “But King Neptune, who was returning from the Ethiopians, caught sight of Ulysses a long way off, from the mountains of Solymi. He could see him sailing upon the sea, and it made him very angry, so he wagged his head and muttered to himself, saying, ‘Good heavens, so the gods have been changing their minds about Ulysses while I was away in Ethiopia, and now he is close to the land of the Phaeacians…” (Odyssey V.282ff).


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16.

It is possible for mortals to be made into gods. So when Ulysses is in great peril at sea we read, “When he was in this plight, Ino daughter of Cadmus, also called Leucothea, saw him. She had formerly been a mere mortal, but had since been raised to the rank of a marine goddess” (Odyssey V.333ff).

17.

Hades is thought to be a place reachable once one has been blown by the North Wind over the waters of Oceanus. First, the shore of Proserpine’s country is reached “with its groves of tall poplars and willows that shed their fruit untimely.” By beaching a ship on the shore of Oceanus one can then head towards “the dark abode of Hades”, locating it near the place where the roaring rivers Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus (a branch of the river Styx) flow into Acheron.

18.

Tartarus is located beneath the earth and beneath hell. This is the place where one experiences the fierce anger of Zeus but a place where one does not experience mocking laughter” (Prometheus Bound).

19.

The gods mirror human perversity: “And of the courts celestial I know That there dwell jealous wives who hate and curse;

For waves run high when breezes stiffly blow” (Aeschylus, The Suppliant Maidens).

20.

There is a group of gods called “the Twelve Great Gathering Gods” (Agamemnon).

Deity

Abeona

Adeona

Aesculanus

Aesculapius

Agenor

Agenoria

Alastor

God/Goddes

s

Goddess

Description

Roman. Responsible for the going away of children

Goddess Roman. Responsible for the coming of children

God

God

Goddess

God

Roman. Father of Argentinus. God of brass coin

Roman god of medicine. Grandson of Cybele. Originally from

Epidaurus

Roman deity associated with motivating action

Roman. Excites to action

Greek. Pelasgus, king of Argos worries that if he refuses to offer sanctuary to the Danaides (Suppliant Maidens) then his land will be

Texts/Dates

Augustine, City of God IV.21;

VII.3


VII.3

Augustine, City of God IV.21,

28

Augustine, City of God III.12,

17, 21, 22; VIII.26

Augustine, City of God IV.11


Aeschylus, The Suppliant

Maidens, 422


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Altor

Atlas

God crushed “By haunting visitations of the God Whose business is destruction, Alastor, The unforgetting instrument of wrath, Who even in the house of Hades suffers not The dead man to go free.”

Roman deity. Associated with the way the earth nourishes the Augustine, City of God VII.23

An

Apollo

God

God springs of the earth.

Heaven. Husband of Ki. Father of Ninhursag

Aphrodite Goddess Also

(Suppliant Maidens, 669-70).

Greek deity adopted by the Romans. Son of Leto. One of the 20

Select Gods according to Varro. Brother of Diana.

Ares

Argentinus

Argus

God

God

God

Greek. God of war, son of Zeus and Hera. Ares “who makes men to mourn.” Also called Mars.

Roman. Son of Aesculanus. God of silver coin

Greek. A monster with 100 eyes and immense strength, considered


28

Artemis Goddess

Ate Goddess to be the perfect guard. Set by Hera to guard Io whom Io describes as “that evil thing – The hundred-eyed – Earth-born herdsman! I see him yet” (Prometheus Bound).

Also

Greek. Associated with vengeance (Choephoroe).

Athene/Athena Goddess Greek. Called Pallas Athene. A daughter of Zeus but, as Apollo points out “Zeus’ own self-created child” who had no mother

(Eumenides). Also called “Onka Invincible” (Seven Against Thebes),

Onka being a Phoenician name given to Athene by the Thebans.

Orestes seeks her protection calling upon her as “Sovran Athena”

(Eumenides). Orestes, seeking her favour, describes her as the one who used his father, Agamemnon, to “dispeople Ilium” and “unstate

Augustine, City of God II.16;

III.11, 17; IV.11, 21; VI.7;

VII.2, 16; XVIII.9, 10, 12;

Iliad I; IV.506ff; Agamemnon

Suppliant Maidens 668

Troy” (Eumenides).

God/Titan Greek. Called “the magician”, looks after the bottom of the ocean and “carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth asunder” (Odyssey I.53ff). Brother of Prometheus who speaks of his


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Bacchus

Bellona

God

Goddess woes: “in the west Shouldering the pillar that props heaven and earth” (Prometheus Bound).

Greek. Alternate name for Dionysus.

Roman. Goddess of war often associated with Mars. Derived from Augustine, City of God II.24;

bellum. III.13; IV.11, 21, 24, 34; V.22;

VI.10

Berecynthia Goddess See

Bia

Bromius

God

God

Greek. A son of Zeus and brother to Kratos and Hephaestus

(Prometheus Bound). His name means “Force” or “Violence.”

Greek. Alternate name for Dionysus (Eumenides).

Bubona Roman deity responsible for oxen. Derived from the word bos. Augustine,

34

Calypso Goddess nymph

Greek. Daughter of the magician Atlas. Detains Ulysses in a cave because she wants to marry him. Promised to make him an immortal

Odyssey I.14ff; 53; IX.28.

Camoena

Cardea God who would never grow old (Odyssey VII.256ff).

Roman deity who teaches people to sing

Roman. Responsible for the hinges on doors



Carmentes

Castor

Goddesses

God

Roman. Goddesses who sing the fates of newborn babies

Greek. Called “breaker of horses.” A mortal who along with his brother Pollux is accorded the rank of a god. Like his brother he actually lies buried as a corpse in the ground. However, on each alternate day “throughout all time” either he or his brother rise to walk the earth (Odyssey XI.298ff).

VI.7


Celestis

(Coelestis)

Ceres Goddess

Charis

Chthon

Goddess

Goddess

Greek and Roman deity of cornfields, said to have discovered corn.

One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro. Called “The Great

Mother.” Controls the seeds of females. Associated with the dry


VI.1, 7; VII.2, 16, 19-20, 24-

26; VIII.27 part of the seed. Ceres sexually joins with the mortal Iasion who is then killed by Jove (Odyssey V.103ff).

Greek. Wife of Vulcan, “of graceful head-dress” (Iliad XVIII.380).

Greek. Wife of Ouranos, mother of the Titans (Prometheus Bound).


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Circe

Cloacina

Coelus

Collatina

Concord /

Concordia

Consentes

Consus

Cronos

Cunina

Cybele

Dawn

Diana

Goddess

God

Goddess

Goddess

Deities

God

God

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

Greek. Called “a great and cunning goddess” by Ulysses who recounts how she sought to marry him (Odyssey X.135ff; cf. IX.30).

She lives on the Aeaean island and is sister to Aeetes, the magician.

She and her brother are “children of the sun by Perse, who is daughter to Oceanus” (X.137ff). She sang “most beautifully as she worked at her loom, making a web so fine, so soft, and of such dazzling colours as no one but a goddess could weave” (X.127ff).

She drugs Ulysses’ men and then turns them into pigs. She has the power to send Ulysses a fair wind when he sets off (XI.6; XII.148-9).

Roman. A goddess promoted by Titus Tatius.

Roman. Father of Saturn and castrated by him.

Roman. Controller of the downs

Roman. Giver of concord

Those gods and goddesses admitted into the council of Jupiter

Roman. Enables counsel to be given

Greek. Father of Zeus. Displaced from his throne by Zeus

(Prometheus Bound).

Roman. Watches over the cradles of babies. Derived from the word

cunae.

Mother of gods. Also known as Rhea and Berecynthia (Augustine)


23; VI.10

Augustine, City of God VII.19


Augustine, City of God III.25;

IV.24




11, 21, 24, 34

Augustine, City of God II.4, 5;

III.12

Iliad XI.1 Greek. Once angered the other gods when she sexually cohorted with the mortal, Orion, who was then killed by Diana (Odyssey

V.121ff). When morning breaks it is because Dawn leaves Oceanus, having yoked her two steeds Lampus and Phaethon “that bear her onward to break the day upon mankind” (Odyssey XXIII.242ff).

