Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/171

 THE ROMAN GODS 157 consecrated to her, and were pursued like fleeing stags. Like the Bona Dea, moreover, she was especially wor- shiped by women and was besought as the giver of fe- cundity and an easy birth. This phase of her character, perhaps, accounts for the fact that several of her temples, for example, those at Tusculum, Aricia, and Rome, were sanctuaries of confederacies of various Latin tribes. At a later period Diana, as goddess of groves and fruit- fulness, was fully identified with Artemis, and thus became a goddess, of the hunt, and a moon goddess, an idea which, so far as the indigenous Diana is concerned, could have had no foundation except in her feast on the Ides. 204. (4) It is more doubtful what position was origi- nally occupied by Mars, who from the earliest times was worshiped in all the tribes of central Italy. Various things go to show that he was an old sun god, viz. his close relationship to the Greek Apollo; certain ancient formulas of supplication, in which he is entreated to pro- tect and bless the fields, crops, vineyards, etc. ; and the dedication of the so-called ver sacrum, i.e. the offering of the next spring's expected increase in human beings, cattle, and crops, which was promised at times of severe disaster. On the other hand, he was closely enough related to the spirits of activity to represent principally, at least in later times, the divine power exerted in war. But his efficacy in war was not restricted to so narrow a province as was that of the Indigetes of later times, who were creations of the elaborate wisdom of the priests. His name Mars, or Mavors, and his ancient epithet Gradivus cannot be explained with certainty ; but it is evident from his old symbolic attributes, and from what