Some historians believe the Roman 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.

These coins showed a woman surrounded by farm animals, including pigs on the obverse side two soldiers face each other while holding a pig for sacrifice.Įirene/Pax was the patroness of wealth and prosperity as well, since because in times of peace people have the opportunity to plow the fields and engage in trading - whereas war, as can still be seen today, tragically - only makes for famine and destruction. The first depictions of Pax seen on coinage in the Roman world were on denarii minted in 137 BC to commemorate a treaty between Rome and Epirus after the Samnite wars. Roman republic coins may have alluded to Pax, their version of the goddess Eirene, before 44 BC but in only using the goddess’ symbols none specifically included her image or called her by name until after 44 BC. Credit: Hermann Junghans/ CC BY-SA 3.0 de The goddess of peace Pax is shown on a coin known as an Antonianus, issued during the reign of Emperor Maximian. Worship of Eirene appears to stretch back as far as the early Bronze Age devotion to her peaked during the rise of the Athenian empire and the Peloponnesian War, when the populace must have been wracked with worry about their futures. The three Horae were also the maintainers of law and order that all societies depend upon. Hesiod used the epithet Hora Thallo which means “green shoot” to describe Eirene, in another connection of hers to springtime. The statue is an allegory for Plenty prospering under the protection of Peace it constituted a public appeal to good sense. She is shown gazing lovingly at Plutus, who is looking back at her.

Peace’s missing right hand once held a scepter. This version of Eirene depicts the goddess carrying a child on her left arm who is Plutus, the god of plenty and the son of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture. Museu Victor Balaguer/ Public DomainĪlthough the statue is now tragically lost, it was copied in marble by the Romans one of the best surviving copies is in the Munich Glyptothek. “Allegory of Peace,” by Jacob Jordaens, featuring the goddess of peace.

Horae greek mythology