Greek/Roman. Also called Artemis. One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro. Controller of forests. Daughter of Leto (Seven

Against Thebes). Sister of Apollo. Some identify her with the moon.

The guardian of roads. “Diana of the golden throne” (Iliad IX.532).

“The archer goddess” (IX.540; XX.39) who uses golden arrows


VI.7; VII.2, 16


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Diespiter

Dione

Dis (Father)

Discord

Diverra

Domiduca

Domiducus

Domitius

Dread

Goddess

(XX.69) and a silver bow (Seven Against Thebes). At one point Juno upbraids her, “Bold vixen, how dare you cross me thus? For all your bow you will find it hard to hold your own against me. Jove made you as a lion among women, and lets you kill them whenever you choose…She caught both Diana’s wrists with her left hand as she spoke, and with her right she took the bow from her shoulders, and laughed as she beat her with it about the ears while Diana wriggled and writhed under her blows. Her swift arrows were shed upon the ground, and she fled weeping from under Juno’s hand as a dove that flies before a falcon to the cleft of some hollow rock…” (XXI.480ff).

Like Venus renowned for her beauty, so Penelope comes down from her room “looking like Venus or Diana” (Odyssey XIX.53-4). Penelope asks Diana to put her to death to relieve her of her misery, addressing her as “Great Goddess Diana” (Odyssey XX.60ff). In the

Suppliant Maidens the Danaides pray, “And may arrowy Artemis

Bring the struggling babe to birth.” The Danaides call her “Chaste

Artemis” (The Suppliant Maidens). Artemis is especially offended with Agamemnon and determined to avenge herself on him, forcing him to sacrifice his only daughter (Agamemnon).

Roman deity responsible for the dawning of the day

Mother of Venus


Iliad V.12

God

Goddess

God

Roman. See Orcus

Greek. Sent by Jove with the ensign of war to the Achaeans. Takes delight at the sight of the Trojans and Achaeans killing each other.

Roman. Named from the cut made by the hatchet. One of the three gods assigned to protect a woman from molestation by the god

Silvanus after she has given birth.

Goddess. Roman. See Juno

God

God

Roman. Invoked when a married woman is being brought home.

Roman. Invoked that a married woman may be in the house.

According to Augustine made a Roman deity by King Hostilius

XVIII.12

Iliad XI.3ff, 73ff.

Augustine, City of God VI.9





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Educa

Enyo

Eurynome

Faith

Fates

Faunus

Fear

Felicity /

Felicitas

Goddess Roman. Provider of food

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

Called “the waster of cities”, a goddess of war

Greek: “daughter of the ever-encircling waters of Oceanus” who,

Goddess with Thetis, cared for Vulcan for 9 years when he was suffering from a heavy fall due to his mother Juno’s anger (Iliad XVIII.395ff).

Of dubious standing as a goddess, yet venerated via temple and altar

Goddesses Apollo once failed to change their will by making them drunk, seeking to spare a mortal from death (Eumenides). Sisters of the

Furies (Eumenides).

Roman. Appointed as a deity by Romulus

According to Augustine made a Roman deity by King Hostilius

Roman. Goddess of happiness


34; VI.9

Iliad V.334





19, 21, 23, 24, 25; V.Preface;

VII.3, 14

Augustine, City of God IV.21 Fessonia Goddess Roman. Invoked for the weary

Fever Goddess

Flora

Folly

Goddess

Goddess

Roman. Controls grain in flower

Greek. Oldest of Jove’s daughters who shuts men’s eyes to their destruction: “She walks delicately, not on the solid earth, but hovers over the heads of men to make them stumble or to ensnare them” (Iliad XIX.91ff). When Juno tricked Jove and forced him to install another than his own choice as lord among men (because of an oath he had made), Jove, in his fury “caught Folly by the hair, and swore a great oath that never should she again invade starry heaven and Olympus, for she was the bane of all. Then he whirled her round with a twist of his hand, and flung her down from heaven…” (XIX.125ff).


Fortuna /

Fortune

Roman goddess who presides over fortuitous events. It was Fortune who brought Ulysses to Calypso’s island (Odyssey VII.248ff).

Augustine,

VI.7


18, 19; VI.1; VII.3


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Fortuna

Barbata

Roman deity who endues adults with beards

Fructesca Goddess Roman. Enables people to receive the most abundant fruits

Fulgora Goddess

Furies

Gaia

Goddesses Greek. Regarded as “goddesses” by Athena (Eumenides). Sisters of the Fates (Eumenides). Though plural they often speak in the singular and are addressed in the singular. They are the merciless hunters of those who kill relatives. Athena recognizes them to be

Goddess wiser and older than herself.

Greek. Mother of Themis. Hailed by the Pythian prophetess as the

Genius

Graces, the

Gula

Hades

Hebe

Helios

“first Prophetess”, that is, the first Delphic oracle (Aeschylus,

Eumenides).

Roman deity. One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro. Has the power of begetting all things.

Goddesses Greek. Juno promises to marry the youngest of the Graces to the god Sleep. Dance with Venus (Odyssey XVIII.194-5).

Goddess Sumerian. Goddess of healing

God

Goddess

God

Greek. Described as being “huge.” Was once wounded by the human warrior, Amphitryon (Iliad V.396ff). “It is only Hades who is utterly ruthless and unyielding – and hence he is of all gods the one most hateful to mankind” (IX.158-60). Becomes terrified when Neptune shakes the earth, lest he “should crack the ground over his head, and lay bare his mouldy mansions to the sight of mortals and immortals – mansions so ghastly grim that even the gods shudder to think of them” (XX.62ff). A “jealous Judge of Men” (Eumenides).

Greek. Daughter of Jove and Juno (Odyssey XI.604) married in heaven to Hercules who, following his death, now feasts with the immortal gods for ever.” Hebe pours out nectar for the council of gods. She is also the one who fits the eight-spoked bronze wheels on the chariot of the gods.

Greek. Surprisingly, in Ancient Greece this god was very much a minor deity. Orestes says of him: “but he that watcheth all the world, Helios” (Aeschylus, Choephoroe).



City of God VI.10

Augustine, City of God VII.2,

13, 16, 23

Iliad IV.3; V.722-4. Is there some confusion here. Is the

Hebe of the Iliad different from the Hebe of the

Odyssey?


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Hephaestus God Greek. The blacksmith to the gods who brings hammer, nails and chains with which to nail Prometheus to the rock (Prometheus

Bound). A son of Zeus and brother to Kratos and Bia. Also called

Vulcan.

Greek.

Hercules Demigod Augustine, City of God IV.23;

VI.7; XVIII.8, 12

Hermes God Greek/Roman.

Titaness

Greek. Wife of Prometheus and daughter of Oceanus (Prometheus

Bound).

Honor God Roman. Enables people to be honoured

Hostilina

Hyperion

Ino

Intercidona

Io

Iris

Goddess

God

Goddess

God

Goddess

Goddess

Roman. Responsible for the condition of all the stems of the corn plants having new ears

Greek. The sun-god, father of Phaethusa and Lampetie by Neaera

(Odyssey XII.134-5). Hyperion has an island on which are cattle and sheep which do not breed yet never lessen in number. Hyperion calls out to Jove for vengeance on Ulysses’ crew when they kill cattle on his island (Odyssey XII.376ff).

A mortal woman subsequently raised to the rank of marine goddess

(Odyssey V.333ff).

Roman. Named from the cut made by the hatchet. One of the three gods assigned to protect a woman from molestation by the god


Greek. Daughter of Inachus. A divinised mortal. The Ionian sea is named after Io. Appears to Prometheus “crazed and horned”, that is, in the form of a cow (Prometheus Bound). Zeus had a passionate love affair with her and she as turned into a cow by the jealous and enraged Hera (The Suppliant Maidens). She asks Prometheus,

“Hear’st thou the lowing of the maid cow-horned?” (Prometheus

Bound).

Greek. Known for her speed. A special emissary of Jove. Described as “fleet as the wind” (Iliad XVIII.167). Sent by Jove to tell the


24; V.12



Iliad II.786; III.121ff; XI.185ff;

Agamemnon 692


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Trojans the bad news concerning the return of Agamemnon’s massive forces. Also appears to Helen.

