Timor- Roman SpiritSpirit

The Retinue of Mars

Virgil places Timor among the figures that attend Mars to war. On Vulcan's shield in the Aeneid, the god rides to the battle of Actium with fury and discord at his side, and fear runs ahead of the column. Mars does not fight alone. He brings the things that make fighting possible: the panic that scatters one army so the other can advance.

Timor was dread in its slow form. Not the sudden rout, which belonged to Pavor, but the gnawing anticipation that kept men awake the night before battle and made their hands shake at dawn. Where Pavor struck like a blow, Timor had already been at work for hours.

The Thebaid

Statius gives Timor more to do. In the Thebaid, Mars dispatches Timor and Pavor ahead of his own arrival, sending them to weaken the armies of Thebes before he descends to the field himself. They are not abstractions in Statius's telling. They move through the camps. They hunt courage the way a predator hunts prey, and when they find it, they consume it.

By the time Mars arrives, the men are already half-beaten. Their arms are heavy. Their resolve is gone. The killing is almost a formality.

Timor had no temple. His brother Pavor received a shrine from King Tullus Hostilius during the war against Veii and Fidenae, but Timor was left without altars. He did not need them. He arrived uninvited.