Mythology: The Story of Mars, ,Teutates, ,Tyr, Astarte, Minerva, Kuna

Mythology

The Story of Astarte

Shared by: High Priestess Lady Gloriana

Fast Facts: Pronunciation: Ah-star-tea Origin: Egyptian (in this incarnation) Other names: Ashtoreth

Astarte is a goddess of many names, with a story that spans many cultures, numerous parts of the world, and almost the whole of human history. Her influence on modern religions is still felt strongly and Astarte’s touch can be found in some surprising places.

Who Is Astarte? Astarte is the goddess of war and, to a lesser extent, of love and fertility. In Egypt she was thought of as an especially powerful warrior goddess and was also associated with the most powerful war machine of the time: the horse and chariot. She was especially fond of people who were good with horses, as demonstrated by one story where she delighted in the fact that a pharaoh’s son was an excellent horseman.

Astarte’s cult was significant in Egypt, and special obelisks were made for the purpose of worshipping her. She is considered one of the major gods of Egypt.

Appearance Astarte is usually shown as a beautiful, naked woman. Often, she wears a set of bull horns on her head, a sign of dominance and power. Many depictions also show her with a set, or even two sets, of wings. It’s common for Astarte to be shown with overly round hips, which is associated with motherhood and fertility. Sometimes her body is shown as androgynous, which simply means that it looks neither male nor female. Astarte can also be shown wearing a crown.

Because she is considered the mistress of horses by Egyptians, many depictions of her show the goddess on horseback or otherwise in the company of horses.

Family Depending on where in Egypt you asked, Astarte’s father was either the sun god Ra, or Ptah, the god of craftsmen.

If she is a daughter of Ra it means that she is also the sister of Anat, another war goddess. Astarte is also associated with another daughter of Ra, namely Hathor. Hathor is a goddess of fertility, which is of course an attribute Astarte is also known for.

Mythology

The Story of Astarte Continued

Her consort was Seth, who is (no surprise) a god of war. He is also god of winds, storms, evil, chaos and darkness. It seems that even some goddesses have a soft spot for bad boys.

Astarte also had a son, according to the Canaanites, by the name of Hauron. Hauron was also later officially accepted into Egyptian religion.

Origins and History We know very little about Astarte specifically in her Egyptian incarnation, but we do know that she is another version of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar.

Astarte was officially adopted into Egyptian religion during the 18th Egyptian dynasty.

As Ishtar, there are quite a few stories about Astarte in The Epic of Gilgamesh. Here, she is shown to be a bit moody and spoiled; in one story, she goes to the gate of the underworld and demands to be let in.

Ishtar was all about love and became pretty obsessed with a few men whom she insisted she wanted to marry. Gilgamesh himself told her no thank you, due to having heard stories about all the other men she had loved and then dumped or hurt in some way.

When Ishtar failed to get her own way, she could get pretty nasty about it. She was rather liberal with her demands and curses, and was known for generally throwing her weight around. The problem is that, although Astarte is derived from Ishtar, we can’t assume that the Egyptian form of this goddess was anything like Ishtar. Ishtar and Astarte may also be the inspiration for Mary, mother of Jesus, in modern Christianity, since the cult of Ishtar spread throughout the Middle East and beyond, reaching as far as Europe. It’s also possible that Astarte served as the inspiration for the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who bears many resemblances to Astarte.

Modern Influence As such as ancient and important goddess, Astarte under her many names is often referred to in media such as video games, animation, fantasy novels and film. As Ishtar, for example, she is mentioned in the Sandman comics, as well as in the Conan the Barbarian stories.

https://mythology.net/ egyptian/egyptian-gods/ astarte/

Mythology

The Story of Minerva

Goddess of poetry, medicine, strategic warfare, commerce, weaving, the crafts, wisdom, courage, inspiration, victory, war, law, civilization, bravery, heroism, protection, city state, family, justice, mathematics, science, technology, strength, strategy, the arts, and skill

Member of the Capitoline Triad and the Dii Consentes

Symbols Owl of Minerva, olive tree, serpent of Jupiter, the Parthenon, the spear, the spindle, and Hellebore

Gender Female

Parents Jupiter and Metis

Equivalents

Shared By: High Priestess RavensThorn

Athena

Greek equivalent

Etruscan equivalent Menrva

Anat

Canaanite equivalent

Neith

Egyptian equivalent

Celtic equivalent Brigantia

Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom, medicine, commerce, handicrafts, poetry, the arts in general, and later, war. In many ways similar to the Greek goddess Athena, she had important temples in Rome and was patron of the Quinquatras festival.

Originally, Minerva was an Italian goddess of handicrafts closely associated to the Greek goddess Athena. The scholarly consensus, however, is that Minerva was indigenous, passing to the Romans from the Etruscan goddess Menrva, and that her name derives from meminisse, meaning ‘to remember’.

Considered the daughter of Jupiter, from whose head she was born, the goddess was first worshipped in Rome as one of the Capitoline Triad along with Jupiter and Juno.

In legend, the great hero Aeneas, who escaped from fallen Troy, brought a cult

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The Story of Minerva

statue of the goddess to Rome. Residing within the Temple of Vesta it was believed that the city would be safe from harm as long as the statue was preserved.

Like Athena, the goddess was renowned for her chastity, and she once famously refused the amorous advances of Mars, the god of war.

Minerva is the protagonist in one of the most famous stories presented in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the myth, a Lydian girl named Arachne unwisely boasts that her weaving skills are even better than Minerva’s. The great goddess was not best pleased to hear such claims and she promptly challenged the presumptuous Arachne to a weaving competition. Settling down at their respective looms the two ladies each set about creating a wonderful tapestry that would outshine their rival’s best efforts. Minerva’s masterpiece showed all the great gods and had Minerva herself taking centrestage in the act of winning the competition with Poseidon to become patron of Athens.

