230 i Flora Unveiled
fully realized gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon, with their exciting narratives and
awe- inspiring cosmic lineages, there was little incentive to construct an elaborate compet-
ing body of myths for Roman deities.
Accordingly, Rome’s founder was said to have been the Trojan warrior Aeneas, the son of
Venus, who was conceived on Mount Ida in Anatolia. Although the Trojans and Achaeans^1
were portrayed as bitter enemies in the Iliad, Greek deities presided over the fates of the
combatants on both sides of the conflict, so despite their enmity toward the Greeks in that
great Homeric epic, Romans understood themselves to be co- religionists who once shared a
common language.^2 Following the Trojan War, Aeneas, like Odysseus, set out on a voyage
and, after many wanderings patterned on the Odyssey, arrived in Italy where he defeated the
Latins and founded the city of Rome. Virgil’s Aeneid, composed in the latter part of the first
century bce, gave the myth its final, enduring form.
It has often been said that the Romans were the first Hellenized society in the
Mediterranean world. Among the earliest of the Roman deities were Jupiter, his wife, Juno,
and their daughter, Minerva. The Jupiter- Juno- Minerva triad was originally assimilated
from the Etruscans during the period of their hegemony over Rome. Jupiter, whose name
indicates that he was derived from the same Indo- European weather god whom the Greeks
called Zeus, was a storm god whose worship promoted favorable weather conditions for
crops. Juno represented youthful vigor as well as sexual maturity. She was strongly associ-
ated with the summer harvest, and the month of June was named after her. Minerva was
later identified with Athena, the protector of Athens, born from the head of Zeus.
Mars, later identified with the Greek god of war, Ares, was originally a Roman tutelary
deity who safeguarded farmlands and the wilderness. Hence he was invoked both to protect
the crops and to assist in waging wars outside of the borders of the city. Mars’s initial func-
tion as an agricultural deity accounts for the fact the month of March, associated with the
return of spring and the beginning of the growing season, bears his name.
Ceres (Figure 9.1), the oldest and most important agricultural deity in the Roman pan-
theon, was the goddess of cereals and agricultural abundance in general, who, by the begin-
ning of the Republic, was already identified with Demeter and was often associated with
Tellus, Liber, and Libera (discussed later). Her antiquity is attested to by the fact that she,
like Jupiter, Juno, and other native Roman deities, was assigned a flamen, or sacred priest,
dedicated to her worship. Her name, probably derived from the verb “to grow” (crescere)
or “to create” (creare), first appears as an adjective coupled with the names of earlier Italic
deities. There are other examples in Roman religion in which an adjectival attribute (in
this case “grower” or “creator”) belonging to a more generalized older deity splits off and
becomes a separate deity in its own right.^3 The Cerialia, held on April 19, were games and
rituals staged in Ceres’s honor. As Ovid explains in Book IV of Fasti, a Latin poem describ-
ing the practices on different religious holidays, Ceres, like Demeter, represents the grain
crop. During the Cerialia, the farmers made offerings to the goddess of spelt wheat and
salt (perhaps in the form of cakes) as well as milk, honey, and wine, in order to ensure “a
bounteous harvest.” According to Ovid, white was the appropriate color for Cerialia attire.
White garments were also worn by initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries in Greece, which is
probably the source for the dress code at the Roman Cerialia.