MARTE (Mars). – Italic and Roman divinity. The spread of his cult, predating Roman hegemony and therefore independent of it, can be demonstrated not only among the Latin peoples, but also among the Umbrians, Sabines, and Oscans; in Etruria, where he is called Maris, his cult is probably due to Italic influence. In many calendars of Italy not yet Romanized, a month dedicated to M. appears (corresponding to the Roman martius, March).
At Rome, his oldest cult center was the ara Martis in the campus Martius. A spear, symbol of the god, was kept in the regia: before setting out for war, the commander would shake it, invoking the god with the words: Mars vigila! The twelve shields (ancilia) are also sacred to him; legend conceived them as copies of an original that had fallen from heaven, ordered by King Numa from the smith Mamurius Veturius in order to conceal the original. The Salii, priests of M., carried them about, using them in their ritual dances during the periods sacred to the god; the days on which they were in motion (ancilia movere), rather than stored away (ancilia condere) in the regia, had a dangerous character (dies religiosi). Although M. is not without significant connections to agricultural life (he is invoked in the Arval Brothers’ archaic Hymn, while in private worship he is sacrificed to for the health of oxen and on the occasion of the lustration of the fields), the aspect that predominates in his cult is that of a warrior god: as such, he would come to be identified with the Greek Ares. For the Romans, the State
Jesus answered: “I am the resurrection and the life....” M. alerted her sister. On the occasion of the thanksgiving banquet offered to Jesus, who had raised Lazarus, M. presided over the services (Io. 12, 2).
In 1187, the tomb of St. M. was believed to have been discovered at Tarascon. The legend arose that M. had come there from Palestine with her brother and sister and had slain a monster there. In a discourse wrongly attributed to St. Ambrose, M. is identified with the woman with the issue of blood in the Gospel (PL 17, 698). In the Roman Martyrology she is commemorated on 29 July. She is the patron saint of housewives and guests. She is depicted with a bunch of keys or with kitchen utensils; at times with a dragon or a holy-water stoup beside her.
BIRL.: H. Lesêtre, Marthe in DB, IV, col. 825 ff.; L. Duchesne, Fasses épise, de l’anc. Gaule, I, 2nd ed., Paris 1907, pp. 321–59. Pietro De Ambrogi
owes his birth to M., father of Romulus and Remus; among the other Italic peoples as well, M. has the function of supreme protector of the people. His symbolic animals—the wolf, woodpecker, and bull—guide peoples in their migrations and struggles (cf. the name of the Hirpini from hirpus = wolf and of the Piceni from picus = woodpecker). At Rome, the god’s immense importance is evident from the position of his priest, the flamen Martialis, who is second among the three major flamines after that of Jupiter, as well as from the numerous festivals dedicated to him in the oldest calendar. These are: the two Equirria, the Agonium of 17 March, the Quinquatus, the Tubilustrium, the october equus, and the Armilustrium (March and October are the culminating periods). Particularly characteristic is the ritual of the october equus: the winning horse in a sacred race is sacrificed by the flamen Martialis; its blood is used to bathe the hearth of the regia, while the remainder is preserved as an ingredient of the suffimen for purifying the people at the festival of the Parilia.
The oldest places of worship of M. are all outside the pomerium: such are the ara Martis in campo and the sanctuary at the Porta Capena, where the army assembled before going to the front.
In the age of Augustus, the new cult of Mars Ultor (avenger of Julius Caesar) assumed extraordinary importance; various privileges of the Capitoline temple of Jupiter were transferred to his temple, built by Augustus on private ground. – Vedi tav. XV.
BIRL.: G. Wissows, Religion und Kultus der Römer, 3rd ed., Munich 1912, p. 141 ff.; G. Hermansen, Studien über den italischen und römischen Mars, Copenhagen 1940; G. Dumézil, Naissance de Rome, Paris 1944, p. 38 ff. Angelo Brelich