Mars
Mars EuropeNext to Jupiter, Mars enjoyed the highest honours at Rome. Exalting military power and glory, the Romans raised this war god far above the status of his Greek counterpart Ares. The Greeks had conceived Ares as an unpopular deity—bloodthirsty, brutal, he was a braggart, even a coward. Mars, on the contrary, was considered the father of Romulus, who built the walls of Rome. The war god also protected farmers and herdsmen, and sometimes used the title Silvanus.
March, the month of Mars, possessed a succession of festivals dedicated to the god of war and protector of growth. On 1 March the sacred flame in the shrine of Vesta was relit, and the homes of priests and other sacred buildings were decorated with laurel branches, a tree always associated with Mars. On 14 March there was horse racing in the massive Campus Martius, to which the Roman citizenry thronged. On 23 March holy war trumpets were purified.
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