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Fontus

Roman god of wells

Fontus or Fons (: Fontes, "Font" or "Source") was a god of wells and springs in ancient Roman religion. A religious festival called the Fontinalia was held on October 13 in his honor. Throughout the city, fountains and wellheads were adorned with garlands.

Fontus was the son of Juturna and Janus. Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome, was supposed to have been buried near the altar of Fontus (ara Fontis) on the Janiculum. William Warde Fowler observed that between 259 and 241 BC, cults were founded for Juturna, Fons, and the Tempestates, all having to do with sources of water. As a god of pure water, Fons can be placed in opposition to Liber as a god of wine identified with Bacchus.

An inscription includes Fons among a series of deities who received expiatory sacrifices by the Arval Brothers in 224 AD, when several trees in the sacred grove of Dea Dia, their chief deity, had been struck by lightning and burnt. Fons received two wethers. Fons was not among the deities depicted on coinage of the Roman Republic.

The gens Fonteia claimed to be Fontus's descendants.

In the cosmological schema of Martianus Capella, Fons is located in the second of 16 celestial regions, with Jupiter, Quirinus, Mars, the Military Lar, Juno, Lympha, and the Novensiles.

Fons Perennis

Water as a source of regeneration played a role in the Mithraic mysteries, and inscriptions to Fons Perennis ("Eternal Spring" or "Never-Failing Stream") have been found in mithraea. 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. Dedications to "inanimate entities" from Mithraic narrative ritual, such as Fons Perennis and Petra Genetrix ("Generative Rock"), treat them as divine and capable of hearing, like the nymphs and healing powers to whom these are more often made.

Honours

Fontus Lake in Antarctica is named after the deity.

References

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 ''(dies [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#feria. feriae]])''; on account of him then they toss wreaths into fountains and garland [[puteal]]s" (''Fontanalia a Fonte, quod is dies feriae eius; ab eo tum et in fontes coronas iaciunt et puteos coronant''). [[Sextus Pompeius Festus. Festus]] also mentions the rites ''([[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#sacra. sacra]])''.
[[Arnobius]], ''Adversus Nationes'' 3.29.
[[Cicero]], ''De legibus'' 2.56 and ''De 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 the [[Roman navy. naval activity]] of the [[First Punic War]].
As when two characters argue over which holds ''[[imperium]]'' in [[Plautus]]'s ''Stichus'', line 696ff.; Thomas Habinek, ''The World of Roman Song'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), p. 186.
[[Mary Beard (classicist). Mary Beard]], J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, ''Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook'' (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 152.
[[Michael Crawford (historian). Michael H. Crawford]], ''Roman Republican Coinage'' (Cambridge University Press, 1974, 2001), p. 914.
[[Martianus Capella]], ''The Marriage of Philology and Mercury'' 1.46 [https://books.google.com/books?id=nZ-Z9eI6dXwC&dq=Lympha+OR+Lymphae&pg=PA22 online.]
Vivienne J. Walters, ''The Cult of Mithras in the Roman Provinces of Gaul'' (Brill, 1974), p. 47.
Richard Gordon, "Institutionalized Religious Options: Mithraism," in ''A Companion to Roman Religion'' (Blackwell, 2007), p. 398.
[https://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/gaz/scar/display_name.cfm?gaz_id=139213 Fontus Lake.] SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica

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