RT Article
T1 The Roman ‘Virtues’
JF Harvard theological review
VO 30
IS 2
SP 103
OP 117
A1 Mattingly, Harold
LA English
YR 1937
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1784640271
AB Juvenal in his First Satire (vv. 115, 116) remarks on the curious fact that Pecunia, though so devoutly worshipped, yet has no temple of her ownut colitur Pax atque Fides, Victoria, Virtus, quaeque salutato crepitat Concordia nido.She is not actually like them an object of cult. The modern reader, while relishing the bitterness of the gibe, is left vaguely wondering how the Romans could seriously worship such ‘personifications’ as Pax or Fides, and his wonder will only increase, if he follows up the subject and traces the cult of the ‘Virtues’ in literature, in inscriptions and, above all, in the imperial coinage. When we talk of ‘personifications,’ we feel ourselves at once in the realm of poetic or artistic imagery and fancy; the ancient Roman, when he spoke of similar figures, felt himself in the realm of religious fact.
DO 10.1017/S0017816000022173