Egyptian

Iterduca Goddess

Janus

Jugatinus

God Roman. The god of initiation, holding dominion over all beginnings.

Also viewed as the world itself. One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro. The month January is dedicated to Janus.

Jove God

Roman. Controls the ridges of the mountains and yokes couples in marriage

Juno Goddess Greek then Roman. Also called Hera. Queen of the 20 Select Gods, according to Varro.

Jupiter

Juventas

Kratos

God

Goddess

God

Greek then Roman. The old Roman name is Jove (used often by

Augustine). The Greeks called him Zeus, though Homer calls him

Jove.

Takes charge of adolescent youths


23; VI.9; VII.2, 3, 4, 7-11, 15,

17, 26, 28

Iliad (on almost every page)


11; VI.9

Virgil; Augustine, City of God

I.3, 4; III.13; IV.10, 11; V.18;

VI.7, 10; VII.2, 3, 11, 15, 16,

24, 28; VIII.5; XVIII.10;

Iliad I.540ff; IV.7ff

Augustine, City of God II.7, 8,

12, 24; III.12, 13, 14, 17, 27;

IV.9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17,

21, 23, 25, 29; V.8, 12, 18,

21; VI.7, 10; VII.2, 9-16, 17-

19, 23, 24, 26, 28; VIII.5;

XVIII.8, 10, 12


23, 29; VI.1

Lacturnus

Lampetie

Leto

God

Goddess

God

Greek. A son of Zeus (Prometheus Bound). His name means

“Strength” or “Power.” Brother of Bia and Hephaestus.

Roman god of milk and responsible for the sap of plants

Greek. This goddess with the goddess Phaethusa, both daughters of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera, tend herds of cattle and sheep which miraculously, though they do not breed, never become fewer in number (Odyssey XII.127ff).

Greek. Mother of Diana and Apollo. Matched against Apollo in the battle between the Trojans and Achaeans (Iliad XX.72).



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Levana

Libentina

Liber

Libera

Light

Limentinus

Lucina

Luna

Lymphs

Manturnae

Marica

Mars

God

Goddess

Goddess

God

Goddess

Goddess

God

Goddess

Roman. Enables a newborn baby to be lifted

Name derived from “lust”

Roman deity of vineyards. Called “Father.” One of the 20 Select

Gods according to Varro. Controller of male sperm. Provider of wine. Associated with the fluid part of the seed. Named from

“liberation” because through him males at the time of copulation are liberated by the emission of the seed. Wine is valued as a means of exciting lust. See also Dionysus

Roman goddess controlling the ova of women. Often identified with

Venus and Ceres. Named from “liberation” because they also were thought to emit seed at the time of copulation and in this way experience liberation.

According to Augustine made a Roman deity by Titus Tatius

Roman. Responsible for thresholds and lintels in doorways




22; VI.1, 9; VII.2, 3, 4, 16, 19,

21, 24; XVIII.12


VI.9; VII.3, 19

Roman deity invoked by women in childbirth

Roman star deity. One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro.

Roman. Provider of water



VI.7


34


VII.2, 16


VI.1

Augustine, City of God VI.9 Roman. Invoked that a married woman may remain with her husband.

Roman. Worshipped by the inhabitants of Minturnae 1 Augustine,

Greek then Roman. Son of Juno (Hera) and Jove (Zeus). Also called

Ares. One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro. The reputed father of Romulus. God of war. Causer of death. Often associated with Bellona, the Roman goddess of war. On one occasion he was bound by men, Otus and Ephialtes, children of Aloeus, and

City of God II.23

Augustine, City of God II.15,

17; III.3, 5; IV.10, 11, 21, 23,

29, 34; V.1, 22; VI.10; VII.2,

3, 14-15; XVIII.10;

Iliad V.29ff. imprisoned in a bronze vessel for 13 months. Though immortal, he would have perished (been annihilated) had he not been rescued by

Mercury (Iliad V.385ff). Called “murderous Mars” (Iliad V.461), “Sir

Facing-both-ways” (V.889). The bard Demodocus sings of how “Mars


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Matuta

Mellona

Mena (Mens)

Mercury

Goddess

Goddess

God

Minerva Goddess made Venus many presents, and defiled King Vulcan’s marriage bed” (Odyssey VIII.266ff). Mars is disgraced when with Venus he is trapped by Vulcan and exposed to all the gods. In the Suppliant

Maidens, the Danaides pray that in Argos there will not be heard

“Lustful Ares’ joyless strain, Who in fields not of his sowing Reaps the harvest of the slain.” They also say that he “loveth neither dance nor lyre; Children he hath at his desire But they are tears.”

Etiocles: “For human carnage is God Ares’ meat” (Seven Against

Thebes). Theban women: “The soul of all reverence a mad breath pollutes when Ares hath masterdom!” (Seven Against Thebes).

Roman. Responsible for the maturation of crops

Roman. Responsible for providing honey

Roman. Daughter of Jupiter and step-daughter of Juno. Responsible for the menstruation of women. . Enables children to have a good mind.

Greek/Roman. Also called Hermes in Prometheus Bound. One of the

20 Select Gods according to Varro.




21; VII.2, 3

Greek Goddess of Troy. One of the 20 Select Gods according to

Varro. Goddess of learning. She enables people to memorise things.

Plato identified Minerva with ideas. Minerva restrained Achilles from killing Agamemnon by appearing to him in a vision. Minerva is partial to the sons of Atreus. “She shot through the sky as some brilliant meteor which the sun of scheming Saturn has sent as a sign to mariners or to some great army, and a fiery train of light follows in its wake” (Iliad IV.75-9). Called “Pallas Minerva.” Also called

“the Tritoborn” and addressed as “Holy Queen” (Odyssey III.379ff).

Normally wears a richly embroidered garment made by herself, but in battle adorns herself with “the shirt of Jove” (V.733ff): “She drew her tasseled aegis about her shoulders, wreathed round with

Rout as with a fringe, and on it were Strife, and Strength, and Panic whose blood runs cold; moreover there was the head of the dread monster Gorgon, grim and awful to behold, portent of aegis-bearing


21; VI.7; VII.2, 14-15, 26;

VIII.26; XVIII.8

Augustine, City of God I.2;

III.8; IV.10, 11, 21; V.18;

VI.10; VII.2, 3, 16, 28; XVIII.8,

9, 10, 12; Iliad I.188-219;

II.156ff; IV.10ff; V.1ff


September 2007

Minos

Moon

Murcia

Neptune

14

God

Goddess

God

Jove. On her head she set her helmet of gold, with four plumes…”

Described as “the grey-eyed goddess” (XVIII.227). “So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals, imperishable, with which she can fly like the wind over land or sea; she grasped the redoubtable bronze-shod spear, so stout and sturdy and strong, wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her…” (Odyssey I.96ff). Controls the winds to enable Ulysses to safely swim to shore in a tumultuous sea (Odyssey V.382ff).

Greek. Son of Jove who sits with a golden scepter in his hand, sitting in judgment on the dead. The ghosts gather around him to learn his sentence upon them (Odyssey XI.568ff).

According to Augustine made a Roman deity by Titus Tatius

Roman. Ensures people do not move “beyond measure” and makes them “slothful and inactive”

Greek, then Roman. Also called Poseidon. One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro. Brother of Jupiter and Orcus, uncle of Apollo.

King of the sea. Called “earth-encircling Neptune” (Iliad XIII.45;

XX.34), “lord of the earthquake” (VII.447; XIII.45) and “shaker of the earth” (VII.456). Also called “Poseidon, Lord of the horse, the wave” (Seven Against Thebes). Called “Lord of Earth” (Seven

Against Thebes). Offerings were brought to him at Helice and Aegae

(VIII.204-5). He is described leading the Danaans into battle against the Trojans: “In his strong hand he grasped his terrible sword, keen of edge and flashing like lightning” (XIV.384). Neptune is the relentless persecutor of Ulysses (Odyssey I.20; XI.103). Infuriated with Ulysses after he blinds the eye of Polyphemus king of the

Cyclopes (Odyssey I.68ff). Offerings of thanksgiving are made to him after experiencing fair winds and a safe voyage (Odyssey III.178-9).

