The Dii Consentes, also known as Di or Dei Consentes (once Dii Complices), or The Harmonious Gods, is an ancient list of twelve major deities, six gods and six goddesses, in the pantheon of Ancient Rome. Their gilt statues stood in the Roman Forum, and later apparently in the Porticus Deorum Consentium.
The gods were listed by the poet Ennius in the late 3rd century BCE in a paraphrase of an unknown Greek poet:
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Vesta (Classical Latin: [ˈwɛs.ta]) is the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman religion. She was rarely depicted in human form, and was more often represented by the fire of her temple in the Forum Romanum. Entry to her temple was permitted only to her priestesses, the Vestal Virgins. Their virginity was deemed essential to Rome's survival; if found guilty of inchastity, they were buried or entombed alive. As Vesta was considered a guardian of the Roman people, her festival, the Vestalia (7–15 June), was regarded as one of the most important Roman holidays. During the Vestalia privileged matrons walked barefoot through the city to the temple, where they presented food-offerings. Such was Vesta's importance to Roman religion that following the rise of Christianity, hers was one of the last non-Christian cults still active, until it was forcibly disbanded by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in AD 391.
The myths depicting Vesta and her priestesses were few; the most notable of them were tales of miraculous impregnation of a virgin priestess by a phallus appearing in the flames of the sacred hearth — the manifestation of the goddess combined with a male supernatural being. In some Roman traditions, Rome's founders Romulus and Remus and the benevolent king Servius Tullius were conceived in this way. Vesta was among the Dii Consentes, twelve of the most honored gods in the Roman pantheon. She was the daughter of Saturn and Ops, and sister of Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Juno, and Ceres. Her Greek equivalent is Hestia.
Proserpina (/proʊˈsɜːrpɪnə/ proh-SUR-pih-nə; Latin: [proːˈsɛrpɪna]) or Proserpine (/ˈprɒsərpaɪn/ PROSS-ər-pyne) is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of the Greek Persephone. Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whose principal cult was housed in a temple atop Rome's Aventine Hill, which she shared with the grain-goddess Ceres and the wine god Liber (Liber Pater).
Each of these three deities occupied their own cella at the temple, their cults served or supervised by a male public priesthood. Ceres was by far the senior of the three, one of the Dii Consentes, Rome's approximate equivalent to the Greek Twelve Olympians, Ceres being identified with the Greek Demeter and Liber with Dionysus. Libera is sometimes described as a female version of Liber Pater, concerned with female fertility. Otherwise she is given no clear identity or mythology by Roman sources, and no Greek equivalent. Nothing is known of her native iconography: her name translates as a feminine form of Liber, "the free one". Proserpina's name is a Latinization of "Persephone", perhaps influenced by the Latin proserpere ("to emerge, to creep forth"), with reference to the growing of grain.
In ancient Roman religion, Ceres (/ˈsɪəriːz/ SEER-eez, Latin: [ˈkɛreːs]) was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. She was originally the central deity in Rome's so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad, then was paired with her daughter Proserpina in what Romans described as "the Greek rites of Ceres". Her seven-day April festival of Cerealia included the popular Ludi Ceriales (Ceres's games). She was also honoured in the May lustration (lustratio) of the fields at the Ambarvalia festival: at harvesttime: and during Roman marriages and funeral rites. She is usually depicted as a mature woman.
Ceres is the only one of Rome's many agricultural deities to be listed among the Dii Consentes, Rome's equivalent to the Twelve Olympians of Greek mythology. The Romans saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess Demeter, whose mythology was reinterpreted for Ceres in Roman art and literature.
Mercury (/ˈmɜːrkjʊri/; Latin: Mercurius [mɛrˈkʊrijʊs] ) is a major god in Roman religion and mythology, being one of the 12 Dii Consentes within the ancient Roman pantheon. He is the god of boundaries, commerce, communication (including divination), eloquence, financial gain, languages, luck, thieves, travelers, and trickery; he is also the guide of souls to the underworld.
In Roman mythology, he was the son of Maia, one of the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas, and Jupiter. In his earliest forms, he appears to have been related to the Etruscan deity Turms; both gods share characteristics with the Greek god Hermes. He is often depicted holding the caduceus in his left hand. Similar to his Greek equivalent Hermes, he was awarded a magic wand by Apollo, which later turned into the caduceus, the staff with intertwined snakes.
The Portico Dii Consentes (Latin: Porticus Deorum Consentium; Italian: Portico degli Dei Consenti), also known as the Area of the Dii Consentes or the Harmonious Gods, was an ancient structure located at the bottom of the ancient Roman road that leads up to the Capitol in Rome, Italy. The Clivus Capitolinus ("Capitoline Rise") turned sharply at the head of the Roman Forum where this portico of marble and composite material was discovered and re-erected in 1835.