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Fornax (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion, Fornax was the divine personification of the oven ''(fornāx)'', the patroness of bakers, and a goddess of baking. She ensured that the heat of ovens did not get hot enough to burn the corn or bread. People would pray to Fornax for help whilst baking. Her festival, the Fornacalia, was celebrated on February 17 among the thirty ''curiae'', the most ancient divisions of the city made by Romulus from the original three tribes of Rome. The Fornacalia was the second of two festivals involving the ''curiae'', the other being the Fordicidia on April 19. The goddess was probably conceived of to explain the festival, which was instituted for toasting the spelt (Latin ''far'') used to bake sacrificial cakes.Smith, ''The Roman Clan'', p. 206. Her role was eventually merged with the goddess Vesta. Ancient sources * Ovid, ''Fasti'' II. 525 ff * Festus, ''De significatu verborum'', under ''Fornacalia'', p. 82 in the edition of Lindsay * Plutarch, ''Roman Qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religion In Ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by the people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety ''( pietas)'' in maintaining good relations with the gods. Their polytheistic religion is known for having honored many deities. The presence of Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of the historical period influenced Roman culture, introducing some religious practices that became fundamental, such as the '' cultus'' of Apollo. The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks ('' interpretatio graeca''), adapting Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature and Roman art, as the Etruscans had. Etruscan religion was also a major influence, particularly on the practice of augury, used by the state to seek the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spelt
Spelt (''Triticum spelta''), also known as dinkel wheat or hulled wheat, is a species of wheat that has been cultivated since approximately 5000 BC. Spelt was an important staple food in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times. Now it survives as a relict crop in Central Europe and northern Spain, and it has found a new market as a health food. Spelt is sometimes considered a subspecies of the closely related species common wheat (''Triticum aestivum''), in which case its botanical name is considered to be ''Triticum aestivum'' subsp. ''spelta''. Like common wheat, it is a hexaploid wheat, which means it has six sets of chromosomes. Evolution Spelt has a complex history. It is a wheat species known from genetic evidence to have originated as a naturally occurring hybrid of a domesticated tetraploid wheat such as emmer wheat and the wild goat-grass '' Aegilops tauschii''. Genetic evidence shows that spelt wheat can also arise as the result of the hybridis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mola Salsa
In ancient Roman religion, ''mola salsa'' ("salted flour") was a mixture of coarse-ground, toasted emmer flour and salt prepared by the Vestal Virgins and used in every official sacrifice. It was sprinkled on the forehead and between the horns of animal victims before they were sacrificed, as well as on the altar and in the sacred fire. It was a common offering to the household hearth. Servius describes the substance as '' pius'' (perhaps "reverently prepared" in this sense) and '' castus'' ("ritually pure"). The ''mola salsa'' was so fundamental to sacrifice that "to put on the ''mola''" (Latin ''immolare'') came to mean "to sacrifice", hence English " immolation". Its use was one of the numerous religious traditions ascribed to Numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king of Rome.Fernando Navarro Antolín, ''Lygdamus. Corpus Tibullianum III.1–6: Lygdami Elegiarum Liber'' (Brill, 1996), pp. 272–27 online./ref> The College of Vestals would make ''mola salsa'' during the Vestali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grain Supply To The City Of Rome
Cura Annonae ("care of Annona") was the term used in ancient Rome, in honour of their goddess Annona, to describe the import and distribution of grain to the residents of the cities of Rome and, after its foundation, Constantinople. The city of Rome imported all the grain consumed by its population, estimated to number 1,000,000 by the 2nd century AD. An important part of this was the grain dole or corn dole, a government program which gave out free or subsidized grain, and later bread, to about 200,000 of Rome's adult male citizens. The corn-dole was originally an emergency measure to help feed a growing number of indebted and dispossessed citizen-farmers. By the end of the Republic, it had become a permanent institution. A regular and predictable supply of grain and the grain dole were part of the Roman leadership's strategy of maintaining civil obedience among a potentially restive urban population by providing them with what the poet Juvenal sarcastically called "bread and c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his '' Parallel Lives'', a series of biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans, and '' Moralia'', a collection of essays and speeches. Upon becoming a Roman citizen, he was possibly named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (). Life Early life Plutarch was born to a prominent family in the small town of Chaeronea, about east of Delphi, in the Greek region of Boeotia. His family was long established in the town; his father was named Autobulus and his grandfather was named Lamprias. His name is derived from Pluto (πλοῦτον), an epithet of Hades, and Archos (ἀρχός) meaning "Master", the whole name meaning something like "Whose master is Pluto". His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sextus Pompeius Festus
