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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cmezner, post: 7441464, member: 87809&quot;]Actually I don&#039;t see any contradiction at all. </p><p>Virtus was the deity of bravery and military strength, the personification of Virtus, a Roman virtue. She was closely related with Honos.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 210 BC, Marcus Claudius Marcellus proposal for building a temple for Honos and Virtus was rejected. The argument of the priests was that if a miracle happened in the temple, they would not be able to decide to which of them, Virtus or Honos,&nbsp; they would bring a sacrifice. Marcellus then swore that during his consulate in 222 BC, he would build a temple for Virtus, which was finally inaugurated in 205 BC. By construction, it was connected to an earlier temple of Honos at the Porta Capena and one could only reach it through the Virtus temple. Another temple for Honos and Virtus was erected by Scipio Aemilianus in 133 BC, and a third one by Gaius Marius located where later stood the Arch of Titus. </p><p>After a cult reorganization under Augustus, the dea virtus cult lost significance, but Virtus was always kept as a representation of bravery in the traditional Roman sense. In the 4th century AD there were still games organized in her honor.</p><p>A gold statue of Virtus was melted by Alarich I, King of the Goths, in 410 AD.</p><p><br /></p><p>Virtus always refers to the virtue of the emperor’s bravery. On the reverse of coins, sometimes it is the emperor, sometimes Virtus, Mars, a soldier and even sometimes the emperor as Hercules who are depicted, e.g. Gallienus has several coins with the Virtus legend but it is Mars who is represented.</p><p><br /></p><p>She has multiple representations: as a matron and even as a man or an old man. She can wear a spear, a gladius, a body armour, a cape ….and on her head a helmet.</p><p><br /></p><p>Maybe we are trying to understand and explain the ancient world view based on our modern world view, and that is in my opinion not sound.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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