MARS (Marte). - Italic and Roman deity. The spread of his cult, which predates Roman hegemony and is 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 there appears a month dedicated to M. (corresponding to the Roman martius, March).
In Rome his most ancient cult center was the ara Martis in the campus Martius. In the regia a spear was kept, the symbol of the god: before setting out for war, the commander would shake it, invoking the god with the words: Mars vigila! Also sacred to him are the twelve shields (ancilia) which legend conceived as copies of an original that had fallen from the sky, ordered by King Numa from the smith Mamurius Veturius 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 movement (ancilia movere) and not stored away (ancilia condere) in the regia had a dangerous character (dies religiosi). Although M. is not without notable references to agrarian life (he is invoked in the archaic Carmen of the Arval Brethren, while in private cult sacrifice is made to him for the health of the oxen and on the occasion of the lustration of the fields), the aspect that prevails in his cult is that of 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. notified her sister. On the occasion of the thanksgiving banquet offered to Jesus, who had raised Lazarus, M. presided over the services (Jn 12:2).
In 1187 it was believed that the tomb of St. M. had been discovered at Tarascon. The legend arose that M. had come there from Palestine with her brother and sister and had killed 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 July 29. She is the patroness of housewives and of guests. She is depicted with a bunch of keys or with kitchen utensils; sometimes with a dragon beside her, or with holy water.
Bibliography2 works
Pietro De Ambrogi
owes to M., father of Romulus and Remus, its birth; also among the other Italic peoples, M. has the function of supreme protector of the people. His symbolic animals - wolf, woodpecker, bull - guide the peoples in migrations and battles (cf. the name of the Hirpini from hirpus = wolf and of the Piceni from picus = woodpecker). In Rome the very great importance of the god is evident from the position of his priest, flamen Martialis, who is the second of the three major flamens after that of Jupiter, as well as from the numerous festivals dedicated to him in the most ancient calendar. These are: the two Equirria, the Agonium of March 17, the Quinquatrus, the Tubilustrium, the October equus, the Armilustrium (March and October are the culminating periods). Particularly characteristic is the ritual of the October equus: the horse that wins a sacred race is sacrificed by the flamen Martialis; with its blood the hearth of the regia is sprinkled, while the rest is preserved as an ingredient of the suffimen for purifying the people at the festival of the Parilia.
The most ancient cult places of M. are all outside the pomerium: thus the ara Martis in the field and the sanctuary at Porta Capena, where the army assembles before going to the front.
In the age of Augustus the new cult of Mars Ultor (avenger of Julius Caesar) assumed extraordinary importance; to his temple, built on private ground by Augustus, various privileges of the Capitoline temple of Jupiter were transferred. - See pl. XV.
Bibliography3 works
Angelo Brelich