Votum in the context of "Roman temples"

The military saints, warrior saints and soldier saints are patron saints, martyrs and other saints associated with the military. They were originally composed of the early Christians who were soldiers in the Roman army during the persecution of Christians, especially the Diocletianic Persecution of AD 303–313.

Most of the early Christian military saints were soldiers of the Roman Empire who had become Christian and, after refusing to participate in Imperial cult rituals of loyalty to the Roman Emperor, were subjected to corporal punishment including torture and martyrdom.

Ancient Roman temples were among the most important buildings in Roman culture, and some of the richest buildings in Roman architecture, though only a few survive in any sort of complete state. Today they remain "the most obvious symbol of Roman architecture". Their construction and maintenance was a major part of ancient Roman religion, and all towns of any importance had at least one main temple, as well as smaller shrines. The main room (cella) housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple was dedicated, and often a table for supplementary offerings or libations and a small altar for incense. Behind the cella was a room, or rooms, used by temple attendants for storage of equipment and offerings. The ordinary worshiper rarely entered the cella, and most public ceremonies were performed outside of the cella where the sacrificial altar was located, on the portico, with a crowd gathered in the temple precinct.

The most common architectural plan had a rectangular temple raised on a high podium, with a clear front with a portico at the top of steps, and a triangular pediment above columns. The sides and rear of the building had much less architectural emphasis, and typically no entrances. There were also circular plans, generally with columns all round, and outside Italy there were many compromises with traditional local styles. The Roman form of temple developed initially from Etruscan temples, themselves influenced by the Greeks, with subsequent heavy direct influence from Greece.

Fontus or Fons (pl.: Fontes, "Font" or "Source") was a god of wells and springs in ancient Roman religion. A religious festival called the Fontinalia was held on October 13 in his honor. Throughout the city, fountains and wellheads were adorned with garlands.

Fontus was the son of Juturna and Janus. Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome, was supposed to have been buried near the altar of Fontus (ara Fontis) on the Janiculum. William Warde Fowler observed that between 259 and 241 BC, cults were founded for Juturna, Fons, and the Tempestates, all having to do with sources of water. As a god of pure water, Fons can be placed in opposition to Liber as a god of wine identified with Bacchus.

In ancient Roman religion, Annona (Latin annōna “corn, grain; means of subsistence”, from annus "year") is the divine personification of the grain supply to the city of Rome. She is closely connected to the goddess Ceres, with whom she is often depicted in art.

Annona, often as Annona Augusti, was a creation of Imperial religious propaganda, manifested in iconography and cult practice. She is presented as a theophany of the emperor's power to care for his people through the provision of grain. Annona thus lacked narrative mythology or a tradition of devotion in the Roman Republic, but once established as part of Imperial cult, she was the recipient of dedications and votive offerings from private individuals motivated by gratitude or the seeking of favor.

In ancient Roman religion, Tempestas (Latin tempestas: "season, weather; bad weather; storm, tempest") is a goddess of storms or sudden weather. As with certain other nature and weather deities, the plural form Tempestates is common. Cicero, in discussing whether natural phenomena such as rainbows and clouds should be regarded as divine, notes that the Tempestates had been consecrated as deities by the Roman people.

A temple (aedes or delubrum) was dedicated to the Tempestates (given in the singular by Ovid) by L. Cornelius Scipio in 259 BC, as recorded by his epitaph. Scipio had been caught in a storm with his fleet off Corsica, and the building of the temple was in fulfillment of a vow made in asking for deliverance. Ovid gives the dedication day as June 1, but it appears as December 23 in the Fasti Antiates Maiores; this latter date may mark a renovation, or there may have been more than one temple to the Tempestates. The temple vowed in 259 was located in Regio I, perhaps near the Tomb of the Scipios, and was connected with the temples of Mars and Minerva there. William Warde Fowler saw a pattern of temple dedications during this period that acknowledged water as a divine force, including the Temple of Juturna vowed in 241 by Lutatius Catulus, and the Temple of Fons during the Corsican war of 231. Black sheep were sacrificed at her temple.