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Fontus

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Roman god of wells

Ornamental wellhead (puteal)*(1st century AD)* depicting a drunkenHercules as part of aBacchic revel

Votive altar dedicated to the Divine Fontes (plural)

Fontus orFons (pl.:Fontes, "Font" or "Source") was a god of wells and springs in ancient Roman religion. Areligious festival called theFontinalia was held on October 13 in his honor. Throughout the city, fountains andwellheads were adorned with garlands.^[1]

Fontus was the son ofJuturna andJanus.^[2]Numa Pompilius, secondking of Rome, was supposed to have been buried near the altar of Fontus(ara Fontis) on theJaniculum.^[3]William Warde Fowler observed that between 259 and 241 BC, cults were founded for Juturna, Fons, and theTempestates, all having to do with sources of water.^[4] As a god of pure water, Fons can be placed in opposition toLiber as a god of wine identified withBacchus.^[5]

An inscription includes Fons among a series of deities who received expiatory sacrifices by theArval Brothers in 224 AD, when several trees in thesacred grove ofDea Dia, their chief deity, had been struck by lightning and burnt. Fons received twowethers.^[6] Fons was not among the deities depicted on coinage of theRoman Republic.^[7]

Thegens Fonteia claimed to be Fontus's descendants.^{[citation needed]}

In the cosmological schema ofMartianus Capella, Fons is located in the second of 16 celestial regions, withJupiter,Quirinus,Mars, theMilitary Lar,Juno,Lympha, and theNovensiles.^[8]

Fons Perennis

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Water as a source of regeneration played a role in theMithraic mysteries, and inscriptions toFons Perennis ("Eternal Spring" or "Never-Failing Stream") have been found inmithraea. In one of the scenes of the Mithraic cycle, the god strikes a rock, which then gushes water. A Mithraic text explains that the stream was a source of life-giving water and immortal refreshment.^[9] Dedications to "inanimate entities" from Mithraic narrative ritual, such asFons Perennis andPetra Genetrix ("Generative Rock"), treat them as divine and capable of hearing, like thenymphs and healing powers to whom these are more often made.^[10]

Honours

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Fontus Lake inAntarctica is named after the deity.^[11]

References

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^Stephen L. Dyson,Rome: A Living Portrait of an Ancient City (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), p. 228. Described by Varro,De lingua latina 6.3: "The Fontanalia [is named after] Fontus, because it's his holiday(diesferiae); on account of him then they toss wreaths into fountains and garlandputeals" (Fontanalia a Fonte, quod is dies feriae eius; ab eo tum et in fontes coronas iaciunt et puteos coronant).Festus also mentions the rites(sacra).
^Arnobius,Adversus Nationes 3.29.
^Cicero,De legibus 2.56 andDe natura deorum 3.52;Samuel Ball Platner,The Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome (1904), p. 488.
^William Warde Fowler,The Religious Experience of the Roman People (London, 1922), p. 285, with a speculation that this was a response to thenaval activity of theFirst Punic War.
^As when two characters argue over which holdsimperium inPlautus'sStichus, line 696ff.; Thomas Habinek,The World of Roman Song (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), p. 186.
^Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price,Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 152.
^Michael H. Crawford,Roman Republican Coinage (Cambridge University Press, 1974, 2001), p. 914.
^Martianus Capella,The Marriage of Philology and Mercury 1.46online.
^Vivienne J. Walters,The Cult of Mithras in the Roman Provinces of Gaul (Brill, 1974), p. 47.
^Richard Gordon, "Institutionalized Religious Options: Mithraism," inA Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 398.
^Fontus Lake. SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica