Ceres (Roman Mythology)
In ancient Roman religion, Ceres ( , ) was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships.Room, Adrian, ''Who's Who in Classical Mythology'', p. 89-90. NTC Publishing 1990. . She was originally the central deity in Rome's so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad, then was paired with her daughter Proserpina in what Romans described as "the Greek rites of Ceres". Her seven-day April festival of Cerealia included the popular ''Ludi Ceriales'' (Ceres' games). She was also honoured in the May lustration (''lustratio'') of the fields at the Ambarvalia festival: at harvesttime: and during Roman marriages and funeral rites. She is usually depicted as a mature woman. Ceres is the only one of Rome's many agricultural deities to be listed among the Dii Consentes, Rome's equivalent to the Twelve Olympians of Greek mythology. The Romans saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess Demeter,''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 19 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dii Consentes
The ''Dii Consentes'', also known as ''Di'' or ''Dei Consentes'' (once ''Dii Complices''), or ''The Harmonious Gods'', is an ancient list of twelve major deities, six gods and six goddesses, in the pantheon of Ancient Rome. Their gilt statues stood in the Roman Forum, and later apparently in the Porticus Deorum Consentium. The gods were listed by the poet Ennius in the late 3rd century BCE in a paraphrase of an unknown Greek poet: Livy arranges them in six male-female pairs: Jupiter-Juno, Neptune-Minerva, Mars-Venus, Apollo-Diana, Vulcan-Vesta and Mercury-Ceres. Three of the ''Dii Consentes'' formed the Capitoline Triad: Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. Precursor lists The grouping of twelve deities has origins older than the Greek or Roman sources. Hittite The Greek grouping may have Hittite origins via Lycia, in Anatolia. A group of twelve Hittite gods is known both from cuneiform texts and from artistic representation. All the Hittite Twelve are male, with no indi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Religion In Ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by the Roman people, 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 () in maintaining Pax deorum, good relations with the gods. Their Polytheism, polytheistic religion is known for having honoured List of Roman deities, many deities. The presence of Magna Graecia, Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of the historical period influenced Culture of ancient Rome, Roman culture, introducing some religious practices that became fundamental, such as the of Apollo. The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks (), adapting Greek mythology, Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature and Roman art, as the Etruscans had. Etruscan religion was also a major influence, partic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Book People
The Book People Ltd was a UK online bookseller founded in 1988. It went into administration in 2019 and was formally dissolved in 2022. History The Book People started business in 1988, initially in the Guildford, Surrey area. It expanded rapidly, and by 1990 the company had 140 distributors around the country. A mail-order catalogue was followed by an online store in 1998. In 2002 the company opened offices in Haydock, Merseyside and, with part funding by the Welsh Government, a customer service centre and warehouse in Bangor. In 2007, The Book People won the ''Direct to Consumer Bookselling Company of the Year'' Award at the ''Bookseller'' Retail Awards. The company's founder Ted Smart received the Random House Group Award for Outstanding Contribution to Bookselling. A management buy-out of the company took place in 2014, with support from Endless LLP, a UK-based equity investor. By February 2016 the company was employing over 600 staff. On 17 December 2019, the BBC re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Twelve Olympians
file:Greek - Procession of Twelve Gods and Goddesses - Walters 2340.jpg, upright=1.8, Fragment of a Hellenistic relief sculpture, relief (1st century BC1st century AD) depicting the twelve Olympians carrying their attributes in procession; from left to right: Hestia (scepter), Hermes (winged cap and staff), Aphrodite (veiled), Ares (helmet and spear), Demeter (scepter and wheat sheaf), Hephaestus (staff), Hera (scepter), Poseidon (trident), Athena (owl and helmet), Zeus (thunderbolt and staff), Artemis (bow and quiver) and Apollo (lyre) from the Walters Art Museum. In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, the twelve Olympians are the major Deity, deities of the Greek Pantheon (religion), pantheon, commonly considered to be Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus. They were called ''Olympians'' because, according to tradition, they resided on Mount Olympus. Besides the twelve Olym ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Roman Agricultural Deities
In ancient Roman religion, agricultural deities were thought to care for every aspect of growing, harvesting, and storing crops. Preeminent among these are such major deities as Ceres and Saturn, but a large number of the many Roman deities known by name either supported farming or were devoted solely to a specific agricultural function. From 272 to 264 BC, four temples were dedicated separately to the agricultural deities Consus, Tellus, Pales, and Vortumnus. The establishment of four such temples within a period of eight years indicates a high degree of concern for stabilizing and developing the productivity of Italy following the Pyrrhic War. Varro, ''De re rustica'' At the beginning of his treatise on farming, Varro gives a list of twelve deities who are vital to agriculture. These make up a conceptual or theological grouping, and are not known to have received cult collectively. They are: *Jupiter- Tellus * Sol- Luna * Ceres- Liber * Robigus-Flora *Minerva-Venus * Ly ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roman Funerals And Burial
