In ancient Roman culture, felicitas (from the Latin adjective felix, "fruitful, blessed, happy, lucky") is a condition of divinely inspired productivity, blessedness, or happiness. Felicitas could encompass both a woman's fertility and a general's luck or good fortune.Anna Clark, Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome (Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 228, quoting G. Sauron, Quis deum? L'expression plastique des idéologies politiques et religieuses à Rome (École française de Rome, 1994), p. 287. The divine personification of Felicitas was cultivated as a Roman goddess, wherein she is a goddess not just of good fortune but also happiness, wealth and success. Although felicitas may be translated as "good luck," and the goddess Felicitas shares some characteristics and attributes with Fortuna, the two were distinguished in Roman religion.J. Rufus Fears, "The Theology of Victory at Rome: Approaches and Problem," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.17.2 (1981), pp. 747, 798. Fortuna was unpredictable and her effects could be negative, as the existence of an altar to Mala Fortuna ("Bad Luck") acknowledges.Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 156. Felicitas, however, always had a positive significance. She appears with several epithets that focus on aspects of her divine power.
Felicitas had a temple in Rome as early as the mid-2nd century BC, and during the Republican era was honored at two official festivals of Roman state religion, on July 1 in conjunction with Juno and October 9 as Fausta Felicitas. Felicitas continued to play an important role in Imperial cult, and was frequently portrayed on coins as a symbol of the wealth and prosperity of the Roman Empire. Her primary attributes are the caduceus and cornucopia.Clark, Divine Qualities, pp. 142, 146; Michael H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage (Cambridge University Press, 1974), vol. 2, p. 738. The English word "felicity" derives from felicitas.
As virtue or quality
In its religious sense, felix means "blessed, under the protection or favour of the gods; happy." That which is felix has achieved the pax divom, a state of harmony or peace with the divine world.H. Fugier Recherches sur l'expression du sacre' dans la langue latine Paris, 1963 The word derives from Indo-European *dhe(i)l, meaning "happy, fruitful, productive, full of nourishment." Related Latin words include femina, "woman" (a person who provides nourishment or suckles); felo, "to suckle" in regard to an infant; filius, "son" (a person suckled);W. W. Skeat Etymological Dictionary of the English Language New York 1963 sv felicity, feminine and probably fello, fellare, "to perform fellatio", with an originally non-sexual meaning of "to suck".J.N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), pp. 130–131. The continued magical association of sexual potency, increase, and general good fortune in productivity is indicated by the inscription Hic habitat Felicitas ("Felicitas dwells here")CIL IV, 1454. on an apotropaic relief of a phallus at a bakery in Pompeii.Clark, Divine Qualities, p. 10.
In archaic Roman culture, felicitas was a quality expressing the close bonds between religion and agriculture. Felicitas was at issue when the suovetaurilia sacrifice conducted by Cato the Elder as censor in 184 BC was challenged as having been unproductive, perhaps for vitium, ritual error.Brendon Reay, "Agriculture, Writing, and Cato's Aristocratic Self-Fashioning," in Classical Antiquity 24.2 (2005), p. 332. In the following three years Rome had been plagued by a number of ill omens and prodigies (prodigia), such as severe storms, pestilence, and "showers of blood," which had required a series of expiations (supplicationes).Livy 39.46.3–5; 40.2.1, 19.1, 36.14–37.3. The speech Cato gave to justify himself is known as the Oratio de lustri sui felicitate, "Speech on the Felicitas of his Lustrum", and survives only as a possible quotation by a later source.H. Meyer, Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Paris, 1837), p. 145. Cato says that a lustrum should be found to have produced felicitas "if the crops had filled up the storehouses if the vintage had been abundant if the olive oil had flowed deliberately from the groves",Si horrea messis implesset, si vindemia redundasset, if oliveta large fluxissent: H. Malcovati, Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta Liberae Rei Publicae (Turin, 1976, 4th ed.), pp. 26–27, as cited by Reay, "Agriculture, Writing, and Cato," p. 333, note 2. This definition is said explicitly to reflect beliefs in illa vetere re publica, in the "old" republic. regardless of whatever else might have occurred. The efficacy of a ritual might be thus expressed as its felicitas.Reay, "Agriculture, Writing, and Cato," p. 332.
The ability to promote felicitas became proof of one's excellence and divine favor. Felicitas was simultaneously a divine gift, a quality that resided within an individual, and a contagious capacity for generating productive conditions outside oneself:H. S. Versnel, Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph (Brill, 1970), pp. 343, 348, 361ff. it was a form of "charismatic authority".Fears, "The Theology of Victory," p. 746. Cicero lists felicitas as one of the four virtues of the exemplary general, along with knowledge of military science (scientia rei militaris), virtus (both "valor" and "virtue"), and auctoritas, "authority." Virtus was a regular complement to felicitas, which was not thought to attach to those who were unworthy.Fears, "The Theology of Victory at Rome," p. 747–748. Cicero attributed felicitas particularly to Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great"),Clark, Divine Qualities, p. 245; Fears, "The Theology of Victory at Rome," pp. 798–799. and distinguished this felicitas even from the divine good luck enjoyed by successful generals such as Fabius Maximus, Marcellus, Scipio the Younger and Marius.Divinitus adiuncta fortuna, in his work De lege Manilia; Fears, "The Theology of Victory at Rome," pp. 797–798.
