Pax (goddess)

Pax (Latin for Peace), more commonly known in English as Peace, was the Roman goddess of peace derived and adopted from the ancient Greek equivalent Eirene. Pax was seen as the daughter of the Roman king god Jupiter and the goddess Justice. Worship of Peace was organized and made popular during the rule of the emperor Augustus who used her imagery to help stabilise the empire after the years of turmoil and civil war of the late republic. Augustus commissioned an altar of peace in her honour on the Campus Martius called Ara Pacis, and the emperor Vespasian built a temple for her on called the Templum Pacis. Pax had a festival held for her on January 30. In art she is commonly depicted holding out olive branches as a peace offering, as well as a caduceus, cornucopia, corn and a sceptre. Pax is also often associated with spring. Early Roman worship and mythology was very much based on and adopted from the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses. Ancient Greek deities that aligned with the Roman values of conquest, strength and pragmatism such as Mars and Juno were adopted early on during the Roman kingdom and early republic. Pax was a relatively unrecognised deity during the early republic as she had little to do with the Roman philosophy. However, during this time the Greek city states had been worshipping Pax’s equivalent - Eirene since the early bronze age where the worship of her peaked during the rise of the Athenian empire and the Peloponnesian war. As Weinstock explained the Roman idea and word for peace (pax) derived from ‘pacisci’ was seen as more of a pact which concluded a war and led to a surrender or alliance with another faction rather than today’s notion of peace as the lack of war. Peace was seen as the submission to Roman superiority, it was the outcome of war not its absence. Conquest led to pacification. Pax worship peaked during Augustus Caesar’s reign and the early empire.