Nerio- Roman GodDeity"Nerio Martis"
Also known as: Neriene and Nerienis
Titles & Epithets
Domains
Description
Her name was the Sabine word for valor. Nerio was Mars's consort before Venus took the role, and the pairing said something plain about early Rome: the god of war belonged with courage, not beauty.
Mythology & Lore
Mars and Nerio
Aulus Gellius preserves the oldest testimony. He quotes the comic poet Licinius Imbrex calling Nerio the wife of Mars, and records that her name came from a Sabine word meaning valor or strength. Plautus uses the paired invocation "Mars and Nerio" in the Truculentus as though his audience would recognize it.
That is nearly all that survives. No temples are recorded. No festivals. She existed in the oldest layer of Roman religion, before Greek influence reshaped the pantheon. Mars had war. Nerio had the courage to wage it.
By the late Republic, Venus had replaced her at Mars's side, and Nerio became a name that grammarians explained to readers who had never heard it.
Relationships
- Family