MYPHOLOGY

In Rome, unlike some other cultures, there was no special priestly class. The priests were officials who had been elected from among Roman citizens. They fully participated in public life and formed boards with a fixed range of duties. Collegiums of flamins, fecals, pontiffs, magnifiers, salieves, Arval brothers, garuspiks, augures and vestals are known. Flamins were called the servants of individual gods, and their collegium included fifteen people. Among the flamins, three were considered elders:...

Fortune-telling. Fortune-telling and the interpretation of omens played a very important role in both the private and public life of the Romans. The gods were asked about the outcome of any significant work, whether it was a military expedition or the construction of a building. These purposes were served by a well-calibrated system of fortune-telling, which was carried out by a special panel of august priests. The Augurs had great influence, and if the omens were bad, they could even overturn the law...

The house with all its inhabitants was managed by penitent spirits, who favored people. Their name comes from the Latin word penus, which means provisions or foodstuffs. Therefore, it is believed that originally the pencils represented a household barn or pantry. As the patrons of the storerooms, the penises were in charge of the supplies at home and used them along with other inhabitants, participating in home meals. During the meal at the common table, the pencils were thrown into the hearth...

Pomona was a goddess of woodfruits. It is said that she did not like either forests or fields and spent all the time in her garden taking care of fruit trees. Pomona's passion was all over her garden, but she kept the men away from her, no matter how hard they tried to seduce Pomona with satires. The most loved was the beautiful Pomona Vertumn, the god of the seasons, but she was also cold to him. Vertumn appeared before her differently: the way the reaper brought her compressed ears, the way the ploughman dragged a heavy deaf ear, the way the gardener appeared with a sickle in his hands ...

The ancients saw the woman mainly as the mother of the family protecting the house and children while the men were doing their men's work. Reproduction of the genus was crucial, as the survival of the community depended on the children in the future, so that traditions reinforced a great deal of respect for women as mothers and guardians of peace and order. As a result, many of the female deities we meet in archaic cultures are derived in varying degrees from the image of the mother goddess. One...