Juventas- Roman GodDeity"Goddess of Youth"

The Shrine That Would Not Yield

When Tarquinius Superbus began building the great Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill, the augurs sought permission from every god whose shrine already stood on the site. One by one, the gods agreed to move. Terminus refused. So did Juventas. Their shrines stayed where they were, built into Jupiter's own temple floor.

Livy records that the Romans read this as an omen: because Terminus would not move, Rome's borders would never shrink. Because Juventas would not move, Rome would never grow old.

The Coin at the Capitol

Juventas received her offering on the day a Roman boy became a citizen. He set aside his bulla and his childhood toga, put on the plain white toga virilis, and walked with his family to the Capitol. There, at Juventas's shrine, he dropped a coin into the offering box. His name was enrolled in the citizen lists. He walked home a different person than when he left.

The coin was small. The gesture was not. Every Roman man who held office, commanded troops, or stood in the Forum had once stood at that shrine and paid his coin to the goddess who governed the threshold between boy and citizen.

The Temple in the Circus

In 207 BCE, plague struck Rome while Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal was marching into Italy. The Senate vowed a temple to Juventas if the crisis passed. It did. Hasdrubal died at the Metaurus, and the plague lifted. The temple was dedicated sixteen years later, in 191 BCE, and stood in the Circus Maximus, where young men raced chariots and competed in the games that bore her spirit out in muscle and speed.