Even more ominously for Arachne the edges of the tapestry depicted all those mortals who had infamously challenged the gods and come a serious cropper. Meanwhile, Arachne’s less pious work displayed various gods taking on different forms so that they could seduce unsuspecting mortals.

The work itself was a truly magnificent piece of weaving but, perhaps predictably, Minerva, nevertheless, declared herself the winner and punished Arachne for her audacity by hitting her on the head three times and changing her into a spider. It is another cautionary tale, so common in Greek and Roman mythology, of how unwise it is for mortals to consider themselves the equals of the gods.

Perhaps the most important site of worship of Minerva was on the Aventine where a shrine was built in either 263 or 262 BCE.

This particular incarnation of the goddess - Aventine Minerva - was of Greek origin and the site was also the location of a writers and actors guild and an important centre for craftsmen.

The goddess also had a shrine on mons

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The Story of Minerva

Caelius, one of the seven hills of Rome.

Over time, Minerva grew in stature within the Roman pantheon and she took over as the most important focus of the Quinquatrus festival, previously the domain of Mars.

The five-day festival began on the 19th of March and marked the beginning of the campaign season for the Roman army.

The goddess also became associated with victory, as illustrated by Pompey’s dedication of a temple to the goddess following his successful campaigns in the east.

The emperor Domitian also claimed the goddess was his special protectress and he commissioned a temple to her in the Nerva Forum in Rome in the second half of the 1st century CE.

One of the most impressive representations of Minerva in art is the 3 metre high statue of the goddess which now resides in the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

Dating to the 2nd century BCE, the standing figure wears a chiton and belt, an aegis with Medusa, carries a shield on her left arm and wears a Corinthian helmet pushed to the back of the head.

The statue, which owes much in composition to the colossal chryselephantine statue of Athena that Pheidias sculpted for the Parthenon in the 5th century BCE, presents the goddess in her familiar guise as a noble and fearless warrior. Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom. She was also the goddess of trade, the arts, and strategy in war. Her domains included medicine, poetry, and handicrafts as well.

She was in charge of so many things that Ovid called her the “goddess of a thousand works”!

Minerva was highly influenced by the Greek goddess ATHENA. When the Romans made contact with the Greeks, they saw their gods as being similar to those of the Greeks. In fact, they decided that they were the same gods under DIFFERENT NAMES.

She was often portrayed wearing a chiton, which is an ancient Greek garment, and a helmet.

Mythology

The Story of Minerva

Many statues of her show her holding a spear and a shield, to represent her interest in war.

But she can often be found offering an olive branch to the defeated. Minerva was a gracious winner in war, who had sympathy for those her armies beat.

After Athena began to influence Minerva, her symbol became the owl, which today continues to represent wisdom.

She also gained a backstory worthy of a comic book. She was born when her father, Jupiter, swallowed her mother, Metis.

He did this because of a prophecy that his child would one day defeat him.

While inside Jupiter, Metis forged weapons for the baby Minerva. The constant noise gave Jupiter a terrible headache.

He asked another god, VULCAN, to hit his head with a hammer and split it open. Although this is a pretty extreme solution for a headache, it worked.

Minerva emerged fullygrown from Jupiter’s forehead. She had the weapons and armor that her mother had made for her.

As proof that Minerva could win contests with other gods, though, here’s one more story about her, again drawn from Greek myths.

The gods had a contest to see who could create the most useful item for humans. Neptune made a horse – definitely a very useful animal for the ancients. Minerva, however, created the olive tree. Olive oil was very important to Mediterranean cultures – as we can see from the fact that Minerva was declared the winner of the contest.

Minerva had many titles because of her many roles. Some of these titles were:

• · Minerva Medica – patron of doctors • · Minerva Castitis – patron of olive trees • · Minerva

Luscinia – a name that means

‘nightingale’, because she is said to have invented the flute • · Minerva

Armipotens – powerful in arms and the patron of strategy

Minerva was actually originally from the Etruscans, who were a people that lived in the same place

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The Story of Minerva

as Romans did but before Rome existed. This ancient goddess was called Meneswa, which means “she who measures”.

This origin can be seen in one of Minerva’s other titles: Minerva Mensa, “Minerva who measures time”.

Minerva was very important to the Romans. As a matter of fact, she was part of the “Capitoline Trio”, which consisted of three gods that the Romans considered patrons of their city.

The other two gods were Jupiter and Juno. These three gods were worshiped on the Capitoline Hill, which was a very important holy site in ancient Rome. As a matter of fact, that’s where we get the word “capitol,” as in Capitol Hill, from! So next time you think of Washington, D.C., you can think of Minerva.

Minerva also was one of three “virgin goddesses” in Roman tradition. These three goddesses vowed to never marry, but rather dedicate themselves to their works. Vesta and DIANA were the other two in the trio.

Minerva was celebrated in a variety of festivals in ancient Rome. The most famous one may have been the Quinquatrus, which was dedicated to Minerva and MARS. It went from March 19-23.

On the first day of this festival, no blood could be shed. However, the last day ended with gladiatorial battles.

Women also consulted fortune-tellers, and there were speakers, poets, and plays being performed throughout the holiday.

Today, statues of Minerva can often be found in schools and libraries. Even though it’s been thousands of years since the Romans worshiped her, Minerva continues to stand for wisdom and the act of creating things.

Mythology

The Story of Luna

Godly ancestry was important in Roman religion. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Luna is said to be the daughter of Hyperion and Theia.

Hyperion was the Titan god of heavenly light and one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Sky).