The sayings (sententiae) of Publilius Syrus are often attached to divine qualities, including Felicitas: "The people's Felicitas is powerful when she is merciful" (potens misericors publica est Felicitas).Clark, Divine Qualities, p. 222.
Epithets Epithets of Felicitas include: Augusta, the goddess in her association with the emperor and Imperial cult. Fausta ("Favored, Fortunate"), a state divinity cultivated on October 9 in conjunction with Venus Victrix and the Genius Populi Romani ("Genius" of the Roman People, also known as the Genius Publicus). Publica, the "public" Felicitas; that is, the aspect of the divine force that was concerned with the res publica or commonwealth, or with the Roman People (Populus Romanus). Temporum, the Felicitas "of the times", a title which emphasize the felicitas being experienced in current circumstances.
Republic The cult of Felicitas is first recorded in the mid-2nd century BC, when a temple was dedicated to her by Lucius Licinius Lucullus, grandfather of the famous Lucullus, using booty from his military campaigns in Spain in 151–150 BC.Strabo 8.6.23. Predecessor to a noted connoisseur of art, Lucullus obtained and dedicated several statues looted by Mummius from Greece, including works by Praxiteles: the Thespiades, a statue group of the Muses brought from Thespiae, and a Venus.Cicero, Verres 2.3.2.4; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 34.69, 36.39. This Temple of Felicitas was among several that had a secondary function as art museums, and was recommended by Cicero along with the Temple of Fortuna Huiusce Diei for those who enjoyed viewing art but lacked the means to amass private collections.Cicero, Verres 4.126; Clark, Divine Qualities, pp. 177–178. The temple was located in the Velabrum in the Vicus Tuscus of the Campus Martius, along a route associated with triumphs: the axle of Julius Caesar's triumphal chariot in 46 BC is supposed to have broken in front of it.Suetonius, Divus Iulius 37.2. The temple was destroyed by a fire during the reign of Claudius, though the Muses were rescued.Pliny, Natural History 34.69. It was not rebuilt at this site.Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 150.
Sulla identified himself so closely with the quality of felicitcas that he adopted the agnomen (nickname) Felix. His domination as dictator resulted from civil war and unprecedented military violence within the city of Rome itself, but he legitimated his authority by claiming that the mere fact of his victory was proof he was felix and enjoyed the divine favor of the gods. Republican precedent was to regard a victory as belonging to the Roman people as a whole, as represented by the triumphal procession at which the honored general submitted public offerings at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at the Capitol, and Sulla thus established an important theological element for the later authority of the emperor.Fears, "The Theology of Victory at Rome," pp. 794–796. Although he established no new temple for Felicitas,Clark, Divine Qualities, p. 131. he venerated her with a Ludi circenses to close the Sullan Victory games on the Kalends of November,Velleius Paterculus 2.27.6; Geoffrey S. Sumi, Ceremony And Power: Reforming Politics in Rome Between Republic and Empire (University of Michigan Press, 2005), p. 27. and Ovid writes of a lavish prosperity feast day for Felicitas which he celebrated thereafter.Laurel Fulkerson, Ovid: A Poet on the Margins. Bloomsbury, 2016, p.71
On July 1 and October 9, Felicitas received a sacrifice in Capitolio, on the Capitoline Hill, on the latter date as Fausta Felicitas in conjunction with the Genius Publicus ("Public Genius") and Venus Victrix. These observances probably took place at an altar or small shrine (aedicula), not a separate temple precinct.Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, pp. 148, 150. The Acts of the Arval Brothers (1st century AD) prescribe a cow as the sacrifice for Felicitas.Clark, Divine Qualities, p. 165. Pompey established a shrine for Felicitas at his new theater and temple complex, which used the steps to the Temple of Venus Victrix as seating. Felicitas was cultivated with Honor and Virtue, and she may have shared her shrine there with Victory, as she did in the Imperial era as Felicitas Caesaris (Caesar's Felicitas) at Ameria.Clark, Divine Qualities, pp. 225–226, citing Stefan Weinstock. ILS 6631–2 on Ameria. Pompey's collocation of deities may have been intended to parallel the Capitoline grouping.Clark, Divine Qualities, p. 234.
A fourth cult site for Felicitas in Rome had been planned by Caesar, and possibly begun before his death. Work on the temple was finished by Lepidus on the site of the Curia Hostilia, which had been restored by Sulla, destroyed by fire in 52 BC,During the riots that broke out during the funeral of Publius Clodius Pulcher. and demolished by Caesar in 44 BC.Cassius Dio 44.5.2, with Dio's conjectures about the motivations and rivalries involved (on which see also Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, pp. 102–103). This temple seems not to have existed by the time of Hadrian. Its site probably lies under the church of Santi Luca e Martina.Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, p. 150. It has been suggested that an Ionic capital and a tufa wall uncovered at the site are the only known remains of the temple.Clark, Divine Qualities, pp. 232–232, summarizing the view of Tortorici (1991), pp. 56–61.