4.  TEMPESTATES, the tempests.  A temple was dedicated to the storms, B.C. 259.

5.  VULCANUS.  This name is supposed to be from the same root as “fulgeo,” to shine.  He was an old Italian deity.  His temple is mentioned as existing B.C. 491.

6.  FONTUS, the god of fountains.  The Romans valued water so highly, that they erected altars and temples to this divinity, and had a feast of fountains (Fontinalia) on October 13th.  There were also goddesses of fountains, as Lynapha Juturna, the goddess of mineral springs.  Egeria is the only nymph of a fountain mentioned in Roman mythology.

7.  DIVUS PATER TIBERINUS, or Father Tiber, was of course the chief river god.  The augurs called him Coluber, the snake, from his meandering and bending current.

8.  NEPTUNUS.  The origin of this word has been a great puzzle to the learned, who, however, connect it with nebula, a cloud, as the clouds come from the sea.  He had his temple and his festivals at Rome.

Other deities connected with the powers of nature were PORTUNUS, the god of harbors; SALACIA, a goddess of the salt sea; TRANQUILLITAS, the goddess of calm weather.

II.  Gods of human relations:—­

1.  VESTA, an ancient Latin goddess, and one of the oldest and most revered.  She was the queen of the hearth and of the household fire.  She was also the protector of the house, associated with the Lares and Penates.  Some offering was due to her at every meal.  She sanctified the home.

Afterward, when all Rome became one vast family, Vesta became the goddess of this public home, and her temple was the fireside of the city, in which burned always the sacred fire, watched by the vestal virgins.  In this worship, and its associations, we find the best side of Roman manners,—­the love of home, the respect for family life, the hatred of impurity and immodesty.  She was also called “the mother,” and qualified as Mater Stata, that is, the immovable mother.

2.  The PENATES and LARES.  These deities were also peculiarly Roman.  The Lar, or Lares, were supposed to be the souls of ancestors which resided in the home and guarded it.  Their images were kept in an oratory or domestic chapel, called a Lararium, and were crowned by the master of the house to make them propitious.  The paterfamilias conducted all the domestic worship of the household, whether of prayers or sacrifices, according to the maxim of Cato, “Scito dominum pro tota familia rem divinam facere[285].”  The Penates were beings of a higher order than the Lares, but having much the same offices.  Their name was from the words denoting the interior of the mansion (Penetralia, Penitus).  They took part in all the joys and sorrows of the family.  To go home was “to return to one’s Penates.”  In the same way, “Lar meus” meant “my house “; “Lar conductus,” “a hired house “; “Larem mutare” meant to change one’s house.  Thus the Roman in