ancient Roman religion 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

myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

, Nerio (or Neriene) was an ancient war goddess and the personification of

valor Valor, valour, or valorous may mean: * Courage, a similar meaning * Virtue ethics, roughly "courage in defense of a noble cause" Entertainment * Valor (band), a Christian gospel music group * Valor Kand, a member of the band Christian Death * ' ...

. She was the partner of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

in ancient cult practices, and was sometimes identified with the goddess

Bellona Bellona may refer to: Places *Bellona, Campania, a ''comune'' in the Province of Caserta, Italy * Bellona Reef, a reef in New Caledonia *Bellona Island, an island in Rennell and Bellona Province, Solomon Islands Ships * HMS ''Bellona'' (1760), a 7 ...

, and occasionally with the goddess

Minerva Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the R ...

. Spoils taken from enemies were sometimes dedicated to Nerio by the Romans. Nerio was later supplanted by mythologized deities appropriated and adapted from other religions.

Cult role

Ancient Roman literature seems to have pointed Nerio as one of two wives of war god Mars, the other being ''Moles''.

Etymology

The name of the goddess is thought to derive from a

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

root ''*h₂nḗr-'', related to

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

''ἀνήρ'', and both pertaining to the semantic field of masculine attributes, such as strength, vigour, valor. Aulus Gellius, in his book ''Attic Nights'', remarked that her name was a

Sabine The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines di ...

word meaning 'strength and fortitude'.Dexter, Miriam Robbins. ''Whence the goddesses: a source book''. The Athene Series. New York and London:

Teachers College Press Teachers College Press is the university press of Teachers College, Columbia University. Founded in 1904, Teachers College Press has published professional and classroom materials for over a century and currently publishes 70 titles per year. Hi ...

, Teachers College, Columbia University. 1990. p. 154. .

References

Sources

*Grimal, Pierre. ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Roman goddesses War goddesses Personifications in Roman mythology {{AncientRome-myth-stub