Ovid claims that this deity's sacred bird was the woodpecker and along with Vulcan, this god was associated festival in which the trumpets of Rome were purified, the Tubilustria.
The people who occupied the town of Messana at the outbreak of the First Punic War were given a name meaning sons of this deity. Ovid claims that this deity's sacred bird was the woodpecker and along with Vulcan, this god was associated festival in which the trumpets of Rome were purified, the Tubilustria. Another festival to this deity featured a day of horse racing and was known as the Equirria. Sometimes known as Gradivus, this god's mother used the advice of Flora to find a flower from Olenus, which allowed her to give birth to this deity without the help of her husband. This god's priests guarded the arma ancilia, the twelve shields that this god made rain from the sky during the reign of Numa Pompilius. More famously, this god raped a Vestal Virgin, known as Ilia or Rhea Silvia, making him the father of Rome's founder. For ten points, name this father of Remus, the Roman god of war.
The people who occupied the town of Messana at the outbreak of the First Punic War were given a name meaning sons of this deity.
{Mars}