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mask131 · 2 years

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Roman gods are not Greek gods: Vesta

VESTA

When looking at the Roman Vesta, at first it seems like she is in fact an exception to the rule, as a perfect “copy” of the Greek Hestia.

Just like her she is the virgin goddess of the hearth. Just like her she was in charge of the sacred fire for religious rituals, as well as the domestic fire at the heart of every house. Just like her she was a goddess of the domestic life and the house – for example she presided, alongside Jupiter Dapalis, over the cooking and preparation of meals, and she was strongly associated with the other house-gods of the Romans (Penates, Lares). Just like Hestia, Vesta was characterized by a lack of legends resulting in the picture of a goddess rarely getting involved in the business of the humans or of the other gods. Every city in the Roman lands had its sacred hearth, and legends even claimed the cult of Vesta was directly brought by Aeneas from the vanquished Troy, as he carried the flame of the city to the new Italian lands – which is the oldest name of Vesta was said to be “Vesta Iliaca” (Vesta of Troy), and her oldest sacred fire “Ilaci foci” (the hearth of Troy). Even more: Vesta seems to reflect an “early Hestia”. For you see, the Greek Hestia was born of a worship of the hearth. Literally: “Hestia” is the Greek word for “hearth”, and so Hestia the goddess started out as a mere personification of the hearth – even her first statues and altars were just shaped mounds of ashes and cinders from the fire, and then she slowly grew as an anthropomorphic goddess. And Vesta has this true “bareness” of the early Hestia: she was rarely depicted in human form, and she was thought to be represented/symbolized/manifested by the very fire of the various hearths. Vesta was the fire, and that was it.

So, based on all that, one would think that Vesta might be the closest to her Greek counterpart out of all the main Roman gods…

And yet, there are still several differences that not only reflect the cultural differences between the Romans and the Greeks, but also point out at an earlier, Italic Vesta quite different from the Greek Hestia.

For example, the Romans, despite recognizing and insisting heavily on the sacred virginity of the goddess (the story of “Hestia almost being raped but being saved by a donkey” isn’t Greek in origin – it is a roman legend concerning Vesta and told by Ovid), they also frequently called her… “Mater”. “Mother”. Now you could say that it is just because important goddesses were usually called “mothers” by the Romans, and as a goddess of the family and the home, Vesta would be identified with the mother of the family – and indeed, it was matrons and mothers who usually undertook Vesta’s domestic worship… But there is actually more than that. Vesta, despite being the childless, husbandless, eternally virgin goddess, was also paradoxically perceived by the Romans as a goddess of motherhood and fertility. A very strange association, which however makes sense when you consider that the Romans perceived fire as a life-giving and fertilizing element, connotations that led to the chaste Vesta becoming a… well, a sexual goddess. There is a “natural” form of Vesta as a fertility goddess, again linked to the rural roots of Roman society: Vesta was originally tied to the couple of deities known as Janus Pater and Tellus Mater, and it is her association with the later, Mother Earth, that is quite important. Because for the Romans, Vesta was originally both the Fire and the Earth, and it is reflected with the fact that she appeared in lists of agricultural gods, sometimes forming a trinity with Tellus and Terra (the division of the original Tellus Mater figure), and originally it was said Vesta protected the seeded fields. Roman poets and philosophers connected Vesta’s original earth connection with her fiery nature by pointing out that “Vesta, like the earth, contain in themselves a perennial fire” and that “the earth and the sacred fire are both symbols of home”, and concluding that the earth, like the fire, is the element that occupies the “central position in the universe”. However, outside of this “natural” fertility, traces of the goddess sexual nature still linger here and there. Vesta was associated with the phallus or phallic symbols – the very flames of the fire, or the “fire sticks” and torches being equated with the life-giving male genitalia, and people usually point out the fact that in many “miraculous births” stories of Roman mythology, a virgin (or even a Vestal) conceives a hero or king by some sort of magical flame-phallus appearing out of a hearth – it was the case for characters such as Romulus and Remus, or Servius Tullius… Sometimes it is explained as a male god manifesting into the fire (be it Mars or Vulcan), but other times it is Vesta somehow allowing this miracle to happen… All in all, fire was a sexual thing for the Romans, and thus is makes Vesta’s position as a virgin goddess quite ambiguous.

