FLORA. - An ancient Italic and Roman goddess; according to Varro of Sabine origin: in fact, her cult, independent of the Roman one, is documented at Agnone; at Furfo the calendar has a month Flosore (Florale). At Rome her cult was undoubtedly ancient. F. mater had her own flamen (fl. Floralis).
Her most ancient sanctuary was on the Quirinal. In 241 B.C., on the suggestion of the Sibylline books, a temple was built to her near the Circus Maximus, inaugurated with ludi which, beginning in 173 B.C., took on an annual character and were held between the last days of April and the first days of May. The ludi Florales, which perhaps replaced an original movable feast, were notorious for their licentious character: the prostitutes who staged a mock combat there stripped naked at the request of the public. At the ludi there also took place hunts of goats and rabbits, and legumes were thrown to the public. These features of the festival, and the ancient importance of the cult, show that the character of the goddess was not limited to a connection with "Sorientibus frumentis" as the ancient exegetes wished. F. in fact must have had more extensive relations with the sphere of fertility and with those divinities with which the cult places her in connection: her temple was immediately adjacent to that of the triad Ceres-Liber-Libera; her festive cycle links the month of April, dedicated to the festivals of telluric fertility, with the May of the Lemuria. The myths too, whose late documentation does not exclude more ancient roots, throw some light on the goddess. It is a flower of hers that makes Juno pregnant with Mars. In another myth F. appears as a prostitute who leaves her property to the State, thus earning a public cult: a myth parallel to that of Acca Larentia. These mythical relations with Rome and its origins give particular prominence to the report that the esoteric name of Rome was F.
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Angelo Brelich