Neptune drowned proud Ajax (Odyssey IV.491ff). Neptune slept with the mortal woman, Periboea so that Nausithous was his son

(Odyssey VII.55ff). When Mars is trapped by Vulcan after adulterously sleeping with Vulcan’s wife Venus, Neptune pledges to pay the damages to Vulcan to enable Mars to be released (Odyssey




III.2; IV.10, 11, 34; VI.10;

VII.2, 16, 21, 22, 23, 28;

XVIII.9, 10, 12


September 2007

15

Nodotus

Numeria

Oceanus

Opis / Ops

Orcus

Osiris

Ouranos

Pallas

Pallor

Pan

God

God

God

God

Goddess

God

VIII.343ff). Neptune seduced the mortal woman Tyro (XI.235ff) and she bore mortal sons to Neptune. He also had sex with Iphimedeia, a moral woman who was evidently already married (XI.305ff). In The

Persians the ghost of Darius lambasts Xerxes for his folly in thinking he could quell Poseidon’s realm. Aeschylus has Theban women calling upon Poseidon, “Smite them, as men smite fishes, even with they forked spear!” (Seven Against Thebes).

Controls joints and knots of the stems of crops

Roman deity who teaches people to number

Greek. Father of Perse (Iliad X.139) and husband to Tethys. His


Augustine, City of God IV.11 daughters draw near the bound Prometheus in mid-air in their winged chariot, having come from their sea-cave. Oceanus himself expresses his symphathy and reverence for Prometheus. Prometheus addresses him as Certes (Prometheus Bound).

Deity who enables the newborn baby to exit the womb. According to

Augustine made a Roman deity by Titus Tatius

Roman deity. One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro. Brother of Jupiter and Neptune. Also known as Father Dis. Identified with the lowest part of the world. The receiver of the dead. Carried off

Proserpine and detained her among the inhabitants of the nether world.

Egyptian. In “sacred rites Osiris, being lost, is lamented for, but


21; VII.24


3, 16, 20, 23

Greek. Considered along with Apollo and Zeus as one who might send the Destroying Angel to finish off Troy (Agamemnon). “Flocks and herds in yeaning time Pan shall with twin offspring bless”

(Eumenides).

Augustine, City of God VI.10 straightway, when found is the occasion of great joy by his reappearance, because both the losing and the finding of him are feigned…”

Greek. Father of the Titans (Prometheus Bound).

Greek. Alternate name for Athena (Eumenides).

Roman deity promoted by Tullus Hostilius. Associated with a bodily change of colour.



September 2007

16

Phoebe

Phoebus

Phorcys

Picus

Pilumnus

Pluto

Pollux

Patelana

Paventia

Pavor

Pecunia

Pellonia

Perse

Pertunda

Phaethusa

Polyphemus

Goddess

God

God

God

God

God

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

God

Roman. Takes over control of the corn crop when “the sheaths opened that the spike might shoot forth”

Roman deity associated with the fear experienced by infants

Roman deity promoted by Tullus Hostilius. Associated with the agitation of the mind under fright.

Roman. Enables people to have plenty of money. Associated with greed.

Roman. Invoked to drive away enemies

Greek. Daughter of Oceanus (Iliad X.138-9).

Roman. One of the gods present in the bed-chamber to help a newly





24; VII.3, 11, 12


Augustine, City of God VI.9 married woman to more readily yield her virginity.

Greek. This goddess with the goddess Lampetie, both daughters of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera, tend herds of cattle and sheep which miraculously, though they do not breed, never become fewer in number (Odyssey XII.127ff).

Greek. Titaness, Chthon’s child. The third Delphic oracle

(Eumenides).

Greek. Alternate name for Apollo.

Greek. Sea-king, father of the nymph Thoosa, consort of Neptune

(Odyssey I.72).

A deity appointed as a Roman god by Romulus Augustine, City of God IV.23;

VI.10

Augustine, City of God VI.9 Roman. Named from the cut made by the hatchet. One of the three gods assigned to protect a woman from molestation by the god


Roman. Brother of Jupiter. God of the earth. “Pluto” is the Latin name for Father Dis, that is, Orcus. See also Orcus

Greek. Called “the mighty boxer.” A mortal who along with his brother Castor is accorded the rank of a god. Like his brother he


IV.10; VI.7 actually lies buried as a corpse in the ground. However, on each alternate day “throughout all time” either he or his brother rise to walk the earth (Odyssey XI.298ff).

Greek. Son of Neptune by the nymph Thoosa. The king of the


September 2007

17

Pomona

Poseidon God Greek.

Potina Goddess Roman. Responsible for the provision of drinks

Prema Goddess

Cyclopes whose eye was blinded by Ulysses (Odyssey 69ff).

City of God IV.24,

34

City of God VI.10

Roman. One of the gods present in the bed-chamber to help a newly married woman to more readily yield her virginity. Present to keep a virgin under the man one he is in position.


34; VI.9


Priapus Roman deity responsible for conjugal intercourse. One of the gods present in the bed-chamber to help a newly married woman to more readily yield her virginity. Sacred rites involved use of a massive iconic penis upon which a newly-married bride was commanded to sit.

Prometheus God/Titan Vulcan when Prometheus gave the gift of fire to humans – “I am


VI.7, 9; VII.24

Proserpine Goddess

Proserpina

Proteus God

Prometheus, giver of fire to mortals” (Prometheus Bound). Son of

Themis, a Titanness. Brother of Atlas (Prometheus Bound). Married

Hesione and thus became Oceanus’ son-in-law (Prometheus Bound).

Roman. Carried off by Pluto, that is, Orcus, and made his consort.

Associated with the lower part of the earth. She is called “dread

Proserpine” and she only enables the blind Theban prophet

Teiresias to remain sane in Hades, leaving the other ghosts to flit about aimlessly (Odyssey X.492ff).

Controls

Greek. Neptune’s head man who “knows every inch of ground all over the bottom of the sea.” Called “an Egyptian.” A goddess tells

Menelaus that if he succeeds in capturing Proteus then this god will tell him how to reach home safely and give him up to date news as to what is happening at his home (Odyssey IV.382ff). This god has the ability to change himself into every kind of creature that goes on the earth or into running water or a tree.


11; VI.7; VII.20, 23, 24


September 2007

18

Quies Goddess Roman. Makes men quiet. Her temple was built outside the Colline gate.

Romulus

Rhea Goddess

Romulus

Rubigo

Rumina

Demigod

Goddess

Goddess

Roman. Venerated as a co-founder of Rome, but treated as a god by the Romans named Quirinus

Roman. Responsible for preventing mildew damage to crops

Roman. Enables women to suckle newborn babies

Runcina Goddess Roman. Responsible for the removal of plants from the soil

Rusina Roman.

Rusor

Salacia

Saturn

God

Goddess

God

Roman. Associated with all things returning back to the place whence they proceeded.

Consort of Neptune. Associated with the lower part of the sea and with the wave that returns into the sea.

Roman. Son of Coelus. Father of Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto. One of

Sleep God the 20 Select Gods according to Varro. God of time. According to

Augustine made a Roman deity by Titus Tatius. He devoured his own children and castrated his father. Bestower of the male seed and holds dominion over all seeds. Overthrown by his son, Jupiter.

Called “scheming Saturn.”

Segetia

Seia

Sentia

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

Roman. Controls corn crops but only when above the ground.

Derived from the word seges.

Roman. Controls seed-corn under the ground

Roman. Inspires sentences

Sentinus God Roman. Obscure deity who imparts sensation to the foetus.

Serapis God Egyptian

Silvanus God Roman. A god guarded against by three gods after a woman has given birth to prevent him from molesting that woman. Inhabits the woods and considered rough, horrible and uncultivated.

Greek. Brother of death Juno calls on Sleep to close Jove’s eyes in sleep while she is locked with him in sexual embrace (Iliad


Augustine, City of God II.15,

17; III.3, 5



21, 34; VI.10; VII.11


Augustine,



11; VI.10; VII.22


IV.10, 11, 23; VI.7, 8; VII.2, 3,

4, 13, 15, 17-19, 21, 26;

VIII.5;

Iliad II.205


24, 34



Augustine, City of God VII.2, 3

Augustine,



September 2007

19

Sol

Spiniensis

Statilinus

Stimula

God

God

Goddess

Strenia/Strenua Goddess

Strife

Subigus

God

God

Summanus

Sun (see

Hyperion)

God

Tellumo

Tellus

Terminus

God

Goddess

God

XIV.238ff). Once in great danger of being thrown by Jove into the sea for having succumbed to Juno’s plan to put Jove to sleep so that she might hatch a plot against Hercules. At that time he was protected by the goddess Night (XIV.253ff).