Theia was his sister - a goddess of sight who endowed gold, silver and gems with their brilliance and intrinsic value. The Titans were the oldest gods and preceded the next generation, the Roman gods of Olympus. Luna was the sister of Sol (the male sun god) and of Aurora (the female goddess of dawn). She was one of the consorts of Jupiter, the god of sky, thunder and king of the Roman gods; their offspring included Pardeia, Herse and Nemeia.

In addition to Jupiter, Luna had a second mythical consort named Endymion. Endymion may have been an astronomer but is known as a handsome young shepherd, favoured by Jupiter who bestowed upon him the gift of eternal youth and the ability to sleep for as long and as often as he desired.

Luna is said to have been so entranced by his beauty that she descended nightly from heaven to watch over and protect him. Notwithstanding this ‘protective’ role Luna and Endymion had fifty offspring; known as ‘The Menae’, they were the fifty goddesses of the lunar months within a four year Olympiad! The myth of Endymion was a popular subject for Roman wall paintings.

It is generally believed that the cult of Luna dates back to the time of the Kings i.e. predates Republican Rome.

The mythical story of Romulus and Remus culminating in the foundation of Rome in 753BC is well known. The city was subsequently ruled by a series of seven kings, not all of whom were as competent as Romulus, the first King of Rome.

Shared by Brittanica

Mythology

The Story of Luna

Eventually, deposition of the seventh king, Tarquinius Superbus, led to the advent of the Roman Republic in 509BC.

When the first (mythical) war between Rome/ Romulus and the Sabines/Titus Tatius came to an end the two leaders agreed to form a complete Roman society; each pledged to fulfil his religious duty by institution of cults. Romulus instituted a single cult - to Jupiter - and Titus Tatius introduced a series of cults including those to Sol and Luna.

Constructing a detailed, nonmythological account of the origins and importance of Luna is difficult as all early writings were destroyed during the first sack of Rome in 387BC when the invading Gauls burned and plundered the city, killing most of the Roman Senate.

Many famous Roman writers and poets including Varro (116BC - 27BC), Virgil (70BC - 19BC) and Horace (65BC - 8BC) refer to Luna but were writing about events which occurred many centuries before they were born.

Consequently, the manner in which they portrayed ‘facts’ was coloured by their own perceptions and experiences and by what they deemed the populace of the time wished to heard and read.

Ancient Roman history may be presented as factual but is, in reality, a collection of myths. In the absence of written records, it is difficult for us to decipher which parts of the mythological writings represent fact and which represent embellishment. What is beyond dispute however is that the moon occupied a central place in Roman religion.

Why Luna was worshipped Roman goddesses of the moon, and their Greek counterparts, were said to be formed in a triadic manner hence Luna was associated with two further goddesses, Diana and Hecate.

Luna was the goddess in heaven and of the full moon (Greek counterpart being Selene), Diana was the goddess on earth and of the halfmoon (Greek Artemis) and Hecate (or Hekate) was the goddess in the underworld and of the dark moon.

Diana was originally a goddess of fertility and was worshipped by women as the

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The Story of Luna

giver of fertility and easy births. She was also the goddess of nature and of hunting.

Hecate was the underworld goddess of magic and witchcraft. Varro mentions the association of Luna with Diana and further association with other goddesses linked to chastity and childbirth such as Prosperina and Juno Lucina, an ancient maternal character.

The latter may even have been a more central figure within the triad of moon goddesses with Hecate being a later participant.

The multiple facets of women, femininity and childbirth were believed to be associated with the phases of the moon: the new moon represented the maiden goddess, Diana, always new, virginal, reborn and ready for the hunt whereas the waxing moon increasing in size represented the fertile mother goddess, pregnant with life. The darkening moon reflected the wise crone or witch, Hecate, with power to heal and transform.

‘The moon advances pregnancies and ripens them into birth’ and ‘the moon is the source of conception and birth and of growth and maturity’.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Varro categorised both Luna and Sol as being amongst the visible gods as opposed to the invisible gods, such as Neptune, and deified mortals, such as Hercules.

He includes Luna within a list of twelve principal gods of Rome; a list which starts with Jupiter and Telles (Earth) and is followed

by Sol and Luna, ‘whose seasons are observed at sowing and harvesting’.

Varro also includes Luna amongst twelve deities vital to agriculture; ‘Sol and Luna whose courses are watched in all manners of planting and harvesting’.

Virgil also associated Luna with agriculture although he quotes a different list of twelve gods in which he refers to Luna and Sol as ‘clarissima mundi lumina’, the world’s clearest sources of light.

The moon and, by association, the cult of Luna were undoubted potent emblems of the agricultural cycle in ancient Rome symbolising that ‘just as seeds reawaken and

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The Story of Luna

grow, all that dies will be reborn’. Horace, Columella (Roman writer AD4 - AD70), Pliny (Roman writer (AD23 - AD79), Apuleius (Roman writer AD124 - AD170) and Cicero all attest to the importance of the moon, at the heart of religious belief, as mistress of agriculture; the ‘finest and most profitable, delightful occupation’.

In addition to femininity, childbirth and agriculture Romans believed that the moon controlled many other facets of sublunar life including the wind, rain, tides, animal life, mineral growth and earthquakes.

Suetonius (Roman historian AD69 - AD122) wrote ‘The moon is a great magnet of vapour and all substances characterised by moisture. When the moon grows so do all fruits, and as it was, so they also shrink’.

Luna was also believed to have the power to mask reality, to pierce illusion, to awaken intuition and to spark visions. This latter arising from association of the night and the moon with dreams.

She was also known as a patron of solutions which came to people in dreams, when the subconscious mind processes information.

Inscriptions on altars and buildings stones are a valuable source of evidence when researching Roman history.

