Римская богиня мира: Pax и её культ

Roman goddess of peace
Pax (Latin for Peace), more commonly known in English as Peace, was the Roman goddess of peace derived and adopted from the ancient Greek equivalent Eirene. Pax was seen as the daughter of the Roman king god Jupiter and the goddess Justice. Worship of Peace was organized and made popular during the rule of the emperor Augustus who used her imagery to help stabilise the empire after the years of turmoil and civil war of the late republic. Augustus commissioned an altar of peace in her honour on the Campus Martius called Ara Pacis, and the emperor Vespasian built a temple for her on called the Templum Pacis. Pax had a festival held for her on January 30. In art she is commonly depicted holding out olive branches as a peace offering, as well as a caduceus, cornucopia, corn and a sceptre. Pax is also often associated with spring.

Early Roman worship and mythology was very much based on and adopted from the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses. Pax was a relatively unrecognised deity during the early republic as she had little to do with the Roman philosophy.

Pax worship peaked during Augustus Caesar’s reign and the early empire. Augustus introduced Pax as a way to stabilise his reign and to signal to the populace that the previous years of civil war and turmoil that was linked to the decay and fall of the republic had ended and that his reign had bought peace and direction to the ravaged empire. The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the barbarian invasions of the 4th and 5th centuries led to the complete collapse of Pax’s worship. While there were differences in Pax and Jesus, the concept of peace during the Pax Romana could’ve inspired part of the peaceful message seen within Christianity’s emphasis of peace and its connection with prosperity.

Republic coins may have alluded to Pax before 44BC but in only using the goddesses future symbols and none specifically included Pax’s personification or called her by name until after 44BC. The first depictions of peace seen on coinage was depicted in denarii in 137BC which was circulated to recall a treaty between Rome and Epirus after the Samnite wars. On this a woman was surrounded with farm animals such as pigs and on the obverse side two soldiers face each other whilst holding a pig for sacrifice. In 49BC a minter known as Sicinus released a denarius with a laurel wreath, caduceus, and victory palm, maybe he did this to evoke the idea of domestic unity and the association of peace with prosperity. Pax under Augustus took her known form as he demonstrated that peace bought wealth, which was contradictory to the traditional Roman understanding that only war and conquest afforded wealth in the form of loot and plunder. Fruits and grains were incorporated into Pax’s image and this was maybe done to show the return and abundance of agriculture at the time, as many veterans during the empire where often settled onto farms particularly after the civil wars. Pax was also shown with twins, maybe representing domestic harmony achieved through the Pax Romana. This was because fertility at home was spurred when the father of the household was around and not fighting in the legions. Cows, pigs and sheep imagery on the Ara Pacis showed the abundance of food and animal husbandry during the Pax Romana and these animals were also regularly scarified to Pax. Pax is also shown with a cornucopia to further emphasise the opulence and wealth during this Roman golden era. During the latter years of her worship she was very rarely shown holding the caduceus and she was increasingly shown sharing many more features common with Augustus hinting at the Pax Augusta.