Roman. One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro. Star deity Augustine, City of God IV.11;

VII.2, 16

Roman. Responsible for preventing the growth of thorns in the fields Augustine, City of God IV.21

Roman deity who enables infants to stand

Roman. Provider of the stimulants “by which man is spurred on to much action” or to “unusual action”



16

Roman goddess who enables stenuous action Augustine, City of God IV.11,

16

Iliad XX.49-50


Greek. Called “strong Strife, rouser of hosts.”

Roman. One of the gods present in the bed-chamber to help a newly married woman to more readily yield her virginity. He helps the virgin to be got under the man.

A deity to whom ancient Romans attributed nocturnal thunderstorms

Greek and Roman. According to Augustine made a Roman deity by

Titus Tatius. In the Odyssey the sun is introduced as a very minor deity. He figures as the one who saw Mars and Venus defiling

Vulcan’s marriage bed and who informed Vulcan of this (VIII.266ff).



This god “sees and gives ear to everything” (XI.109). The sun-god is to be identified with Hyperion (Odyssey XII.135, 384ff)

Roman deity linked with Tellus. Varro speaks of the earth as having a double life – the masculine which produces seed, that is, Tellumo, and the feminine, which receives and nourishes the seed, Tellus.

Roman deity. One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro.

Identified with the earth, the land.

Roman deity associated with termination and controlling the limits of the Roman empire. The month February is dedicated to

Terminus. This is apparently why the Terminalia were celebrated in this month, the same month in which the sacred purification called



23-24, 28


23, 29; V.21; VII.7


September 2007

20

Tethys

Themis

Thetis

Thoosa

Tibernus

Titans

Tithonus

Triad

Tutilina

Typhon

Vallonia

Vaticanus

Venilia

Venus

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

Nymph

Gods

God

Goddess

Februum was performed (according to Plutarch).

Greek. Wife of Oceanus (Prometheus Bound).

Daughter of Gaia. Lovely, the first deity on Olympus to offer hospitality to Juno when she came. Gathers the deities at Jove’s

Iliad XV.88; XX.5 request. Mother of Prometheus (Prometheus Bound). Themis succeeded Gaia in the seat of prophetess, that is, the second

Delphic oracle (Eumenides).

Greek. Mother of Achilles through the mortal Peleus. Sea goddess.

Swayed Jove to grant vengeance to Achilles when he was dishonoured by Agamemnon. Called “silver-footed” (XVIII.127).

Sister to the sea-nymphs. Thetis, with Eurynome, cared for Vulcan for 9 years when he was punished by his mother Juno (XVIII.395ff).

Greek. Daughter of the sea-king Phorcys (Odyssey I.71)

Roman. Appointed as a deity by Romulus

Iliad I.345-543


VI.10

Iliad XI.1ff; Odyssey V.2

Greek gods of the nether world (Iliad XIV.278).

Greek. Husband of Dawn. Harbinger of light for mortals and immortals.

In earlier Sumerian texts the supreme divine triad was An, Enlil and

Ninhursag. In later texts this became An, Enlil and Enki with

Ninhursag ranked fourth.

Roman. Preserver of collected and stored grain Augustine, City of God IV.8

God/Titan Greek. A multi-headed creature (100 heads) who fought against the gods. Zeus cast Mount Etna in Sicily on top of him (Prometheus

Bound).

Roman. Controller of the valleys

Goddess

Presides over the screaming of infants. Roman deity responsible for opening the mouth of a newborn baby enabling it to cry

Roman deity associated with instilling hope. Joined to Neptune.

Associated with the wave that comes to the shore.

Greek then Roman goddess.



11, 21


VII.22

Augustine, City of God III.3,

5, 13, 14, 25; IV.10; VI.7, 9,

10; VII.2, 3, 15, 26; XVIII.10;


September 2007

21

Vesta

Victoria

Virginiensis

Virtue / Virtus

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

Goddess

Roman goddess of virgins. One of the 20 Select Gods according to

Varro. Also often associated with fire in domestic hearths. That is, while Vulcan is associated with violent fire, Vesta is associated with

Iliad III.375ff; IV.11ff


11; VI.2; VII.2, 16, 24; VIII.5 fire that is used for the ordinary purposes of human life. Sometimes identified with Venus, something Augustine found bewildering.

Roman. Enables victory Augustine, City of God IV.16,

21, 24

Roman. Associated with the loosening of the girdle of a virgin wife Augustine, City of God IV.11;

VI.9

Of dubious standing as a goddess, yet still venerated via a temple and altar

Roman. An obscure deity who imparts life to the foetus.

Roman. Enables children to wish for good things

Roman. Enables children to wish for good things

Roman. Controls the sheaths enfolding the ears of the corn

Roman. Associated with voluptuousness


21, 24; V.12; VII.3

Augustine, City of God VII.2, 3





Vitumnus

Volumna

Volumnus

Voluntina

Volupia

God

Goddess

God

Goddess

Goddess

Vulcan God Greek then Roman. One of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro.

Also called Hephaestus (Prometheus Bound).

11


11; VI.1, 10; VII.2, 16; VIII.5;

XVIII.12;

Iliad I.572ff; II.99ff; V.25

Xanthus God Greek. Called Scamander by men, but Xanthus by the gods. He is

“the mighty eddying river” who matches himself against Vulcan in the war between the Trojans and Achaeans (Iliad XX.73-4).

Greek. The Roman name for Jupiter. See Jupiter and Jove. Zeus

Aesculapius

God

“And while such disastrous wars were being waged, a terrible disease broke out among the women. For the pregnant women died before delivery. And Aesculapius, I fancy, excused himself in this matter on the ground that he professed to be arch-physician, not midwife” (Augustine, City of God III.17).


September 2007

22

Apollo

“Although Lycurgus pretended that he was authorized by Apollo to give laws to the Lacedemonians, the sensible Romans did not choose to believe this and were not induced to borrow laws from Sparta” (Augustine, City of God II.16).

“And it is still this weakness of the gods which is confessed in the story of Cumaen Apollo, who is said to have wept for four days during the war with the Achaeans and King Aristonicus… Shortly afterwards it was reported that King Aristonicus was defeated and made prisoner, a defeat certainly opposed to the will of Apollo; and this he indicated by even shedding tears from his marble image” (Augustine, City of God III.11).

“It was to him [sc. Pyrrhus, king of Greece] that Apollo, when consulted regarding the issue of his enterprise, uttered with some pleasantry so ambiguous an oracle, that whichever alternative happened, the god himself should be counted divine” (Augustine,

City of God III.17).

The god of divination. He is invoked by those seeking healing. Some identify Apollo with the sun.

Apollo killed many Achaeans with burning arrows after Agamemnon dishonoured Chryses. Apollo is hailed as “god of the silver bow” and is often associated with arrows (Iliad XX.70-1). Called “King Apollo” (Odyssey VIII.338). Called “Far-Darter” by Jove

Called “Leto’s lion cub” (Eumenides). (XV.232). Described as “flying like a falcon, bane of doves and swiftest of all birds”

(XV.237). Calls himself “Phoebus Apollo of the golden sword” (XV.256). Called “Wolf Slayer” (Agamemnon). He shows partiality to the Trojans and is associated with mount Pergamus. As Hector leads the Trojans into battle against the Achaeans we read:

“Before him went Phoebus Apollo shrouded in cloud about his shoulders. He bore aloft the terrible aegis with its shaggy fringe, which Vulcan the smith had given Jove to strike terror into the hearts of men. With this in hand he led on the Trojans” (Odyssey,

XV.308ff). He is also described as “of locks unshorn” (XX.38). Hailed by Cassandra, Agamemnon’s slave-mistress whom he brings back to Argos with him after the conquest of Troy, as “God of the great wide ways of the world” and “God of the ways”

(Agamemnon). Apollo ordained Cassandra as prophetess (Agamemnon).