Roman funerary practices include the Classical antiquity, Ancient Ancient Romans, Romans' Ancient Roman religion, religious rituals concerning funerals, cremations, and burials. They were part of mos maiorum, time-hallowed tradition (), the unwritten code from which Romans derived their social norms. Elite funeral rites, especially processions and public Eulogy, eulogies, gave the family an opportunity to publicly celebrate the life and deeds of the deceased, their ancestors, and the family's standing in the community. Sometimes the political elite gave costly public feasts, games and popular entertainments after family funerals, to honour the departed and to maintain their own public profile and reputation for generosity. The Roman Gladiator, gladiator games began as funeral gifts for the deceased in high-status families. Funeral displays and expenses were supposedly constrained by sumptuary laws, designed to reduce class envy and consequent social conflict. The less well-off, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marriage In Ancient Rome
Marriage in ancient Rome () was a fundamental institution of society and was used by Romans primarily as a tool for marriage alliance, interfamilial alliances. The institution of Roman marriage was a practice of monogamy, marital monogamy: Roman citizens could have only one spouse at a time in marriage but were allowed to divorce and remarry. This form of prescriptively monogamous marriage that co-existed with male Polygyny, resource polygyny in Greco-Roman civilization may have arisen from the relative egalitarianism of Greek democracy, democratic and Roman Republic, republican city-states. Early Christianity embraced this ideal of monogamous marriage by adding its own teaching of monogamy, sexual monogamy, and propagating it worldwide to become an essential element in many later Western cultures. Roman marriage had Roman mythology, precedents in myth. The The Rape of the Sabine Women, abduction of the Sabine Women may reflect the archaic custom of bride abduction. Rome's Sabine n ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lustratio
''Lustratio'' was an ancient Greek and ancient Roman purification ritual. It included a procession and in some circumstances the sacrifice of a pig (''sus''), a ram (''ovis''), and a bull (''taurus'') (''suovetaurilia''). The name is the source of English " lustration" (a purification). Purpose The ''Lustratio'' was performed by a priest or magistrate who led a procession with at least one sacrificial animal around the area intended to be purified. Following this, the animals would be sacrificed to the god Mars. The animals which were sacrificed were usually either a pig, ram, or a bull. One reason for a ''lustratio'' was to rid newborn children of any harmful spirits that may have been acquired at birth prior to the ''dies lustricus''. The ceremony took place at the age of nine days for baby boys and eight days for baby girls. In the ceremony, the procession traced a magical boundary around the child to be purified. At the end of the ceremony, if the child was male, he was p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ludi
''Ludi'' (Latin:games; plural of "ludus") were public games held for the benefit and entertainment of the Roman people (''populus Romanus''). ''Ludi'' were held in conjunction with, or sometimes as the major feature of, Roman religious festivals, and were also presented as part of the cult of state. The earliest ''ludi'' were horse races in the circus (''ludi circenses''). Animal exhibitions with mock hunts ('' venationes'') and theatrical performances (''ludi scaenici'') also became part of the festivals. Because some of these entertainments are not competitive "games", ''ludi'' may also be translated more generally as "shows". Days on which ''ludi'' were held were public holidays, and no business could be conducted—"remarkably," it has been noted, "considering that in the Imperial era more than 135 days might be spent at these entertainments" during the year. Although their entertainment value may have overshadowed religious sentiment at any given moment, even in lat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roman Festivals
Festivals in ancient Rome were a very important part of Roman religious life during both the Republican and Imperial eras, and one of the primary features of the Roman calendar. ''Feriae'' ("holidays" in the sense of "holy days"; singular also ''feriae'' or ''dies ferialis'') were either public ''(publicae)'' or private ''( privatae)''. State holidays were celebrated by the Roman people and received public funding. Games ''(ludi)'', such as the Ludi Apollinares, were not technically ''feriae'', but the days on which they were celebrated were '' dies festi'', holidays in the modern sense of days off work. Although ''feriae'' were paid for by the state, ''ludi'' were often funded by wealthy individuals. ''Feriae privatae'' were holidays celebrated in honor of private individuals or by families. This article deals only with public holidays, including rites celebrated by the state priests of Rome at temples, as well as celebrations by neighborhoods, families, and friends held ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plebs
In ancient Rome, the plebeians or plebs were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words "commoners". Both classes were hereditary. Etymology The precise origins of the group and the term are unclear, but may be related to the Greek, ''plēthos'', meaning masses. In Latin, the word is a singular collective noun, and its genitive is . Plebeians were not a monolithic social class. In ancient Rome In the annalistic tradition of Livy and Dionysius, the distinction between patricians and plebeians was as old as Rome itself, instituted by Romulus' appointment of the first hundred senators, whose descendants became the patriciate. Modern hypotheses date the distinction "anywhere from the regal period to the late fifth century" BC. The 19th-century historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr believed plebeians were possibly foreigners immigrating from other parts of Italy. This hypothesis, that plebeians were raci ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cereal
A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, such as amaranth, buckwheat and quinoa, are pseudocereals. Most cereals are annuals, producing one crop from each planting, though rice is sometimes grown as a perennial. Winter varieties are hardy enough to be planted in the autumn, becoming dormant in the winter, and harvested in spring or early summer; spring varieties are planted in spring and harvested in late summer. The term cereal is derived from the name of the Roman goddess of grain crops and fertility, Ceres. Cereals were domesticated in the Neolithic around 8,000 years ago. Wheat and barley were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent; rice and some millets were domesticated in East Asia, while sorghum and other millets were domesticated in West Africa. Maize was domesticat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |