Vulcan – Fire God

"Red hot fire blowers" by dislexicpalindrome (2011)

If you want to understand the Roman attitude to deified fire, understanding Roman ideas about the nature of Vulcan (or Volcanus, as the Romans knew him) is essential. Vulcan is the fertile, creative and yet potentially ugly and destructive side of fire. On the one hand he is propitiated - for his scorching fires, which threaten to burn and destroy forests, homes and harvests, are feared. On the other hand, he is honoured as a master metalworker who creates the finest armour, weapons and any other object forged in fire. Thus Vulcan is the God of fire and of metalworking, and one of the major Gods in the Roman pantheon.

The antiquity of Vulcan’s cult in Rome

Not only was Vulcan one of the Dii Consentes (one of the 12 major Gods of ancient Rome), he was also one of only 15 Gods to have a State appointed priest (flamen) and he is known to have had a shrine in the Roman Forum since at least the 6th century BCE – the Volcanal, which appears to have consisted of:

“an altar … next to it a column … which probably held a statue … [a] fragment of a Greek (Athenian) pot, 570-560 B.C., is the most ancient of the objects to be found associated with the Volcanal. It depicts the Greek god Hephaestus – who (as has always been known) was eventually ‘identified’ with the Roman Vulcan, as the god of fire and metalworking – returning to Olympus, riding on a donkey. The presence of this fragment at the site suggests that the identification of the Roman with the Greek god, far from being late or literary, was made already in the sixth century B.C. [Beard et al, Religions of Rome: Volume 2: A Sourcebook at 21-22].”

Vesta – Fire Goddess

Vesta by coolcurry.deviantart.com

Of all the Goddesses, Vesta is most frequently invoked during prayers at my household shrine; she is inevitably a highly important Goddess in the context of (Roman oriented) domestic worship. Likewise she was a vitally important Goddess in the State religion of ancient Rome. Despite her importance, scholars have relatively little to say of her, though they have a great deal to say of her priestesses. I will not look too much at the intriguing Vestal Virgins as there is already a wealth of information on them scattered across the internet and in books.* I want to look directly to Vesta herself – she seems to me a most comforting and benevolent Goddess. Scholars tend to describe her as a Goddess of the sacred hearth fire, guardian of the home, and as a virgin Goddess who is inviolable and pure.** Perhaps the best contemporary description I have come across comes from Shelton, who writes:

“Vesta was the deity of the hearth fire. Fire for cooking and heating was a necessity of life, and the Romans were therefore conscientious in their worship of Vesta. In private homes of early Rome, where the hearth was a central element, all family members [which included slaves] gathered … for a sacrifice to Vesta [the sacrificial items were usually salt and flour]. In a sense, then, every private home was a temple of Vesta [J Shelton, As the Romans Did at 385].”

In another edifying description of Vesta, Beard et al write:

“The significance of the flame … in at least one of its aspects, lie in its link with the foundation, generation and continuation of the race. The goddess Vesta herself encapsulated all the elements; she was the flame itself, she was the virgin, she was Vesta the Mother [M Beard et al, Religions of Rome: Volume 1: A History at 53].”

Roman Gods, Indian Gods

The God Indra (Jupiter) armed with a vajra (thunderbolt),
as depicted on a popular Indian comic. From hoopos.com

I recently spent time trying to discover how the interpretatio Romana could be applied to the Indian pantheon. I discovered that it is not easily applied and that Indian polytheism is almost unbelievably complex. The first thing to know is that Hinduism is the sum total of numerous polytheistic belief systems emanating from the huge geographic region that is south Asia and linked by “various common elements such as Vedic tradition, the caste system, religious and moral law, epics and myths, and reverence for spiritual teachers” (Dallapiccola, Hindu: Visions of the Sacred). The second thing to know is that polytheism as experienced and understood by Hindus today is not the same as south Asian polytheism in ancient times. These days it appears that the majority of Hindus believe that most, if not all, Gods and Goddesses are manifestations of other more major Gods and many Hindus believe all deities are aspects of Brahman (or Shiva or Vishnu) – the ultimate reality and deity, which is a concept not dissimilar to Neoplatonic ideas about “the One”. The major Gods of Hinduism today are Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver and Shiva/Siva, the destroyer, as well as Devi/Shakti, the great Goddess – these Gods do not really have direct parallels in the Roman (or Greek) pantheon, which is not to say that the Indian equivalent to Roman Gods cannot be discovered but it makes the process difficult and uncertain. The Vedic pantheon of ancient India certainly seems more recognisable to one who is familiar with Roman Gods (and Vedic Brahmin priests appear to have been even more obsessed with the correct practice of ritual than the patrician priests of ancient Rome) but many Vedic Gods are no longer widely revered or they have been subsumed into other, more accessible, deities such as Vishnu or Shiva (Vedic Gods may be considered less accessible because traditionally only Brahmin priests can perform sacrifices to Vedic Gods).

Household Shrine and Ritual

Lararium fresco from a tavern in Pompeii - on either side of the Lares is
Mercury on the left and Bacchus on the right. Sacred snakes appear below.

Three and a half years after I first set up my household shrine a few things have changed – one of the biggest changes is that after years of wariness of statues I now have a carefully chosen statue of Mercury on my shrine, for he is a God I particularly revere. Initially I held the notion that the household shrine, or lararium, should, to be consistent with the religious practices of ancient Romans, only honour household deities, but I have since come to realise that ancient Romans did not necessarily hold that view. Mary Beard writes:

"… one of the most distinctive and easily recognisable features of Pompeian houses is shrines that we now call by the Latin word lararium, shrine of the Lares or household gods … some of these are quite elaborate affairs … But many others are much simpler … In many cases statuettes of gods and goddesses stood on the ledge or shelf of the lararium. Sometimes these depict the Lares themselves, but a much wider range of deities has been found … After the Lares, Mercury is the most popular divine subject, closely followed by Egyptian gods … with Venus, Minerva, Jupiter and Hercules, in that order, coming next [M Beard, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town at 295-298]."

Some hold that it is better to have a separate shrine to the household Gods (whom I invoke as “spirits of the household” during the shrine ritual) as distinct from any other Gods one wishes to especially honour, but I live in a small home and it is not practical to have separate shrines. I am very happy with my modest multi-deity shrine.

Interpreting the Lares

What the scholars say
In many ways the heart of the Roman way to the Gods can be said to lay with the household shrine and the deities worshipped thereon. The Lares familiares/Lares domestici (Lares of the household/familia – which includes family members, slaves, servants and perhaps animals) are prominent among these but I have struggled to understand their nature – are they guardians of place (where the household resides) or, as some have suggested, ancestor guardians of the family? Respected scholars M Beard et al describe them as follows: 

Bronze statuette of Lar holding a rhyton and a patera,
 1st century CE (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK)

"Lares, protecting spirits of place, were worshipped in various contexts: in the house, at the crossroads, in the city (as guardians of the state). The Lares 'familiares' (gods of the house and its members) are the best known of these - receiving offerings, sacrifices and prayers within the household, and commonly appealed to as the protectors of its safety and prosperity. But no mythological stories attached to them; nor were they defined as individual personalities [Beard, North and Price, Religions of Rome: Volume 2 at 2.2a]."

Valerie Warrior writes:

“Each Roman home has its own protective deities, the Lar (plural Lares), protecting the household or family; the Penates, protecting the stores-cupboard or pantry (penus) in the inner part of the house; the Genius or guardian spirit of individual members of the household, especially the paterfamilias; and Vesta, goddess of the hearth. The shrine to the Lar, generally known as the lararium, was sometimes in the atrium, the more public part of the house near the entrance, but more commonly in the kitchen area. Just as the home had its tutelary deities, so too did the entire property [Warrior, Roman Religion at 28-29] …”

The Golden Ass and the Catamite

Patera depicting Cybele and Attis, 4th century CE, source: ancientrome.ru

As the traditional time to mourn and then celebrate the death and resurrection of Cybele's beloved Attis (a festival since subsumed by Easter) draws near there is perhaps no better time to look at the role of the galli in ancient Rome. The galli were priests of the great Goddess Cybele, also called the Magna Mater. In imitation of her lover, Attis, who was said to have castrated himself after being driven into a frenzy by a jealous Cybele, the galli castrated themselves during the festival of Attis. Thereafter these “mad eunuch priests” (to quote Lucretius) dressed in women’s clothing, which were typically brightly coloured, wore earrings and heavy make up, and became well known for their wild rites in which they ritualistically flogged and mutilated themselves whilst in an ecstatic frenzy brought on by boisterous music and dancing. They were also well known fortune tellers and were perhaps the only priests permitted to beg during the Roman era.

Greco-Roman Pagan Lego

There are no shortage of Lego set ups engaging with Greco-Roman themes, however they tend to be scattered across cyberspace. Here follows my attempt to bring the best of them together in a Pagan setting. I humbly acknowledge that I became aware of many of these set ups through godbricks.blogspot.com, which is a blog dedicated to Lego set ups with a religious motif.

"Legionaries Ready!" by ACPin. The God of the temple is not indicated (presumably a military God would be appropriate, such as Mars or Bellona) but it is still a great set up. The Sphinxes at the front of the temple are a nice touch.

See more at pinlac.com/LegoRomanTempleDeparture

"Palladium in ignis" by lokosuperfluoLEGOman. I love this one - it depicts Pontifex Maximus (high priest of Rome), Lucius Caecilius Metellus, rescuing the sacred Palladium (a wooden statue of Minerva/Pallas Athena said to have been brought to Rome by mythological founding father of Rome, Aeneas) from a fire in the temple of Vesta in 241 BCE. 

See more at www.flickr.com/photos/lokosuperfluolegoman