He seeks to protect Orestes from retribution after Orestes kills his own mother (Eumenides). He charges Hermes with the responsibility of protecting Orestes and, significantly, addresses Hermes by speaking to the statue in the shrine at Delphi

(Eumenides). The Furies declare that Apollo is a “blind seer” and that he has polluted his own sanctuary; that he has rebelled against “heaven’s law”; and that he has become “the patron god of crime” (Eumenides). The Furies acknowledge that Apollo is great, “ranked no lower than Zeus’ chair” (Eumenides).

Apollo boasts of his victory in the case concerning Orestes and the Furies remind him of a time of defeat and humiliation when he was forced to live as a servant in Pheres’ house and of his failed attempt to save a mortal from death by making the Fates drunk

(Eumenides). Apollo is scorned by the Furies for his “hot youth” (Eumenides).


September 2007

23

Cybele

“And on the holy day consecrated to her purification, there were sung before her couch productions so obscene and filthy for the ear – I do not say of the mother of the gods, but of the mother of any senator or honest man – nay, so impure, that not even the mother of the foul-mouthed players themselves could have formed one of the audience. For natural reverence for parents is a bond which the most abandoned cannot ignore. And, accordingly, the lewd actions and filthy words with which these players honoured the mother of the gods, in presence of a vast assemblage and audience of both sexes, they could not for very shame have rehearsed at home in presence of their own mothers” (Augustine, City of God II.4).

“…the image of that demon Cybele” (Augustine, City of God II.5).

Janus

Augustine regards Janus as unique among the Roman deities as one who is not associated with anything particularly infamous:

“But those seekers after every kind of unseemliness in the worship of the gods have disgraced him, whose life they found to be less disgraceful than that of the other gods, with an image of monstrous deformity, making it sometimes with two faces, and sometimes, as it were, double, with four faces.” (Augustine, City of God VII.4).

“But now let the interpretation of the two-faced image be produced. For they say that it has two faces, one before and one behind, because our gaping mouths seem to resemble the world: when the Greeks call the palate [ouranos] and some Latin poets, he says, have called the heavens palatum; and from the gaping mouth, they say, there is a way out in the direction of the teeth, and a way in in the direction of the gullet. See what the world has been brought to on account of a Greek or a poetical word for our palate! Let this god be worshipped only on account of saliva, which has two open doorways under the heavens of the palate – one through which part of it may be spitten out, the other through which part of it may be swallowed down. Besides, what is more absurd than not to find in the world itself two doorways opposite to each other, through which it may either receive anything into itself, or cast it out from itself; and to seek of our throat and gullet, to which the world has no resemblance, to make up an image of the world in Janus, because the world is said to resemble the palate, to which Janus bears no likeness? But when they make him four-faced, and call him double Janus, they interpret this as having reference to the four quarters of the world, as though the world looked out on anything, like Janus through his four faces. Again, if Janus is the world, and the world consists of four quarters, then the image of the two-faced Janus is false. Or if it is true, because the whole world is sometimes understood by the expression east and west, will any one call the world double when north and south also are mentioned, as they call Janus double when he has four faces? They have no way at all of interpreting, in relation to the world, four doorways by which to go in and to come out as they did in the case of the two-faced Janus, where they found, at any rate in the human mouth, something which answered to what they said about him…” (Augustine, City of God VII.8).


September 2007

24

Juno

Represented by Virgil as hostile to the Trojans and stirring up Aeolus, the king of the winds, against them (Augustine, City of God

I.3). Sister and wife of Jupiter (and sometimes even depicted as his mother). Indeed she is called Jove’s “wife and sister” (Iliad

XVI.433) and “Hera, Mistress Supreme” (Seven Against Thebes). She is the eldest of Saturn’s daughters. The mother of Venus and

Vulcan. Queen of all the gods. She has fair ambrosial locks that flow in a stream of golden tresses (XIV.178ff). She is frequently called “white-armed.” Especially associated with the island of Samos where she was given in marriage to Jupiter. Opens the way for the reception of the (male) seed and confers the menses, along with Mena. Presides over all purgations and births. Also known as Iterduca, under which guise she acts as the conductor to boys along with the goddesses Abeona and Adeona. Under the name

Domiduca she leads a person on a journey and leads him home again. Plato identified Juno with the earth. Her relationship with

Jove is stormy. Jove sometimes keeps secrets from her. Juno is partial to the sons of Atreus and to the cities of Argos, Sparta and

Mycenae. Her room was made by her son, Vulcan (XIV.166). Her robe was made for her by Minerva (XIV.176). If her ambrosial perfume was as much as shaken then the scent of it would pervade the universe of heaven and earth (XIV.174ff).

In jealousy of Zeus’ passionate fling with Io she turns Io into a cow then has her guarded by the 100 eyed monster, Argus. When Io is rescued from Argus she continues to pursue Io who is ever on the run from her (Prometheus Bound).

Jupiter/Jove/Zeus

“Certainly all the worshippers of the Roman gods, when once they are possessed by what Persius calls ‘the burning poison of lust,’ prefer to witness the deeds of Jupiter rather than to hear what Plato taught or Cato censured. Hence the young profligate in

Terence, when he sees on the wall a fresco representing the fabled descent of Jupiter into the lap of Danae in the form of a golden shower, accepts this as authoritative precedent for his own licentiousness, and boasts that he is an imitator of God. ‘And what God?’ he says. ‘He who with His thunder shakes the loftiest temples. And was I, a poor creature compared to Him, to make bones of it? No; I did it, and with all my heart’” (Augustine, City of God II.7).

“If the poets gave a false representation of Jove in describing him as adulterous, then it were to be expected that the chaste gods should in anger avenge so wicked a fiction, in place of encouraging the games [sc. plays] which circulated it” (Augustine, City of

God II.8).

“It was, forsooth, intolerable that Plautus or Naevius should attack Publius and Cneius Scipio, insufferable that Caecilius shoud lampoon Cato; but quite proper that your Terence should encourage youthful lust by the wicked example of supreme Jove”

(Augustine, City of God II.12).

“And then, when he [a sadistic Roman general named Marius] was in Asia conducting the war against Mithridates, a message from

Jupiter was delivered to him by Lucius Titius, to the effect that he would conquer Mithridates; and so it came to pass” (Augustine,

City of God II.24).


September 2007

25

“It was at this juncture that Romulus, hoping no more from the valour of his citizens, prayed Jupiter that they might stand their ground; and from this occasion the god gained the name Stator” (Augustine, City of God III.13).

“When first upon his high, paternal throne

He took his seat, forthwith to divers Gods

Divers good gifts he gave, and parceled out

His empire, but of miserable men

Recked not at all; rather it was his wish

To wipe out man and rear another race” (Prometheus Bound)

______

According to Varro Jupiter is one of the 20 Select Gods. His chief temple was the Capitol in Rome built by King Tarquin. Jupiter is the husband of Juno, the brother of Neptune and Orcus and the son of Saturn whom he overthrew. He is the King of all the gods and goddesses. Ancient Romans discriminated between Summanus, responsible for nocturnal thunderstorms, and Jupiter as the controller of diurnal thunderstorms. He holds the power of the causes by which anything comes to be in the world. He is known by a variety of names, including “Victor”, “Invictus”, “Optiulus”, “Impulsor”, “Stator”, “Centumpeda”, “Supinalis”, “Tigullus”,

“Almus”, “Ruminus.” Plato identified Jupiter with heaven

Jupiter is the most powerful of all the Greek gods who dwell in Olympus. His wife is Juno. His son is Apollo. Jove is known for his cruelty which is often referred to (e.g., Odyssey III.162). In the Iliad he is especially called “the son of Saturn.” Also called

“father Jove” (Iliad VIII.245) and “the Father” (by the god Hephaestus/Vulcan; Prometheus Bound) and “the lord of omens”

(VIII.251). Hailed as one who rides on the storm-cloud (II.411). He is called “gatherer of the thunder-cloud” (XVI.301) and

“wielder of the lightning” (XX.18-9). He is also called “King of kings” (Odyssey I.81; Suppliant Maidens 527) and “Happy Zeus”

(Suppliant Maidens 527) and “Lord Paramount” (Suppliant Maidens 575) and “Lord of Civic Life” (Eumenides). He holds a thunderbolt in his hand (XI.184). When he was angry with the Achaeans we read: “But all the time Jove boded them ill and roared with his portentous thunder” (VII.478-80). The grove and fragrant altar of Jove are located at Gargarus, near Troy (VIII.46).

