When taken together, Saturn and Ops were regarded as deities who presided over marriage and the education of children, it being an easy step from the deity of the sprouting, ripening seed, to that of the budding, thriving season of human life.
Saturn is always represented as an old man, and is generally distinguished by a pruning-knife or sickle.
10. Vertumnus and Pomona.—Vertumnus and Pomona much resemble Saturn and Ops, the only difference being that the former exert their influence solely on the growth and welfare of the fruits of the garden and orchard. Vertumnus properly signifies the self-changing one; referring, probably, to the manifold changes which the fruit undergoes from the time of its first appearance in blossom to that of its maturity. For the same reason the god was said to possess the faculty of assuming any shape he liked. The first of the flowers and fruits were offered to him. Pomona, as her name signifies, was the goddess of the fruit harvest, and called by the poets the wife of Vertumnus. Each deity had a special priest (flamen), though the latter naturally held only an inferior position.
In art Vertumnus generally appears as a beautiful youth, his head crowned with a garland of ears of corn or laurel, with a horn of plenty, as a symbol of the blessings he bestows, in his right hand. He is sometimes distinguished by a dish filled with fruit, or a pruning-knife. Pomona is generally represented as the season of Autumn, a beautiful maiden with boughs of fruit-trees in her hand.
11. Flora.—Among the inferior deities of the plain was Flora, the goddess of blossoms and flowers, who was held in great honour by the Sabines, and everywhere in the interior of Italy. Her worship is said to have been introduced into Rome by Numa, who assigned the goddess a priest of her own. She attained a higher significance by becoming a goddess of maternity, whom women invoked before their confinement. Her festival was celebrated with great rejoicings from the 28th of April to the 1st of May (Floralia). The doors of the houses were adorned with flowers, and wreaths were worn in the hair. After the first Punic war, the festival, which was remarkable throughout for its merry and tumultuous character, was also celebrated with games, hares and deer being hunted in the circus.
Artists appear to have represented Flora as the season of Spring, in the guise of a beautiful girl crowned with flowers. There is a fine marble statue of this kind, larger than life, in the museum at Naples, called the Farnese Flora.
12. Pales.—Pales was the ancient pastoral goddess of the Italian tribes, from whom the name Palatine, which originally meant nothing but a pastoral colony, was derived. She was especially venerated by the shepherds, who besought her to send fruitfulness and health to their flocks. A festival in her honour was celebrated on the 21st of April, the anniversary of the foundation of the city (Palilia), at which very ancient rustic customs were observed. The most remarkable of these was the kindling of a large straw fire, through which the shepherds rushed with their flocks, thinking thus to purify themselves from their sins. Milk and baked millet-cakes were offered to the goddess. There is no statue of her now in existence.
13. Terminus.—Terminus, although he had nothing to do either with the welfare of the crops or the fruitfulness of the flocks, may yet be reckoned among the field deities, as the god who specially presided over boundaries. All landmarks were held sacred to him, and their erection was attended with religious ceremonies. In order that his people might fully appreciate the sanctity of boundaries, King Numa instituted a special festival in honour of the god, called the Terminalia, and annually celebrated on the 23rd of February. The proprietors of lands bordering on each other were wont on this occasion to crown the boundary stone with garlands, and to make an offering of a flat cake to the god.
In his wider signification Terminus was regarded as the god under whose protection the boundaries of the state reposed, and in this character he had a chapel in the temple of Minerva on the Capitol. A statue of the god also stood in the midst of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which is explained by the following story:—After Tarquinius had conceived the plan of building the great temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, the limited space necessitated the removal of several existing shrines, which could only occur with the consent of the deities themselves. They all expressed by means of auguries their readiness to make way for the highest god of heaven, except Terminus, who refused, and whose shrine had therefore to be included in the temple of Jupiter.
Statues of Terminus are exactly like the Hermæ of the Greeks, and have no importance in art.