Another sexual element of Vesta is tied to the other deity I talked about before: Janus Patter (well, here just Janus). Janus and Vesta both presided over marriages in Ancient Rome. While Juno oversaw the wedding ceremonies, and Venus was about preparing the bride for fertility and bliss, Vesta had the double role of watching over the virginity of the bride, and embodying the threshold of the house the bride had to cross (in a Roman wedding ceremony, the bride left her house and was carried by her husband to his home – she had to enter her husband’s house to show she now belonged to him and his family entirely, and so the crossing of the threshold was a big thing). Being the goddess of the home, Vesta was of course here to reflect this threshold – and so was Janus, who is literally the god of the threshold and the liminal deity of all passages and transitions. As a result the two formed a certain “couple of the threshold” so to speak.

The most defining trait of Vesta, and what truly sets her apart from her Greek counterpart, is however not present within the goddess herself, but within her cult: the Vestals. Everybody heard about them. The Vestals were the priestesses of Vesta, women (usually from the patrician class, aka the upper class of the politicians and the wealthy) that took care of the temples, rites and worship of Vesta – and who especially had to take care of the sacred fires and divine hearth of Vesta. The Vestals had to keep the fire lit by any mean possible, because they would be punished if they ever let the fire die – and re-creating the fire was a complicated, ritual-task requiring the wood of a sacred tree. But the Vestals were especially famous for their vow of virginity. To serve the virgin goddess, these women had to swore off all sexual activities – and while Vesta herself had some ambiguous sexuality to her figure, when it came to the vestals the Romans took virginity as a serious business. A dead serious business, if you excuse my pun: because if a Vestal broke her vow of virginity, she was put to death. Originally it was death by whipping (the whip was also the common way to punish a Vestal if she let out the sacred fire), but then it was changed into “being walled alive”. Mind you, the vow of virginity wasn’t actually life-long, but it still required thirty whole years of virginity: for ten years the young Vestals were basically “apprentices”, learning everything from older Vestals ; then for ten other years they practiced the roles and duties of a Vestal ; and for the last ten years, they had to teach all their knowledge and tasks to the younger generations. Once the thirty years were over, the Vestals were allowed to leave their religious duty and marry – but in truth, few actually did so, since being a Vestal came with some interesting advantages (great prestige, lot of respect, and some religious powers such as the ability to grace a condemned to death – though only if said condemned happened to cross the path of a Vestal in the street… it was weird). And despite how drastic this rule was and how it gave a dreadful reputations to the Romans, there was during the history of the Roman nation only twenty or so actual recorded cases of Vestals being put to death (not counting the legendary ones) – because the Vestals could actually defend themselves against accusations of non-virginity, and could even prove their innocence or place the punishment on someone else.

It was all because the virginity of the priestesses of Vesta represented the virginity of the goddess herself AND the virginity of the fire. Vesta’s fire was a “pure” and “purifying” fire, as “clean” as the goddess herself, and given maintaining the sacred hearth was a way to ensure the city or community still had a strong “heart” and flow of “life force”, soiling it and making it “unclean” was thought to weaken and soil the very core of the community.

Vesta had a ritual she shared with the other house-gods of the Roman religions, the Penates: it was Vestalia, during which mothers brought offerings into Vesta’s temples to obtain blessing on their families. And, as I said previously, the donkey was Vesta’s sacred animal due to how, according to a Roman legend, it protected her when the god Priapus tried to rape her. It is fascinating to see how this tale became widespread concerning Hestia, the Greek goddess, when it is a purely Roman one attached to Vesta, not Hestia…

#roman goddess #greek goddess #vesta #hestia #roman religion #roman mythology #roman gods are not greek gods