Telemachus, son of Ulysses confesses, “bards do not make the ills they sing of; it is Jove, not they, who make them, and who sends weal or woe upon mankind according to his own good pleasure (Odyssey I.345ff). Jove is a hatcher of mischief (Odyssey

III.152). Jove does not leave control of the sea entirely to Neptune: “Jove counseled evil against [Menelaus] and made it blow hard till the waves ran mountains high” (Odyssey III.289ff). Similarly, Jove raised the north wind against Ulysses till it blew like a hurricane (Odyssey IX.67). Helen declares that Jove “is the giver of both good and evil, and can do what he chooses” (Odyssey

IV.237). Jove seduced the mortal woman Antiope who bore him two sons and also the mortal woman Alcmena who bore him


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Hercules (XI.260ff). Doves are used to bring ambrosia to Jove (Odyssey XII.64-5). He is also described as the one “who guardeth hearth and bed” (Agamemnon 701).

Aeschylus presents the Suppliant Maidens as fleeing from “the land of Zeus”. He also describes these Danaides as “sprung from the breath of Zeus’ nostrils” (The Suppliant Maidens, 23-4). Argos is a city in Argolis, or sometimes Argolis itself. The name of the

Argives, inhabitants of Argos and Argolis, has been often used to designate all Greeks. Aeschylus describes a Triad (“gods of the sky”, “holy ones of earth”, and “denizens of darkness”) of whom Zeus is “chief in worth”, “the Protector of travel-weary pilgrims,

Keeper of the threshold never crossed by crime” (35ff), “the God of Host and Guest” (Agamemnon). After Zeus seduced Io (from whom the Danaides were descended) he turned her into a cow and made her wander the earth till she settled in Egypt. Aeschylus cites an old proverb, “The purpose Zeus holds next to his heart no hunter brings to bay” (that is, the secret things remain secret). He adds, "His counsels tread the maze of labyrinthine ways." Zeus thwarts human plans: “From towered bastions of Hope he plucks Time’s sons and tosses them to ruin.” The Suppliant Maidens say to Zeus, "Or if in words goes forth thy breath, The mind that with them travaileth Converteth speech to act." Aeschylus has his character Danaus describing Zeus as “The God of Mercy”

(Suppliant Maidens). Aeschylus has his character King Pelasgus speak of “the good grace of Zeus the Garnisher” (Suppliant

Maidens, 445). Pelasgus resigns himself saying, “Yet there’s no help But I must hold in awe the wrath of Zeus Who helpeth suppliants: the fear of him Is for all flesh the highest fear” (479ff).

Recognising that it is impossible to see into the future the Danaides ask:

“Can I behold the mind of Zeus? Can I

Look into the unfathomable deep?” (Suppliant Maidens).

Over and over again, Zeus is remembered for his cruelty, even sadism. So, in Prometheus Bound, his own son Vulcan (Hephaestus) is heavy in heart as he complies with Zeus’ command to nail Prometheus to a rock and expose him to centuries of torture. His crime? According to Vulcan, simply “This is thy wage for loving humankind.” In Prometheus Bound Zeus has only recently become

“the new throned potentate.”

Prometheus describes what Zeus was like when he first assumed his throne:

“When first upon his high, paternal throne

He took his seat, forthwith to divers Gods

Divers good gifts he gave, and parceled out

His empire, but of miserable men

Recked not at all; rather it was his wish

To wipe out man and rear another race” (Prometheus Bound)


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Zeus is not omniscient. When Prometheus is bound to a rock on Zeus’ orders, he vents his spleen only to be warned not to by

Oceanus lest Zeus hear and judge Prometheus even more severely (Prometheus Bound).

Prometheus says to Io, a victim of Zeus’ lust and cruelty:

“What think ye?

Is not the only ruler of the Gods

A complete tyrant, violent to all,

Respecting none? First, being himself a God,

He burneth to enjoy a mortal maid,

And then torments her with these wanderings.” (Prometheus Bound)

Io asks, “Oh, who will snatch away the tyrant’s rod?” Prometheus answers, “Himself by his own vain and fond imaginings”

(Prometheus Bound). Prometheus makes a prophecy that Io will have a child by Zeus and that a future descendant will unseat

Zeus. Prometheus is insistent:

“I tell thee that the self-willed pride of Zeus

Shall surely be abased; that even now

He plots a marriage that shall hurl him forth

Far out of sight of his imperial throne

And kingly dignity. Then, in that hour,

Shall be fulfilled, nor in one tittle fail,

The curse wherewith his father Cronos cursed him.” (Prometheus Bound)

Apollo describes Zeus as he who “cares for the castaway”, by way of consoling the fugitive Orestes (Eumenides). Zeus took pity on

Ixion, the first shedder of kindred blood, and even gave him shelter as his guest in Olympus (Eumenides).

Mercury/Hermes

The god of merchandise. He holds the power of speech, including the speech of the gods themselves. Associated with stealing.

Called “Mercury of Cyllene” (Odyssey XXIV.1). Described as “bringer of good luck and excellent in all cunning” (Iliad XX.34-5; cf.

Odyssey VIII.323). Messenger of the gods, often sent to convey their messages (e.g., Odyssey I.83). He is called “Messenger

Mercury, giver of good things” (Odyssey VIII.334). A herald hails him: “To Hermes, my Defence, Herald of Heaven whom earthly heralds worship” (Agamemnon). Has golden sandals that enable him to fly like the wind over land and sea and has a wand with which he seals men’s eyes in sleep or wakes them just as he pleases (Odyssey V.45; XXIV.1ff). Drink-offerings were made to


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Mercury by the Phaecians (Odyssey VII.136ff). When Vulcan catches Venus and Mars having sex with each other on his marriage bed, Mercury laughingly admits he would gladly take Mars position and have sex with Venus if he could and would have no scruples in being adulterous (Odyssey VIII.333ff). He is addressed by Orestes as “Chthonian Hermes, Steward of thy Sire” [Brittanica] or

“Lord of the Shades” [Harvard Classics] (Choephoroe). Also addressed as “Great Herald of the Heights ad Deeps” and “my helper,

Chthonian Hermes” by Electra (Choephoroe).

An image of Hermes stood in the shrine at Delphi and, significantly, Apollo speaks to Hermes by speaking to the statue, charging him with the responsibility of protecting Orestes and addressing him as “Great Guide” (Eumenides).

Minerva

“Neither did Troy perish because it lost Minerva. For what had Minerva herself first lost, that she should perish? Her guards perhaps? No doubt; just her guards. For as soon as they were slain, she could be stolen. It was not, in fact, the men who were preserved by the image, but the image by the men. How, then, was she invoked to defend the city and the citizens, she who could not defend her own defenders” (Augustine, City of God I.2.)

Neptune

“And Neptune too, his {sc. Apollo] uncle, brother of Jupiter, king of the sea, it really was not seemly that he should be ignorant of what was to happen [to be cheated by Laomedon, the father of Priam]. For he is introduced by Homer (who lived and wrote before the building of Rome) as predicting something great of the posterity of Aeneas, who in fact founded Rome. And as Homer says, Neptune also rescued Aeneas in a cloud from the wrath of Achilles…” (Augustine, City of God III.2).

Terminus

“And it was because he [sc. Roman emperor, Julian the Apostate] was addicted through curiosity to vain oracles that, confident of victory, he burned the ships which were laden with the provisions necessary for his army, and therefore, engaging with hot zeal in rashly audacious enterprises, he was soon slain, as the just consequence of his recklessness, and left his army unprovisioned in an enemy’s country, and in such a predicament that it never could have escaped, save by altering the boundaries of the Roman empire, in violation of that omen of the god Terminu of which I spoke in the preceding book; for the god Terminus yielded to necessity, though he had not yielded to Jupiter” (Augustine, City of God V.21).

