Roman gods, myths, and legends.
Test your knowledge with these top questions!
Venus asks which god to forge Aeneas's armor in Book 8 of Aeneid?
Vulcan's shield maps Rome's future onto Aeneas's armor, including Augustus's victory at Actium.
Romans linked Jupiter most closely with which Greek god?
Romans also honored Jupiter as guardian of oaths, treaties, and the state, beyond the myths shared with Zeus.
Romans later worshiped the vanished Romulus under which divine name?
Plutarch says Julius Proculus claimed Romulus appeared in shining armor and declared himself Quirinus.
According to Roman myth, Mars fathered which pair of twins?
Rhea Silvia named Mars as the twins' father, so Romans viewed the war god as an ancestor of their city.
Roman tradition also calls Aeneas's son Ascanius by which name?
The Julian family claimed Iulus as an ancestor, linking Julius Caesar's line to Venus.
In Roman myth, which animal nursed the abandoned twins Romulus and Remus?
The shepherd Faustulus later found the twins and raised them with his wife, Acca Larentia.
Romulus built Rome's first defenses on which hill in Livy's account?
Livy places Romulus on the Palatine and Remus on the Aventine as the twins watch for omens.
What did Romans call the divine spirits of the dead?
Roman tomb inscriptions often begin "D.M.," short for "Dis Manibus," meaning "to the departed spirits."
Which Trojan hero was the son of Venus and Anchises?
Aeneas carries Anchises out of burning Troy while leading his own son, Ascanius, to safety.
Whose protective spirit did the household Genius embody in Roman domestic worship?
Families honored the Genius on the paterfamilias's birthday, often at the household shrine.