Sextus Pompeius Festus, usually known simply as Festus, was a Roman grammarian who probably flourished in the later 2nd century AD, perhaps at Narbo (Narbonne) in Gaul. Work He made a 20-volume epitome of Verrius Flaccus's voluminous and encyclopedic treatise '' De verborum significatione''. Flaccus had been a celebrated grammarian who flourished in the reign of Augustus. Festus gives the etymology as well as the meaning of many words, and his work throws considerable light on the language, mythology and antiquities of ancient Rome. He made a few alterations, and inserted some critical remarks of his own. He also omitted such ancient Latin words as had long been obsolete; these he apparently discussed in a separate work now lost, entitled ''Priscorum verborum cum exemplis''. Even incomplete, Festus' lexicon reflects at second hand the enormous intellectual effort that had been made in the Augustan Age to put together information on the traditions of the Roman world, which was alrea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fasti (poem)
The ''Fasti'' ( la, Fāstī , "the Calendar"), sometimes translated as ''The Book of Days'' or ''On the Roman Calendar'', is a six-book Latin poem written by the Roman poet Ovid and published in AD 8. Ovid is believed to have left the ''Fasti'' incomplete when he was exiled to Tomis by the emperor Augustus in 8 AD. Written in elegiac couplets and drawing on conventions of Greek and Latin didactic poetry, the ''Fasti'' is structured as a series of eye-witness reports and interviews by the first-person '' vates'' ("poet-prophet" or "bard") with Roman deities, who explain the origins of Roman holidays and associated customs—often with multiple aetiologies. The poem is a significant, and in some cases unique, source of fact in studies of religion in ancient Rome; and the influential anthropologist and ritualist J.G. Frazer translated and annotated the work for the Loeb Classical Library series. Each book covers one month, January through June, of the Roman calendar, and was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists.Quint. ''Inst.'' 10.1.93 Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus banished him to Tomis, a Dacian province on the Black Sea, where he remained a decade until his death. Overview A contemporary of the older poets Virgil and Horace, Ovid was the first major Roman poet to begin his career during Augustus's reign. Collectively, they are considered the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian described Ovid as the last of the Latin love elegists.Quint. ''Inst.'' 10.1.93 He enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, but the emperor Augustu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vesta (mythology)
Vesta () is the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman religion. She was rarely depicted in human form, and was more often represented by the fire of her temple in the Forum Romanum. Entry to her temple was permitted only to her priestesses, the Vestal Virgins, who guarded particular sacred objects within, prepared flour and sacred salt (''mola salsa'') for official sacrifices, and tended Vesta's sacred fire at the temple hearth. Their virginity was thought essential to Rome's survival; if found guilty of inchastity, they were punished by burial alive. As Vesta was considered a guardian of the Roman people, her festival, the '' Vestalia'' (7–15 June), was regarded as one of the most important Roman holidays. During the ''Vestalia'' privileged matrons walked barefoot through the city to the temple, where they presented food-offerings. Such was Vesta's importance to Roman religion that following the rise of Christianity, hers was one of the last non-Christian cul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Warde Fowler
William Warde Fowler (16 May 1847 – 15 June 1921) was an English historian and ornithologist, and tutor at Lincoln College, Oxford. He was best known for his works on ancient Roman religion. Among his most influential works wa''The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic''(1899). H. H. Scullard, in the introduction to his 1981 book on a similar topic, singled out Fowler's book as a particularly valuable resource despite its age, writing, "I have not been so presumptuous as to attempt to provide an alternative." References External links * * * ''The City-State of the Greeks and Romans: a survey introductory to the study of Ancient History''(1895) ''Julius Caesar and the Foundation of the Roman Imperial System''(1903)''Rome''Home University Library (1912)''Roman Ideas of Deity in the last century before the Christian Era''Oxford lectures (1914) ''Roman Essays and Interpretations''(1920) *"Kingham, old and new, studies in a rural parish" by W. Warde Fowler, 1913 [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oven
upA double oven A ceramic oven An oven is a tool which is used to expose materials to a hot environment. Ovens contain a hollow chamber and provide a means of heating the chamber in a controlled way. In use since antiquity, they have been used to accomplish a wide variety of tasks requiring controlled heating. Because they are used for a variety of purposes, there are many different types of ovens. These types differ depending on their intended purpose and based upon how they generate heat. Ovens are often used for cooking, where they can be used to heat food to a desired temperature. Ovens are also used in the manufacturing of ceramics and pottery; these ovens are sometimes referred to as kilns. Metallurgical furnaces are ovens used in the manufacturing of metals, while glass furnaces are ovens used to produce glass. There are many methods by which different types of ovens produce heat. Some ovens heat materials using the combustion of a fuel, such as wood, coal, or natu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fordicidia
In ancient Roman religion, the Fordicidia was a festival of fertility, held on the Ides of April (April 15), that pertained to farming and animal husbandry. It involved the sacrifice of a pregnant cow to Tellus, the ancient Roman goddess of the Earth, in proximity to the festival of Ceres (Cerealia) on April 19. Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, ''Religions of Rome: A History'' (Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 1p. 45./ref> On the Roman religious calendar, the month of April ''(Aprilis)'' was in general preoccupied with deities who were female or ambiguous in gender, opening with the Feast of Venus on the Kalends. Several other festivals pertaining to farm life were held in April: the Parilia, a feast of shepherds, on April 21; the Robigalia on April 25, to protect crops from blight; and the Vinalia, one of the two wine festivals on the calendar, at the end of the month. Of these, the Fordicidia and Robigalia are likely to have been of greatest antiquity. Willia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
