Flora- Roman GodDeity"Goddess of Flowers"

Chloris and the West Wind

Ovid tells her story in the Fasti. She was Chloris, a Greek nymph of the fields, until Zephyrus caught her. The west wind pursued her across the countryside in early spring, and when he took her as his wife, he gave her dominion over flowers as a wedding gift. From her mouth flowers fell when she spoke. The earth bloomed where she stepped. She became Flora, and her season arrived each year with the warm wind that followed winter.

A special priest, the Flamen Floralis, maintained her cult. She had temples near the Circus Maximus and on the Quirinal Hill, the latter established after crop failures convinced the Romans that the goddess of flowering needed proper honors. Without her, grain would not blossom, and without blossoms there would be no harvest.

The Birth of Mars

Flora's most closely guarded secret, as Ovid has her tell it, involved Juno. Jupiter had produced Minerva from his own head without a mother, and Juno wanted a child of her own without a father. She came to Flora for help. Flora hesitated to speak of it even to Ovid, but she relented: she had given Juno a flower from the fields of Olenus, and at its touch Juno conceived. She withdrew to Thrace, and there Mars was born. In gratitude, Juno gave Flora a place of honor among the gods of Rome. The story made Flora more than a goddess of gardens. She was the reason Rome's war god existed at all.

The Floralia

Her festival ran from April 28 to May 3, six days of theater and circus games. Spectators wore multicolored clothing instead of the usual white. Flowers and beans were scattered through the crowds. At night the celebrations continued by torchlight. The Floralia had a reputation: mime actresses traditionally stripped at the end of their performances, and Valerius Maximus records that Cato the Elder once left the theater rather than inhibit the custom by his presence. The crowd cheered when he went.