ROMAN RELIGION, ANCIENT, a conglomeration of the most widely-different theolog ical or rather mythological elements, introduced by the various strata of immigrations that flowed into the different parts of Italy at different prehistoric times. It was chiefly under Greek influence that it assumed that most characteristic and systematic form, under which it was known during the classical times of Rome, and as which it generally represents itself to our minds. Numa Pompilius (q.v.), that mythic successor of Romu lus, is by the primitive legend mentioned as the foubder of the Roman religion, or rather ceremonial law. He is probably the type of the period when the religious notions of the Sabines were first joined to the primitive elements of legendary belief of the early settlers. Among the vast number of the different and obscure component elements, the Pelasgian, Sabellian, Oscan, Gallic, etc., out of which grew the recognized state religion, we can, with a comparative amount of clearness, distinguish chiefly three—the Etruscan, the Sabine, and the Latin. The religion of the Etruscans—as distinct from the Pelasgi ans (q.v.)—has been characterized in our article on that nation. Of the gods of the Latins, many are related to those of the Greeks (see GREEK. RELIGION}, a circum stance easily accounted for by their common eastern origin (see ROME, HISTORY OF); others,,however, seem indigenous. Their principal deities are Tellus (q.v.) (the earth), Saturn (q.v.) (god of seeds), and his wife Ops (goddess of earth and plenty), who are somewhat akin to Kronos and Rhea; Jupiter (q.v.), with Juno (q.v.), givers of light. Deities more peculiar to the Latins are Janus (q.v.), and Diana (q.v.). Faunus and Fauna are prophesying wood-deities, and were allied to Lupercus, in whose honor the Lupercalia (q.v.) were celebrated; Picus and Pilumnus, who preside in some way over agriculture and the fruits of the field; Vesta (q.v.); Fortuna (q.v.); Ferentind, the god dess of leagues. A certain number of agrarian deities (Anna Perenna, Venus, etc.) make up, with those mentioned, the bulk of " native" Latin 'lumina. Of chiefly Sabine deities, we name Feronia, the Ferentina of the Latins, a goddess of the soil, who was worshiped with gifts of flowers and fruits; and the two war-gods, Mars and Quirinus—the former a deity at first worshiped under the symbol of shield and spear, and of high importance for colonizations, to whom every animal and every human being born in a certain year was sacred; the former being doomed to be sacrificed, and the latter at the age of twenty to emigrate, and to found new settlements: Quirinus, a deity of strife, closely connected with the myth of Romulus. Sabine deities were also Sol, the sun, Luna, the moon, etc.
Having thus traced some of the principal gods and goddesses (of the greater part of whom fuller,information will he found in special articles in the course of this work) to the respective nationality that first introduced them into Italy, we shall now take a brief glance at the Roman pantheon as it appeared when it had embodied systematically these acclimatized primeval idealizations. For it was as characteristic of the Roman gods to
appear in sets, as it was for the more personal gods of the Hellenes to appear singly. The Romans, as it were, made them fallrationally into rank and file, each with a distinct mission of its own, and thus filled with them, as with authorities over special depart ments, the whole visible and invisible world—above, below, and around. The first rank of all is taken by the three Capitoline deities, time personifications of highest power, highest womanliness, and highest wisdom—Jupiter- (q.v.), Juno (q.v.), the queen of heaven, and the tutelary deity of women; and Minerva (q.v.). The stars also bad three foremost representatives—Sol, the sun, Luna, the moon, and Telius, the earth, The supreme deities of the infernal regions were Orcus, Dis (Dives, Consus?), and his wife, the queen of the empire of the shadows, Libitina. The element of the water was pre sided over by Neptune (q.v.); that of the fire by Vulcan (q.v.), the god of the smithies, and Vesta, tire goddess of the domestic hearth and its pure flame. Agriculture and rearing cattle were sacred to the ancien' Latin king Saturnus, whose wife, Ops—the riches therefrom accruimr—had, like Demeter, her seat in the soil. Ceres, Liber, and Libera, the three Greek deities of agricultural pursuits, were superadded about 500 MG. Pales, the special protector of the flocks, and his festival (the Pantie) were celebrated on the foundation-day of Rome. Mars himself was the supreme deity of the Romans. next to Jupiter. Deities of oracles are Fermi's, a deified king, who gave his obscure either in dream' or in strange voices, and his female relative—wife, daughter, or sister Fauna (Bona Den), who attends only to the female sex; and the Camerae, propliesyihg• nymphs, of whose number was Egcria, Numa Pompilius's inspirer. The Apollo worship' was but of late growth in Rouse. The Parcae represented the unchangeable fate of the individual. Fortuna was, on the contrary, the uncertain chance of destiny, the "luck". to be invoked at all important junctures. Salus, Pax, Concordia, Libertas, Fclieitas,' Pietas, Virtus, Ilonos, Sues, and a host of other abstract notions, explain themselves: Venus first became important when identified with Aphrodite; 'in the same way as Anior, Cupido, and Voldptas were Greek importations, brought into prominence by the'peets' chiefly. Life, death, and life after death are made concrete, by the Genii, the Lares, • Manes, and Penates. See LAKES.