Venus

“…committed adultery with Anchises, and so became the mother of Aeneas?” (Augustine, City of God III.3).


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Venus is one of the 20 Select Gods according to Varro. Called “laughter-loving” (Iliad XX.40; Odyssey VIII.361-2). She is called “the

Muse” (Odyssey VIII.490) who inspires the bard Demodocus to sing divine songs. She is the goddess of prostitutes and associated with sexual immorality. She dances with the Graces (Odyssey XVIII.194-5). Sacred rites involve lamenting Venus’ beloved Adonis who was slain by a boar’s tooth. She is one of the deities present in the bed-chamber to help a newly married woman to more readily yield her virginity. She is associated with the planet Venus, but also with the moon. Venus shows partiality to Paris

(Alexandrus) and came to his aid when engaged in single combat with Menelaus. Just as Menelaus was about to kill him she

“snatched him up in a moment (as a god can do), hid him under a cloud of darkness, and conveyed him to his own bedchamber.”

She then appeared to Helen in the form of an old woman of whom Helen was fond. She is called the Cyprian goddess (V.331) or simply “the Cyprian” (V.759) or Cypris (The Suppliant Maidens). The Theban women hail her, “Cypris, ancestress of our race!

Blood of they blood are we! Yet none the less, as men sue Gods, we turn in prayer to thee!” [Seven Against Thebes; note the men honour their gods, the women honour Venus]. Her grove is located in Paphos (VIII.362). She is wounded in the hand by a Trojan warrior who has been given the ability to see her by Minerva. She wears “ambrosial robes which the Graces had woven for her” and when she is wounded “the immortal blood, or ichor, that flows in the veins of the blessed gods, came pouring from the wound” (Iliad V.338ff). Diomed then taunts her, “Daughter of Jove, leave war and battle alone, can you not be contented with beguiling silly women? If you meddle with fighting you will get what will make you shudder at the very name of war.” She leaves the battlefield dazed and disconcerted (Iliad V.352). Venus defiles Vulcan’s marriage bed having sex on it with Mars, but is disgraced when with Mars she is trapped by Vulcan and exposed to all the gods (Odyssey VIII.266ff). When the gods killed the parents of Pandareus, Venus took care of the orphans, feeding them on cheese, honey and sweet wine (XX.67ff). The Danaides hail Cypris as the one who with Hera sways the heart of Zeus (Suppliant Maidens). Of her they also say:

“The subtle Goddess has her rites; with young

Desire playing at his mother’s side;

Nor less Persuasion to whose charming tongue

No boon that heart can give or worth approves

May be denied.

Yea, music hath her share

In Aphrodite’s Empire fair,

Music with all the train of whispering Loves.”

Vulcan

Son of Jupiter and Juno and fellow-worker with Minerva. God of the furnaces of workmen. Identified with the fire of the world, including volcanoes. Prometheus speaks of him being on top of Mount Ethna “forging the molten iron, whence shall burst Rivers of fire, with red and ravening jaws to waste fair-fruited, smooth, Sicilian fields” (Prometheus Bound). According to Augustine


September 2007

30 made a Roman deity by Titus Tatius. Vulcan pacifies his mother when she is in trouble with Jove. Vulcan is lame (“club-footed”) having once been hurled from heaven by Jove. Described as “the mighty monster” and having “thin legs” (Iliad XVIII.410-1).

Vulcan was the maker of Agamemnon’s scepter. Spares the life of Idaeus by wrapping him in “a cloak of darkness” as he flees from the warrior who has slain his brother. Made made his mother’s room, the doors accessed by a secret key so that no other god could enter this room. Called “the cunning workman” (XVIII.143). His house is described as being “imperishable, starbespangled, fairest of the abodes in heaven, a house of bronze wrought by the lame god’s own hands” (XVIII.369ff). On one occasion, Juno “found him busy with his bellows, sweating and hard at work, for he was making twenty tripods that were to stand by the wall of his house, and he set wheels of gold under them all that they might go of their own selves to the assemblies of the gods, and come back again – marvels indeed to see” (XVIII.372ff). Vulcan’s marriage bed was defiled by Mars (Odyssey VIII.266ff).

Finding out this, Vulcan makes invisible chains of immense strength, lures Mars and Venus to make love on his bed again and traps them in the chains. Vulcan then complains, “Jove’s daughter Venus is always dishonouring me because I am lame. She is in love with Mars, who is handsome and clean built, whereas I am a cripple – but my parents are to blame for that, not I; they ought never to have begotten me” (VIII.309ff). Vulcan had paid a dowry to Jove to marry Venus and demands this be repaid to him by

Jove. Clytaemnestra claims Hephaestus communicated instantly the fall of Troy (Agamemnon).

It is Hephaestus’ sons who hew out the path and prepare the way for the coming of Phoebus (Apollo) to Delphi (Eumenides).

Roman Idolatry: General

“…for only three of their gods were flamens appointed, - the Flamen Dialis for Jupiter, Martialis for Mars, and Quirinalis for

Romulus…” (Augustine, City of God II.15).

“Gods, then, so great as Apollo and Neptune, in ignorance of the cheat that was to defraud them of their wages, built the wall of

Troy for nothing but thanks and thankless people” (Augustine, City of God III.2).

“…if it is an error to seek wine from Ceres, bread from Liber, water from Vulcan, fire from the Lymphs, how much greater absurdity ought it to be thought, if supplication be made to any one of these for eternal life?” (Augustine, City of God VI.1).

“If any one should use two nurses for his infant, one of whom should give nothing but food, the other nothing but drink, as these make use of two goddesses for this purpose, Educa and Potina, he should certainly seem to be foolish, and to do in his house a thing worthy of a mimic” (Augustine, City of God VI.1).


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“It is tolerable to go mad once in the year. Go into the Capitol. One is suggesting divine commands to a god; another is telling the hours to Jupiter; one is a lictor; another is an anointer, who with the mere movement of his arms imitates one anointing. There are women who arrange the hair of Juno and Minerva, standing far away not only from her image, but even from her temple.

These move their fingers in the manner of hairdressers. There are some women who hold a mirror. There are some who are calling the gods to assist them in court. There are some who are holding up documents to them and are explaining to them their cases…”

(Augustine, City of God VI.10).

“The following gods, certainly, Varro signalizes as select, devoting one book to this subject: Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, Genius,

Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, Sol, Orcus, father Liber, Tellus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus, Vesta; of which twenty gods, twelve are males and eight females.” (Augustine, City of God VII.2).

“For, first of all, at the conception of a foetus, from which point all the works commence which have been distributed in minute detail to many deities, Janus himself opens the way for the reception of the seed; there also is Saturn, on account of the seed itself; there is Liber, who liberates the male by the effusion of the seed; there is Libera, whom they also would have to be Venus, who confers this same benefit on the woman, namely, that she also be liberated by the emission of the seed; all these are of the number of those who are called select. But there is also the goddess Mena, who presides over the menses; though the daughter of

Jupiter, ignoble nevertheless. And this province of the menses the same author, in his book on the select gods, assigns to Juno herself; who is even queen among the select gods; and here, as Juno Lucina, along with the same Mena, her step-daughter, she presides over the same blood. There are also two gods, exceedingly obscure, Vitumnus and Sentinus – the one of whom imparts life to the foetus, and the other sensation; and, of a truth, they bestow, most ignoble though they be, far more than all those noble and select gods bestow. For, surely, without life and sensation, what is the whole foetus which a woman carries in her womb, but a most vile and worthless thing, no better than slime and dust?” (Augustine, City of God VII.2).

Other Reference

Tikva Frymer-Kensky, "The Marginalization of the Goddesses" in Gilgamesh. A Reader (ed. John Maier; Illinois: Bolchazy-Carducci

Publishers, 1997) 95-108

1 Ancient town of Latium, Italy, 7 mi (11.3 km) E of Formia. It was important because it controlled the bridge on the Appian Way over the Liris River. Founded by a people called the Aurunci or Ausones, it became a Roman colony (295 B.C.) and a flourishing commercial center. There are important ruins (including an aqueduct), two theaters, forums, and other buildings N of modern Minturno.


September 2007

Greek and Roman Deities Glossary

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Glossary

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