Domain: Victory, triumph, the favor of the gods in war and contest Symbol: Wings, laurel wreath, palm branch Greek Equivalent: Nike
Overview
Victoria is the Roman goddess of victory — the winged personification of triumph in battle and, more broadly, of success in any contest. She is the direct counterpart of the Greek Nike, and like her she is shown in flight, bearing the laurel wreath and the palm branch with which she crowns the victor. But where Nike often served as an attribute of greater gods, Victoria rose to become a power of the Roman state in her own right, the divine confirmation that Rome's arms were favored and its dominion sanctioned by heaven.
Her worship was bound up with the ideology of empire. Every triumph, every conquest, every claim that Rome ruled by divine right passed under her wings. To honor Victoria was to affirm that Roman power was not mere force but destiny — that the gods themselves granted the victory and set the wreath upon the city's brow.
The Altar of Victory
Augustus placed a statue of the winged Victoria in the Curia Julia, the Senate house, taken as spoil after the victory at Actium, and before it he set the Altar of Victory. For generations senators offered incense and wine at this altar on entering the chamber, so that the goddess presided over every deliberation of the Roman state.
This altar became the flashpoint of the last great struggle between paganism and Christianity in Rome. In the later fourth century the Christian emperors ordered the altar removed from the Senate house. The pagan senator Symmachus pleaded eloquently for its return, arguing that the old rites had made Rome great and should not be cast aside; Ambrose, bishop of Milan, answered him with equal force for the Christian cause. The altar was removed, restored, and removed again as the contest swung back and forth — a small winged statue standing, in the end, for the whole passing of the ancient religion.
Related
- Nike — her Greek counterpart, the winged goddess of victory
- Fortuna — goddess of the fortune that turns triumph and defeat
- Mythology
- Roman Mythology Index