Text and images on coins provide another evidence source: the silver denarius, minted from around 211BC, generally showed the helmeted head of Roma, the legend ‘ROMA’ and the letter ‘X’, to indicate that its value was equivalent to 10 asses.

The reverse bore the semi divine twin horsemen, the Dioscuri, who according to legend appeared miraculously and ensured victory for Rome during a battle between the newly formed Roman Republic and the Latin leagues led by the ageing Tarquinius Superbus, the deposed and last King of Rome.

Around 194BC - 190BC the Dioscuri were replaced on a single issue of coins by Luna in a biga (a two horse chariot). Eleven such depictions are recorded with a further ten around 150BC.

Mythology

The Story of Luna

Diana is also recorded in a biga of stags in 144BC. As a patroness of charioteers, Luna is often depicted as a pale, beautiful woman with long, shining, black hair riding in a two yoke, silver chariot or biga pulled either by oxen, a pair of horses or a pair of serpentine dragons.

She may also be depicted riding a horse or a bull or driving a four-horse chariot, a quadriga. She may carry a torch or be portrayed with the crescent moon lying above her forehead.

A temple dedicated to Luna dating from the 6th century BC and attributed to Servius Tullius, the legendary sixth King of Rome who reigned from 578BC to 535BC, stood on the Aventine Hill in Rome. According to Livy (Roman historian 64/59BC - AD12/17), the temple was damaged during a storm in 182BC with the doors being torn off and blown into the rear wall of the nearby temple of Ceres (an ancient goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships hence strongly associated with Luna).

Following the Achaean war in 146BC, the consul Lucius Mummius deposited some of the spoils gained during the sack of Corinth (a city in south-central Greece) in the temple of Luna.

Another famous politician linked to the temple is Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, the reformist tribune of 123/122BC who is said to have been injured jumping down from the temple when fleeing from his enemies. The temple sustained further damage in 84BC following a lightning strike; that this led to postponement of the consular elections confirms the importance of the cult of Luna in Republican Rome.

Likely situated at the northern end of the Aventine near the Porta Trigomina the temple is said to have been destroyed during the great fire of Rome in 64AD during the reign of the Emperor Nero.

Varro attests to a second temple, on the Palatine Hill, which was illuminated at night and dedicated to Luna Noctiluca (night-shiner/Luna that shines by night).

Celebrating Luna Festivals in honour of Luna were held on

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The Story of Luna

March 31st in the Aventine temple on the anniversary of it’s founding.

On August 24th, sacrifices to Luna were made on the Graecostasis - a tribunal or platform between the Comitium (the open-air public speaking site) and the forum; the Lunae Graecostasis was first documented in 304BC.

The Solis et Lunae Circenses was celebrated on August 28th at a temple dedicated on this date to the sun and moon and situated near the Circus Maximus.

Tacitus (Roman historian AD56 - AD120) refers to it as vetus aedem, an old building and the celebration only became important when Games were added to the agenda in the late Empire (3rd century AD). This temple was primarily dedicated to the sun and a statue of the sun driving a chariot may have sat atop it.

Evidence that Luna was a visible deity outside Rome itself comes from an analysis of pipeclay figurines recovered from Roman London. 168 such artefacts have been discovered within the Londinium settlement from a mix of residential, trade and religious sites.

The figurines were modelled using two piece moulds by plastes, craftsmen, working from officinae, terracotta production centres in the Allier Valley in France.

Sixty four percent (109) of the 168 figurines were deities; all were female and Venus was by far the most common (85) however there were two Luna/Diana figurines and one Juno. The Luna/ Diana figurines were found below modern day Leadenhall Street and Bond Court - they are unique as only one other similar figurine, from a cemetary near Nijmegan in The Netherlands has been recorded.

Roman belief that gods and goddesses controlled every aspect of life resulted in countless deities presiding over every task, every occupation, every action.

Each deity had to be wooed with prayers, vows, dedication of altars, animal or bird sacrifices and offerings of milk, honey, grain, fruit, cake, perfumes or flowers.

Animal and bird sacrifices were

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The Story of Luna

specified by colour and gender hence sacrifices to Luna, conducted outside her temple on the Aventine Hill, would have been of white animals or birds.

In 17BC, Horace, the Roman lyric poet (65BC - 8BC) was commissioned by the Emperor Augustus to write a hymn/ ode for the opening ceremony of the Ludi Saeculares, the Secular Games.

These were held only once per century and comprised a grand festival of games, sacrifices and performances.

Horace’s Carmen Saeculare (Secular Hymn) was sung by a choir or 27 boys and 27 girls and invokes Luna as the siderum regina bicornis (two horned queen of the stars) bidding her to listen to the girls singing as Apollo listens to the boys.

Horace was the equivalent of the Poet Laureate and wrote this collection of religious and mythological verses not only to reinforce Augustus’ desire to promote his new marriage laws intended to stimulate citizen’s birth rates but also to promote restoration of traditional Roman values and to encourage glorification of the gods.

Glorification of the gods, proper management of relations with the gods and ethical behaviour were cornerstones of Roman society and led to Roman prosperity and Roman dominance.

It was within this societal framework that the cult of Luna flourished.

https://www.vindolanda.com/ blog/luna

Mythology

The Story of Mars

Mars was the raging Roman god of warfare whose fury inspired savagery in battle. Father of city founders Romulus and Remus, Mars was revered not only as a god of war, but one whose conflicts brought about lasting peace.

Furious Mars was the Roman god of rage, passion, destruction, and war. As a foundational deity, Mars had a mythology that was intimately intertwined with the Roman city-state. Mars ruled early Rome as a part of the Archaic Triad, a masculine ruling triumvirate that also included Jupiter and Quirinus (the deified Romulus).

