234 i Flora Unveiled
Ceres and Venus were often conflated with Flora because, as she explains in Fasti V, her
dominion over flowers also gives her power over the crops:
Perhaps you think my rule is confined to dainty wreaths.
My divinity touches the fields, too.
If crops flower well, the threshing- floor churns wealth;
If the vines flower well, Bacchus flows;
If the olives flower well, the year shimmers
And the season fills with bursting fruit.
Once their bloom is damaged, vetches and beans die,
Your lentils die, too^8Figure 9.2 Flora, Roman goddess of flowers, filling her basket with blossoms. Detail from
Spring, first century ad Roman fresco from Stabiae, a seaside resort near Pompeii that was largely
destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples).
From Wikimedia Commons: [https:// commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/ File:Flora mit dem_ Füllhorn.jpeg].