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SPES

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Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 644 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SPES , in See also:

Roman See also:mythology, the personification of See also:Hope. Originally a nature goddess (like See also:Venus the See also:garden goddess, with whom she was sometimes identified), she represented at first the hope of fruitful gardens and See also:fields, then of abundant offspring, and lastly of prosperity to come and See also:good See also:fortune in See also:general, being hence invoked on birthdays and at weddings. Of her numerous temples at See also:Rome, the. most See also:ancient was appropriately in the See also:forum olitorium (See also:vegetable See also:market), built during the first Punic See also:war, and since that See also:time twice burnt down and restored. The See also:day of its See also:dedication (See also:August 1) corresponded with the birthday of See also:Claudius, which explains the frequent occurrence of Spes on the coins of that See also:emperor. Spes is represented as a beautiful See also:maiden in a See also:long See also:light robe, lifting up her skirt with her See also:left See also:hand, and carrying in her right a bud already closed or about to open. Sometimes she wears a See also:garland of See also:flowers on her See also:head, ears of See also:corn and See also:poppy-heads in her hand, symbolical of a prosperous See also:harvest. Like Fortune, with whom she is often coupled in See also:inscriptions on Roman tombstones, she was also represented with the See also:cornu copiae (See also:horn of plenty). See G. Wissowa, See also:Religion and Kultus der Romer (1902), according to whom Spes was originally not a garden goddess, but simply the divinity to whom one prayed for the fulfilment of one's desires.

End of Article: SPES

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