The early Romans revered Mars as a great raging god, whose fury inspired the savagery of warfare and produced the stunning accomplishments of the Roman arms. As Rome transitioned from citystate to empire and overtly embraced Greek cultural values, Mars lost his preeminent position in the Roman pantheon to Minerva, the goddess of tactical and strategic warfare.

Mars’ importance to the Roman people was embedded in the mythic history of Rome and the origins of the Roman state. According to Roman mythology, Mars raped the innocent Rhea Silvia and sired Romulus and Remus, twins who would go on to establish the fabled city.

Mars was largely based on the Greek god Ares, the Greek god of war, and shared much of his mythology. The two deities differed in at least one respect, however—while Ares was a source of destructive conflicts that tore apart communities, Mars was a wellspring of productive conflicts that brought lasting peace.

Etymology Though the meaning of the name “Mars” remains somewhat elusive, the name itself was clearly adapted from the names of a pair of Italian deities. One was a proto-Italic deity called Mavors, a deity of which little is known. The other, more immediate influence was the Etruscan deity Meris, a god who was often depicted as an infant and may have been an Etruscan counterpart to the Greek Heracles (or Roman Hercules).

Mars was known by many epithets, each representing one of his many personas. As Mars Gradivus, or “Marching Mars,” the deity was revered for his a presence

Shared by High Priestess, Lady Gloriana

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The Story of Mars Continued

on the battlefield. Generals and soldiers alike swore oaths to Mars Gradivus, promising to fight furiously in his name.

As Mars Quirinus, or “Mars of the Quirites”, he was celebrated as a bringer of peace through war and a defender of the common man. He was also Mars Pater and Mars Pater Victor, or “Mars the Father” and “Mars the Father the Victorious,” titles that denoted his high standing in Roman religion and among the Roman people.

Fun Facts Who was the counterpart of Mars in Greek mythology? Although he existed as a foundational deity in Rome, much of the mythos of Mars was based on the Greek god of war Ares. their own awesome omnipotence.

Attributes Mars controlled war and the passions that fueled it. He was represented both as a fully mature male with a beard and curly hair, and as a youth with smooth cheeks. He was shown often in the nude, perhaps a sign of the raw, unadorned forces he was thought to inspire. When clothed, he wore a military cloak, plumed helm, and cuirass.

This last item was often adorned with the gorgoneion, a medusa head that was thought to ward off evil. His weapon was the spear, which would be wrapped in a laurel to symbolize peace. This symbolism spoke to Mars’s status as the god who brought peace through war.

What were the symbols of Mars? The best known symbol of Mars was the spear and the shield, which in their combined form have frequently been used to represent the male gender as a whole. What planet was named after Mars? Ancient Romans named the fourth planet from the sun Mars due to its reddish color, which to them was reminiscent of both blood and the god’s passionate nature.

Romans also called him Mars Ultor, meaning “Mars the Avenger”. This title grew in popularity after the Octavian’s victories over Caesar’s assassins at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE. This was but one way in which the gods were used for political ends. Finally, Mars was Mars Augustus, meaning something like “Mars who is Awesome.” This qualifier was later used by the Roman emperors to describe

Mythology

The Story of Mars Continued

Family Mars was the son of Jupiter and Juno, the king and queen of the Roman deities. Mars’ full siblings included Bellona, a goddess of war, Vulcan, god of metalworking and the forge, and Juventus, a goddess of youth. Mars had many half-siblings as well thanks to his father’s indiscretions.

These half-siblings included Mercury, messenger god of commerce and communication, Proserpina, Ceres’ child famously abducted by Pluto, and Minerva, goddess of wisdom and defender of the Roman state.

A figure of primal masculinity, Mars was desired by many. His consorts included Bellona and Nerio, both goddesses of war associated with important cults in early Rome. He famously carried on a long and illegitimate affair with Venus, the goddess of love and sexual desire. In a separate tradition, Mars married Anna Perenna, the goddess of time and the changing of years. They proved to be a fiery couple.

Mars’ passion could also be violent, as when he raped the Vestal Virgin, Rhea Silvia, a figure of incredible importance in the founding of Rome. Mars’ children through these affairs were many. With the lovely Venus, Mars produced children associated with a range of emotional and psychological states.

He had Timor and Metus, gods of fear and abject terror. He also had Concordia, the twin sister of Timor, who embodied the characteristics of harmony, peace, and fellowship. Mars also had a group of children known as the Cupids, winged creatures who symbolized and controlled various aspects of love and erotic desire.

Mars was also the father of Romulus and Remus, who were conceived through his rape of Rhea Silvia. His fathership of the twin founders of Rome made Mars the progenitor of the Roman people.

Mythology Birth and Origins Although Mars was generally considered to be the son of both Jupiter and Juno, another version of his mythology cast him as the offspring of Juno alone.

According to the story (told by Ovid in the Fasti), Juno resented the fact that Jupiter had given birth to Minerva without the need of a mother.

Mythology

The Story of Mars Continued

Minerva had been conceived by Jupiter and the Titan Metis, but when Jupiter swallowed the pregnant Metis, a fully grown Minerva burst forth from his forehead. Seeking vengeance against Jupiter, Juno traveled to the realm of Flora, a goddess of flowers, spring, and fertility. There, Juno laid bare her grievances and implored the goddess for help:

‘My grief,’ quoth she, ‘is not to be assuaged with words. If Jupiter has become a father without the use of a wife, and unites both titles in his single person, why should I despair of becoming a mother without a husband, and of bringing forth without contact with a man, always supposing that I am chaste? I will try all the

drugs in the wide world, and I will explore the seas and the depths of Tartarus.’