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thehistoricalgods · 5 years

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NDC Day 3

The Thunderer

Cloud-compelling Zeus

Sire of Gods

Sire of Gods and men

Majesty of heaven

Austere Kronios

Supreme of Gods

Omnipotence of heaven

Avenging God

Involiable king

Eternal Zeus

Monarch of the sky

He who shakes Olympus with His nod

The almighty power

Imperial Zeus

Heaven's great Father

Panomphæen Zeus

The Olympian sire

Ethereal king

Feretrian

Idæan

Eternal Energy

Ækáleios - an epithet of Zeus from Ækáli, an old woman who had treated Theseus kindly and given him shelter on his quest to capture the Cretan bull. If he was successful in his task, she promised to sacrifice to Zeus, but when Theseus returned from a successful mission, the woman was dead. Because the people of the surrounding districts knew the story, they would make sacrifices to Zeus Ækáleios at a festival named in the woman's honour, Ækalísia.

Ækatómvaios - He to whom ækatómvai (hecatombs) were offered

Ælefsínios - epithet of Zeus in Ionia

Æleftháerios - the deliverer, the liberator

Ællanían - O shining star of Hellenic Zefs

Ællínios - of the Greeks

ÁEndændros - in the trees, epithet from Viôtîa, probably from His temples often being surrounded by thick groves of trees

Æpháptôr - by whose touch He begets a man

Ærivræmáetis - loud-thundering

Ærkeios - of the front court, Zeus invoked as a household god under this title

Ærmônthítîs - name of Zeus in ÁErmônthis, Egypt

ÁErros - Zeus

Æxakæstírios - alleviating evil

Æpidóhtis - the bountiful one

Æpiphanís - illustrious, appearing

Æpístios - He who presides over hearths and hospitality

Ærígdoypos - thundering

Afxitís - increaser

Agoraios - guardian of public assemblies and public places

Agnós - pure, chaste, holy

Ainysiós - name if Zeus from His temple on Mount Ainos in Kæphallinía

Aiolómorphos - capable of changing His form

Aithióps - name of Zeus in Ethiopia

Aithír - poetic name for Zeus: 'Zeus is Aithír, Zeus is earth, Zeus is the sky: Zeus, mark you, is all that and mightier yet.'

Aitnaios - Zeus of Mount Aitni

Aiyíokhos - beating the aegis

Aiyúptios - name of Zeus in the Egyptian cultus

Akraios - He who dwells on the heights

Áltios - named after Áltis, the sacred grove of Olympus

Amarios - epithet from Ahkaia, Arkadía

Ámmohn - Zeus is syncretized with the Egyptian deity Ámmohn

Ánax - king of all

Anxurus - name of Zeus from His temple in a grove at Anxur in Campania, Italy, where the god was worshipped as a youth

Apæsándios - name of Zeus from His temple on Mt. Apáesas, a mountain of the Peloponnesus, near Nemea, where Perseus first offered a sacrifice to Him

Apháesios - Releaser. During the reign of King Aiakós, the Greeks were afflicted with terrible drought. The king received an oracle telling him to sacrifice his father to Zeus. When he did so, Zeus allowed rain and ended the drought.

Áphthitos - imperishable, immortal

Apímios - averter of evil

Apómios - averter of flies

Apovatírios - protector of marineers landing from ships

Arbitrator - a name of Zeus from Rome

Aryikáeravnos - bearer of bright lightning

Astrapaios - weilding lightning

Ayítohr - name of Zeus in Sparta

Capitolinus - name of Zeus from His temple on the Capitoline, one of the seven hills of Rome

