page_title: Vertumnus
section_title: Cult and origin
hierarchical_section_title: Vertumnus / Cult and origin
context_page_description: In Roman mythology, Vertumnus is the god of seasons, change and plant growth, as well as gardens and fruit trees. He could change his form at will; using this power, according to Ovid's Metamorphoses, he tricked Pomona into talking to him by disguising himself as an old woman and gaining entry to her orchard, then using a narrative warning of the dangers of rejecting a suitor to seduce her. The tale of Vertumnus and Pomona has been called "the first exclusively Latin tale."
  Vertumnus' festival was called the Vertumnalia and was held 13 August.
context_section_description: The name Vortumnus most likely derives from Etruscan Voltumna. Its formation in Latin was probably influenced by the Latin verb vertere meaning "to change", hence the alternative form Vertumnus. Ancient etymologies were based on often superficial similarities of sound rather than the principles of modern scientific linguistics, but reflect ancient interpretations of a deity's function. In writing about the Festival of Vesta in his poem on the Roman calendar, Ovid recalls a time when the forum was still a reedy swamp and "that god, Vertumnus, whose name fits many forms, / Wasn’t yet so-called from damming back the river" (averso amne).
  Varro was convinced that Vortumnus was Etruscan, and a major god. Vertumnus' cult arrived in Rome around 300 BC, and a temple to him was constructed on the Aventine Hill by 264 BC, the date when Volsinii (Etruscan Velzna) fell to the Romans. Propertius, the major literary source for the god, also asserts that the god was Etruscan, and came from Volsinii.
  Propertius refers to a bronze statue of Vortumnus made by the legendary Mamurius Veturius, who was also credited with the twelve ritual shields (ancilia) of Mars' priests the Salii. The bronze statue replaced an ancient maple statue (xoanon) supposed to have been brought to Rome in the time of Romulus. The statue of Vortumnus (signum Vortumni) stood in a simple shrine located at the Vicus Tuscus near the Forum Romanum, and was decorated according to the changing seasons. In his poem about the god, Propertius has the statue of Vortumnus speak in first-person as if to a passer-by.
  The base of the statue was discovered in 1549, perhaps still in situ, but has since been lost. An inscription commemorated  a restoration to the statue under Diocletian and Maximian in the early 4th century AD.
caption: Vertumnus and Pomona (1682–1683) by Luca Giordano
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