Flora acquiesced, giving Juno a special flower that made female creatures pregnant without the need of a male. Juno tested it on a barren heifer, which immediately birthed a calf. Convinced of its power, she then used the flower on herself and conceived Mars.

Lusty Mars A recurring topic in the mythology of Mars was the affair he carried on with Venus. Though Vulcan and Venus had an unhappy marriage, Vulcan still took any affair Venus might have as a great offense. When Mercury saw Venus making love with Mars in Vulcan’s marriage bed, he quickly informed the cuckolded god. Though Vulcan was enraged, he did not act immediately. He waited patiently, and plotted his revenge. In his workshop, Vulcan crafted a net of material so fine that it could not be seen with the naked eye.

He then laid the trap by placing the net over his bed. When Mars and Venus next made love, they became ensnared in the net and could not move. Vulcan then assembled the gods to witness the scene, and together they mocked the naked lovers.

Another well-known story also featured Mars in an ill-fated love affair. The story began with Mars falling in love with Minerva, the goddess of both wisdom and the Roman state, who steadfastly maintained her virginity. Not one to be put off by a virgin’s wishes, Mars pursued the goddess anyway—to no avail.

Mythology

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Minerva rebuked his advances, sending Mars to seek the help of Anna Perenna, a goddess of time. While Anna Perenna outwardly agreed to help Mars win the affections of Minerva, she secretly plotted to make the comely god of war her own. Putting her plan into motion, Anna disguised herself as Minerva and offered her hand in marriage to Mars, who eagerly accepted.

After the marriage had been formalized, Anna revealed herself to Mars, who was displeased. Not only had he lost Minerva, but he had been duped into unwanted marriage. Mars and the Founding of Rome According to mythohistorical accounts of the founding of Rome, Mars was the father of the twins Romulus and Remus. While this story had countless variations, its core always remained the same.

After Aeneas and his band of refugees arrived on Italian shores, he established a community that eventually came to be known as the kingdom of Alba Longa. One of the kings of Alba Longa was Numitor, a wise and just monarch. His reign was cut short, however, when he was overthrown by his wicked brother Amulius. Hoping to sever the royal line of Numitor, Amulius forced his brother’s daughter, the lovely and virtuous Rhea Silvia, to become a Vestal Virgin; this position carried with it a vow of abstinence. Whether through outright lust or the desire to perpetuate the lineage of Numitor, Mars visited Rhea Silvia when she was sleeping and raped her. Sound asleep, Rhea Silvia dreamed that she planted seeds that grew into two trees.

With time, these trees grew large enough to cover the entire world. When she awoke, Rhea Silvia discovered that she was pregnant with twins, who would come to be known as Remus and Romulus. Fearing that the twins might challenge his claim to Alba Longa, Amulius ordered that they be executed immediately. When the executioner set about the task, he took pity on the twins and sent them down the Tiber River in a basket. The twins eventually came to rest at a spot that would become Rome and were nursed back to health by a she-wolf.

Mythology

The Story of Mars Continued

Mars and the Roman State Religion Mars was a fixture of Roman religion and a key figure in the Roman pantheon. In the early days of the Roman state, Mars was regarded as a kind of second in command to Jupiter and occupied a formal spot in the Archaic Triad (of Mars, Jupiter, and Quirinus), which was thought to oversee Roman prosperity. In time, Mars’ position in the ruling triumvirate was supplanted by Minerva, who embodied a much different aspect of war.

Where Mars inspired manly courage and bloodlust in battle, Minerva inspired the tactical and strategic thought necessary to conquer powerful Mediterranean powers such as Carthage, Macedonia, and Epirus. All of these powers fell to Rome in the early centuries BCE. Mars was accorded the respect owed to a deity of his high office. Festivals were held to honor him in March and October, which marked, respectively, the beginning and end of the campaigning season.

He was honored especially in March with a host of festivals, including Mars’ dies natales (‘birthday’) on March 1, the Equirria of March 14, the Mamuralia of March 15, the Agonium Martiale of March 17, and the Tubilustrium of March 23. In this last festival, departing armies were ritualistically cleansed for their upcoming battles. Mars was feted at all military occasions and victory celebrations. The Romans would typically offer rams and bulls to Mars as sacrifices, or hostiae. On special occasions, Mars was honored with suovetaurilia—a triple offering of sacrificial pig, ram, and bull.

Pop Culture Mars has survived in the popular lexicon thanks to the various cultural elements that bear his name. The Romans bestowed his name upon the fourth planet from the sun—Mars. The great red planet aptly symbolized the god’s fiery passion. For many centuries, March was the first month of the Roman lunar year. This ended, however, with the calendrical reforms of the second century BCE, when it became the third month of the year.

https://mythopedia.com/ topics/mars

Mythology

The Story of Teutates

The god Toutatis occupies a interesting place in the Gallic pantheon. His name, which means “of the tribe,” could well be a title, perhaps hiding another name.

Against this, however, we have many artifacts, espeically rings, with his name on them, suggesting it was the commonly-used name for this god.

He is best-known from the Roman writer Lucan, who counts Taranis, Esus and Toutatis as notable for their desire for blood.

(And presumably because they were major Gaulish gods.) Although it’s tempting to see them as a Gaulish answer to the Roman Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, there’s no evidence to back this. Tribal God Unlike Taranis and Esus, we have no images of Toutatis, so we cannot tell how the ancient Gauls or Britons saw him. However, we do have other evidence: the name, the Roman writing and his commentators, and physcial evidence from Gaul and Britain.

His name, or title, is both specific and vague: while goddesses like Brigantia or Nemetona were protectors of specific tribes, Toutatis is “of the tribe”.

Two tribes that left behind evidence of their veneration for him, the Gaulish Arveni and the British Corieltauvi, may well have considered him the god of their tribes.

Toutatis, whom the Roman writer Lucan calls Teutates, is usually associated with two other gods, Taranis and Esus. He mentioned them together in his Pharsalia, an account of Julius’ Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. According to him, their cults were extremely bloodthirsty:

And those who pacify with blood accursed Savage Teutates, Hesus’ horrid shrines, And Taranis’ altars, cruel as were those Loved by Diana, goddess of the north; All these now rest in peace.

Two later commentaries on Lucan, from the 8th century, fill out our picture of these Gaulish gods. The Berne Scholia equated Mercury with Toutatis, Taranis with Dis Pater and Esus with Mars.

Mercury, in Gaulish speech is called Teutates, he who

Shared By: High Priestess Lady Gloriana

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is honoured among them with human blood. TeutatesMercurius among the Gauls is appeased thus: in an full barrel, a man is plunged head-first, to suffocate him.

Hesus-Mars is appeased thus: a man is hung from a tree until his members fall off from loss of blood.

Taranis-Dis Pater is appeased there in the following fashion: in a wooden vat, a certain number of men are burned. The commentator also says other authors called Toutatis Mars and Hesus Mercury.

According to them Toutatis was appeased either by blood shed in war or human sacrifice, while Hesus was worshipped by merchants and Taranis, equated to Jupiter, used to received human heads, but they had been replaced by those of cattle.

Toutatis’ victims died by drowning; many connect this to a scene on the Gundestrup Cauldron showing a figure holding a smaller man head-down in a vat:

I should probably point out that the Roman accounts of human sacrifice among the Gauls may well be only propaganda, since it was in their interests to depict the Celts as barbarians badly in need of Roman civilization.

And you could also argue that the monkish commentators on the Pharsalia were unlikely to know very much about pagan Gaulish religion of seven centuries ago. Leaving aside the question of human sacrifice, it appears that Toutatis was considered equivalent to either Mercury or Mars, both important Roman deities.

Both were equated with many different gods, but Mars was known by more Celtic names than any other deity.

Certainly both Mercury and Mars would be fitting for a god “of the tribe” (touta). The GalloRoman Mars. like Thor, was a protector above all else.

He protected the fields, the soldiers in battle, the sick, and the tribe as a whole. As Deo Mecurio points out, Mars was the perfect god to equate to Toutatis, or the various toutates if each tribe had its own.

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The Roman Mars was also part of the Archaic Triad along with Jupiter and the mysterious god Quirinus, which echoes the Gaulish trio Lucan proposed.

(In fact, they are very close: a thunder-god, a warlike protector of the people, and a god about whom we know very little.)

Physical Evidence: When we come to physical evidence, there are no dedications to Toutatis as Mercury, but several to Mars Toutatis. A silver plate from Barkway in England bore the following inscription, to Mars Toutatis:

Another altar, from Carlisle, also mentions Toutatis. Although one reading of the inscription was “Mars Teutates Cocidus” (the latter a god of northern England) the Roman Inscriptions of Britain website now separates the gods into three:

To Jupiter, Best and Greatest, and to Riocalatis, Toutatis, and Mars Cocidius in fulfilment of a vow Vitalis made. A bronze blade from Hertfordshire was dedicated to Toutatis in fulfillment of a vow:

Against that, there is an inscription to Apollo Toutiorix in Weisbaden, Germany, suggesting once again that the name Toutatis/Teutates could be a title as well as a god’s name.

It may also be that Toutatis, an already well-established god, was compared by the locals to whichever Roman god struck them as most like their vision of their tribal god. Whether the Britons saw him as Mars or not, he was a popular god there: the archaeologist Adam Daubney has a database listing 68 rings inscribed TOT.

The most recent find turned up at the site where the previously unknown goddess Senuna was unearthed, reading DEA TOTA /FELIX.

Daubney’s paper on the cult of Totatis (his spelling) suggests that the Britons of the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE were using Toutatis as a way of bolstering tribal identity.

The finds are mainly within the territory of the Corieltauvi, on the eastern side of England. He says that while no national survey has been done, it seems that there are far more

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Toutatis rings than those of any other deity, including the most popular Roman ones.

In addition to rings, a pottery jar at Kelvedon was inscribed “Toutatis” and a stylus found at Jort near Calvados in France was similarly inscribed: Toutati (to Toutatis) and the owner’s name.

In north-eastern France, at Beauclair, archaeologists discovered five graffiti at the old Roman sanctuary, all saying TOTATES, or variants on that name. This area was the home of the Gaulish Arveni, who must have acknowledged Toutatis as one of their gods.

Teutates or Toutatis? Which leaves us with one last question: Teutates, Toutatis, or Totatis? Paul Marie Duval, who wrote a major paper on our three deities, leaves it open. In the texts, following Lucan’s spelling, we have Teutates, while the altar inscriptions give us Toutatis.

And, as Daubney notes, the form used on the rings (TOT) suggests Totatis. Of course, Lucan’s information came from Gaul, filtered through Roman informants, while the other two forms come from native Britons and one Gaul (the stylus). So Toutatis or Totatis would seem the more likely form.

PS – There does not seem to be an Irish or Welsh form of Toutatis, but the legendary Irish high king Túathal Techtmar may be connected to him.

https://earthandstarryheaven. com/2018/06/14/teutates/

Mythology

The Story of Tyr

Tyr (pronounced like the English word “tier”) is a Norse war god, but also the god who, more than any other, presides over matters of law and justice. His role in the surviving Viking Age myths is relatively slight, and his status in the later part of the Viking Age may have been correspondingly minor.