Conservator - preserver, defender

Dapalis - Latin name for Zeus from His presiding over sacred feasts

Depulsor - averter of evil, from depello, to push, to defend

Diespitar - father of the day

Éflkeios - of good repute, glorious

Elicius - from elicio, I draw down; Zeus being drawn down by prayer

Evánæmos - invoked to appease the winds

Evrôpaios - name of Zeus from his flight with Europa

Expiator - the expiator of mankind

Fidius - god of truth and faith

Gamílios - presiding over marriages

Fulgens/Fulgur - from His celestial splendour

Hospes - He who protects hospitality

Idaios - worshipped on Mt. Ida

Ikáesios - protector of supplients

Ikmaios - the deity who brings rain

Imperator - ruler, commander

Invictus - unconquerable, invincible

Kærávnios - weilder of the thunderbolt

Kataivátis - He who decends in thunder and lightning

Kathársios - the purifying one

Khamaizilos Diós - He who likes to be on the earth

Kharidótis - joy-giver

Khyrsaoréfs - with sword of gold

Klídonios - giving an omen

Kozmîtís - orderer, legislator

Krataivátis - walking in strength

Kronídis - son of Kronos

Ktísios - protector of home and property, giver of riches

Lefkéfs - shining, clear, white

Lucetius - light-bringer

Mælissaios - of bees

Maimáktîs - furious

Maximus - greatest of all the gods

Mîkhanéfs - the contriver or imaginative one: Zeus is considered to be the patron of all undertakings

Milíkios - protector of those who invoked Him with propitiatory offerings

Mirayáetîs - ruler of the Morai

Mórios - protector of the olive tree

Næphælîyæráeta - cloud-gatherer

Nemétôr - avenger, administer of justice

Nicêphorus - who carries victory

Nikaios - the victorious

Nómios - He who distributes, the generous one, implying Zeus distributes both good and bad

Olýmpios - Zeus at Olympus

Omayúrios - presiding over public assemblies

Omvrimóthymos - doughty, indomitable

Órios - guardian of boundaries and landmarks

Optimus Maximus - the best and greatest

Órkios - presides over the solemnity of oaths

Ouránios - dwelling in the heavens

Paián - physician, healer, savior, deliverer

Panællínios - chief God and protector of all the Greeks/His worshippers

Pandotináktis - all-shaker

Pandoyáenæthlos - all-generating, father of all

Panomphaios - He who is source of all prophecy

Panóptîs - all-seeing

Papaeus - all-Father

Pasiánax - universal king

Patír - father

Phanaios - bringing or giving light

Phílios - protector of friendship

Phytálios - the nourishing one

Pístios - god of truth and faith

Pistor - Baker

Plousios - opulent

Ploutodótis - giver of riches

Pluvius - of the rain

Poliéfs - protector of the city

Polytímîtos - the highly honoured one

Propátôr - first father, primordial father, grandfather

Regnator - king, sovereign

Rex - king, sovereign

Ruminus - nourisher of all things

Salutaris - giver of health and safety

Sancus - He ratifies laws

Saotas - the preserver

Sator - the father of the universe

Saturnigena - son if Saturn

Scotios - obscure, mysterious

Secretus - apart, seperate from gods in general

Serenus - clear, bright, calm, serene

Skiptoukhos - He who bears the sceptor

Sohtír - savior, deliverer

Sosipolis - defender of towns

Sponsor - surety

Stabilitor - supporter of the world

Stæropîyærǽtîs - He who rouses or gathers lightning

Sthǽnios - the mighty one

Stratíos - of the armies

Synǽstios - guardian of the hearth

Tælæsiourgós - He who brings all things to perfection and completion

Tǽleios - perfect, all-powerful

Thæmístios - patron of right

Tropaios - He who turns, changes events, bestowing victory

Tropaioukhos - to whom trophies are dedicated

Varýktypos - loud-thundering

Victor - conqueror, victorious one

Voulaios - of the council

Vrondaios - thundering

Xǽnios - He who protects strangers; presiding over hospitality, the hospitable one

Yænǽthlios - father of one's family

Ÿǽtios - bringing rain

Ypærphærǽtis - the supreme one

Ýpatos - highest, supreme of all the gods

Ypsízygos - throned on high

I myself normally call Him Zeus, the Lord of the Skies, Sky Father (or, alternatively, Sky Dad/Sky Papa) or, most often and most simply, Father.

#21 newbie devotee challenge #day 3 #zeus*#zeusdeity #zeus #hellenic polytheism #hellenism #hellenistic #hellenismos #closet hellenist #pagan

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