Gods, Goddesses, and Ancient Legends
Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE. Octavian vowed to Mars that he would have vengeance. The temple he built twenty-seven years later was Rome’s most deliberate piece of political theology.
The Romans had a word for the advance — and a god for it. Mars Gradivus governed the moment between preparation and battle, when discipline either held or broke.
Rome had one god of war and dozens of names for him. Each name was a different situation, a different need, a different version of the same divine force.