ancient Roman religion 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 high ...

and

myth Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

, 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 Kand, a member of the band Christian Death * ''Valor'' (TV series), an American drama series ...

. She was the partner of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

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

Minerva Minerva (; ; ) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. She is also a goddess of warfare, though with a focus on strategic warfare, rather than the violence of gods such as Mars. Be ...

. 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. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

root ''*h₂nḗr-'', related to

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

''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 (, , , ; ) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains (see Sabina) of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divided int ...

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 Minerva Bellona (goddess) {{AncientRome-myth-stub