Caelus, also known as Coelus, was the literary personification of the sky in Roman mythology and Latin poetry, from the Latin word for "sky", caelum.[1] The Roman sky god, to whom cult was due, was Jupiter. Caelus was equated by Hellenized Romans with the Greek god of the heavens, Uranus, who was vastly more important to the Greeks than Caelus was to the Romans.
In the Roman adaptation of Greek mythology, Caelus was, by marriage to Tellus (Greek: Gaia), the father of Saturn (Greek: Cronus), Ops (Greek: Rhea), Oceanus, and the other Titans, as well as the Gigantes. Alone, Caelus was the father of Venus (Greek: Aphrodite).
Caelus is often associated with the sign of the zodiac, Aquarius.
The Roman Caelus (or Caelum) is simply a translation of the Greek Uranus or Ouranos (Οὐρανός), not the name of a distinct national divinity. There is no evidence of the existence of a cult of Caelus, though the name occurs in dedicatory inscriptions, due to Oriental influences; the worship of the sky being closely connected with that of Mithras. Caelus is sometimes associated with Terra, represented in sculptural art as an old, bearded man holding a robe billowing over his head in the form of an arch, a conventional sign of deity.
Notes
- ^ This personification is indicated by the use of the masculine form caelus rather that the neuter, caelum
References
- Grimal, Pierre (1986). The Dictionary of Classical Mythology (pp. 83–84). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-13209-0.
 |
This article relating to an Ancient Roman myth or legend is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
