[800]. To judge from the old rituals Mars was in the earliest time of which there is any record a god of vegetation. The Arval Brothers, who were charged with the care of crops, addressed their petitions to him, and it was to him that the Roman husbandman prayed for a blessing on his labors.[1376] What may have been his still earlier character we have no means of determining with certainty. The view that he was originally a god of the fructifying sunlight[1377] seems to rest mainly on a precarious etymology, the derivation of his name from a stem mar meaning 'to shine'; but it does not appear that ancient peoples attributed the growth of crops to the sun.[1378] Analogy would rather lead us to regard him as an old local deity, naturally connected with vegetation. However this may be, the importance of agriculture for the life of the community raised him to a position of eminence, his priestly college, the Salian (traditionally referred to Numa), was one of the greatest, he was connected with various departments of life, and for the warlike Romans he naturally became the patron of war. The cult of the old war-goddess Bellona maintained itself, but she never attained the highest rank; she is not the equal of Mars, with whom in the later constructions she was brought into connection. In the Hellenizing period he was identified with Ares.[1379]
[801]. The name Saturn is generally connected with the stem sa (sero, satum, sata), to sow, and he is accordingly regarded as an agricultural deity, the special patron of agricultural work. Whether or how he differed originally from Mars is not clear—perhaps in original differentiation of functions, he being attached to the work of sowing, Mars to vegetation in general; or perhaps they were two similar deities belonging originally to different regions, and differentiated when brought together in the same system. Information on this point is lacking. That Saturn was an ancient Latin god is probable from the fact that he was traditionally said to be an old king of Latium. Of his earliest cult in Rome little is known. The feast that bears his name, the Saturnalia (held on December 17 and some following days), was a time of popular festivity, when social distinctions were laid aside (slaves were on an equality with masters). Similar festivals are found elsewhere.[1380] Midwinter, when the work of gathering in the harvest was over, was a natural time for festivities.[1381] Saturn, or the figure from which he arose, may have presided over this season originally, or he may have been gradually connected with an old ceremony. The process of Hellenizing him began early. He was identified with Kronos, made the father of Jupiter and the head of a pre-Jovian divine dynasty, and, in accordance with the tendency to regard the former days as better than the present, the Saturnia regna became the golden age of the past.[1382] Apart from this he seems to have had no ethical significance.
[802]. In the case of certain deities, as Volcanus, Neptunus, Mercurius, Sancus, a pronounced Roman development cannot be traced, partly because of the lack of full data, partly, in the case of Volcan, Neptune, and Mercury, because of an early and complete identification with the Greek gods Hephaistos, Poseidon, and Hermes.
[803]. The Roman female deities[1383] are far less developed than the Greek—their functions are simple, their mythological interest small. The members of the group representing the productive power of the earth—Bona Dea, Dea Dia, Libera, Fauna, Ceres, Proserpina,[1384] and others—were not worked up by the Romans into great personalities.
[804]. Juno, an independent deity, originally not the wife of Jupiter, is, in the developed cult, the special patron of the maternal side of the life of women, and, as such, is a great domestic power, the embodiment of a large part of family life. It was probably as great sky-goddess that she attained this position—the chief female deity is naturally the protector of women. The name came to designate the woman's personality as childbearer, and more generally her inner essence or self, as "genius" came to designate the male essence.[1385] Whether this usage was simply an extension of the idea of 'protectress' to that of 'self,' an identification of woman with her specific function in the family, or rested on some older conception, is not clear. However this may be, she became a great goddess, in the later construction the wife of Jupiter, and was identified with Hera, to whom in fact she is nearly related in function and character. Though her name appears to contain the same stem (iu) as 'Jupiter,' and her epithet 'Lucina' the stem luc, 'to shine,' there is no proof that she was, in early times, regarded as a light-deity, or particularly as moon-goddess. She was sky-goddess, but not, for that reason, necessarily light-goddess.
[805]. The importance attached by the Romans to the family life is expressed in the cult of Vesta, the guardian of the hearth as the center of that life.[1386] The Penates, however, the divine protectors of the household, were no less important in the family cult than she. The state also had its Vesta and its Penates. To this character of sacredness stamped on the life of the private family and the larger family, the state, ethical significance and influence must doubtless be ascribed.
[806]. Diana appears to have originated in the time when life was spent largely in forests, and trees were a special object of worship; she was in historical times connected with groves.[1387] Her cult was widely diffused in Italy, and she became (perhaps because she embodied the common feature of the old life) the representative of Italian unity. As great female deity she was the helper of women in childbirth. Her name is based on the stem di, 'to shine,'[1388] which appears in 'Jupiter' and 'Juno'; but she is not a sky-goddess—the "shining" in her case is that of trees and plants, the green color that gleams in the light, so that the grove is called lucus, the 'shining mass.'[1389] Diana was soon identified with Artemis, and was endowed with her attributes.
[807]. Another Italian goddess, Minerva, stood, probably, in the earlier time for the simpler arts of a simple community—she was the patroness of manual work and of the healing art. The expression omnis Minervae homo, descriptive of a man capable in his line of work, almost reduces her to an abstract idea. The name (as the older form, Menerva, more clearly indicates) is based on the stem man (found in Latin mens), and appears to mean 'endowed with mind' (or, 'spirit'), though exactly what was the range of this conception in the earliest times is not clear.[1390] Later her function was extended to embrace intellectual capacity, but it was not until her identification with Athene (not later than the third century B.C.) that she attained her full cultic significance.[1391]
[808]. Venus, though an old Italian deity (as her name and her ancient temples show), was so early Hellenized that her proper native development was cut short. The fact that she was in early times the patroness of gardens[1392] suggests that she was originally a deity of the productive field; probably she belonged in the group of goddesses (Libera, Bona Dea, and others)[1393] who presided over fertility. It would seem that every region in Italy had such a numen loci (naturally mainly agricultural). It is not clear to what particular spot Venus was originally attached,[1394] or how she came to be revered over a wide region. Under ordinary Italian conditions she might have become a deity like Ceres. But in Sicily, at Mount Eryx, according to tradition, her cult came into contact with that of Aphrodite, whose qualities she soon assumed.[1395]
[809]. In the third century B.C. the cult of the Sicilian Venus (Venus Erycina) was brought to Rome by direction of the Sibylline Books, and from this time onward her advance to prominence was continuous. As a great goddess she became (like Ishtar and Aphrodite) in a warlike community the patron of war (Venus Victrix). When the Æneas myth was adopted in Rome she took the place of Aphrodite as mother of that hero (who became the founder of the Roman state), and was honored by Julius Cæsar and others as Venus Genetrix. The old Roman moral feeling appears in the dedication of a temple (114 B.C.) to Venus Verticordia as atonement for the unchastity of three Vestals.[1396] In general the later functions and cult of Venus were reproductions or imitations of those of Aphrodite. Such a divine figure, it seems, the Romans would never have developed out of their own resources.