But this wasn’t always the case. Other kinds of evidence show us that Tyr was once one of the most important gods to the Norse and other Germanic peoples.

War, Law, and Justice Tyr’s role as one of the principal war gods of the Norse, along with Odin and Thor, is well-attested in sources from the Viking Age and earlier. For example, in the Sigrdrífumál, one of the poems in the Poetic Edda, the valkyrie Sigrdrifa instructs the human hero Sigurd to invoke Tyr for victory in battle.

Another Eddic poem, the Lokasenna, corroborates this picture by having Loki insult Tyr by saying that he could only stir people to strife, and could never reconcile them.

Some centuries earlier, the Romans identified Tyr with Mars, their own principal war god. This connection survives in the modern English “Tuesday,” from Old English “Day of Tiw (Tyr)” (Tiwesdæg), which was in turn based on the Latin Dies Martis, “Day of Mars.”

(The Romans’ identification of Tyr with Mars also reinforces the point that he was quite a significant god; otherwise they surely wouldn’t have identified him with one of their own major gods.)

But Tyr is far from only a war god. In fact, his primary role seems to be that of an upholder of law and justice. Those Roman inscriptions to him as “Mars,” for example, sometimes invoke him as Mars Thincsus – that is, Mars of the Þing, the ancient Germanic legal assembly.

But the most compelling evidence for Tyr’s role as divine jurist – and a heroic one at that – comes from the tale of The Binding of Fenrir, the only surviving myth to feature Tyr

Shared By: High Priestess Lady Gloriana

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prominently. The dreadful wolf Fenrir was only a pup, but he was growing quickly.

The gods feared for their lives, so they endeavored to tie up Fenrir in fetters from which he couldn’t escape. When Fenrir laid eyes on the chain that would eventually bind him, he was suspicious, and declared that he would only allow the gods to put it around him if one of them would stick an arm in his mouth as a pledge of good faith. Only Tyr was willing to do so. When the wolf found himself unable to break free, he bit off Tyr’s arm.

In the words of the esteemed scholar of comparative religion Georges Dumézil, Tyr, “with his sacrifice… not only procures the salvation of the gods but also regularizes it: he renders legal that which, without him, would have been pure fraud.”

In the same way that Odin showed himself to be the foremost god of wisdom by sacrificing one of his eyes in its pursuit, so Tyr showed himself to be the foremost god of law by sacrificing one of his arms to uphold it. The disfigurements of both gods are parallel, and demonstrate something essential about their characters.

For the ancient Germanic peoples, war and law were profoundly related to each other – even indissolubly intertwined. In the words of philologist Jan de Vries, It should be noted that, from the Germanic point of view, there is no contradiction between the concepts ‘god of War’ and ‘god of Law.’ War is in fact not only the bloody mingling of combat, but no less a decision obtained between the two combatants and secured by precise rules of law.

That is why the day and place of battle are frequently fixed in advance… So is explained, also, how combat between two armies can be replaced by a legal duel, in which the gods grant victory to the party whose right they recognize. Words like Schwertding [“the meeting of swords,” a kenning for battle], or Old Norse vápndómr [“judgment of arms”] are not poetic figures, but correspond exactly to ancient practice.

Mythology

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Furthermore, the law could be used to gain victory over an opponent just like war could, which made the legal assembly a metaphorical battle.

The Norse/Germanic war gods can be distinguished by – among other things – the fact that each are connected to a particular aspect of war.

Thor, for example, is involved in the brute physical combat; Odin in the magical and psychological forces at work; and Tyr in the legal decisions and principles of justice surrounding war.

Tyr’s ProtoIndo-European Predecessor Before the Germanic peoples had become a distinct branch of the Indo-European family tree, they worshiped the god *Dyeus, who would later evolve into Tyr as the Germanic religion became more and more distinct from the general Proto-IndoEuropean religion.

Both the name *Dyeus and the basic ProtoIndo-European word for “god,” *deiwós, are variations of the root *dyeu-, “the daytime sky.”

*Dyeus was the quintessential “Sky Father” and likely one of the chief deities of the Proto-IndoEuropean pantheon. After all, his name was effectively identical with the word for godhood itself. Other gods derived from him include the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter (from *Dyeus Phater, “Sky Father”) Fascinatingly, the modern English words “day” and “deity” both come from this same root. The use of closelyrelated words to denote both the name of *Dyeus and “god” more generally not only survived into the Viking Age, but was taken a step further.

As noted above, Tyr’s name is identical with the Old Norse word for “god,” and the use of the common noun týr can be found in contexts that have nothing to do with Tyr with a capital “T.” For example, one of Odin’s bynames is Hangatýr, “God of the Hanged.”

As with Tyr, one of *Dyeus‘s roles was that of a guarantor of justice, one before whom oaths were sworn.

Mythology

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The T-rune While there’s little to nothing in the Germanic sources that specifically links Tyr to the daytime sky, a tantalizing clue that such a connection may once have existed comes from the shape and name of the rune used to write the letter “T.”

The runes’ shapes and names were thought to symbolize particular cosmic forces.

The T-rune’s name was “Tyr” (or, in earlier times, *Tiwaz, Tyr’s older name). The rune has the shape of an arrow, which is probably connected to Tyr’s role as a war god.

But the arrow is pointing upward, as if toward the sky. Could this indicate a now-forgotten role for Tyr as a sky god, in the same manner as *Dyeus?

In any case, it’s clear that Tyr’s humble place in recorded Viking Age mythology hardly reflects the high esteem in which he was once held.

Indeed, at one point, he, or at least his predecessor, was as indispensable as daylight in the minds and hearts of his worshipers.

https://norse-mythology. org/gods-and-creatures/theaesir-gods-and-goddesses/ tyr/