The ''Dii Consentes'', also known as ''Di'' or ''Dei Consentes'' (once ''Dii Complices''), is an ancient list of twelve major deities, six gods and six goddesses, in the pantheon of Ancient Rome. Their gilt statues stood in the

Roman Forum The Roman Forum, also known by its Latin name Forum Romanum ( it, Foro Romano), is a rectangular forum ( plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancie ...

, and later apparently in the Porticus Deorum Consentium. The gods were listed by the poet

Ennius Quintus Ennius (; c. 239 – c. 169 BC) was a writer and poet who lived during the Roman Republic. He is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was born in the small town of Rudiae, located near modern Lecce, Apulia, (Ancient Calabri ...

in the late 3rd century BCE in a paraphrase of an unknown Greek poet: : Juno, Vesta,

Minerva Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the R ...

, Ceres, Diana,

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

, Mercurius, Iovis,

Neptunus Neptunus is a baseball and softball club in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Following its 2014 championship season, the club signed a sponsorship contract for the 2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons with Curaçao and competes under the name Curaçao Neptun ...

Vulcanus Vulcan ( la, Vulcanus, in archaically retained spelling also ''Volcanus'', both pronounced ) is the god of fire including the fire of volcanoes, deserts, metalworking and the forge in ancient Roman religion and myth. He is often depicted with ...

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...

arranges them in six male-female pairs: Jupiter-Juno, Neptune-Minerva, Mars-Venus, Apollo-Diana, Vulcan-Vesta and Mercury-Ceres. Three of the ''Dii Consentes'' formed the

Capitoline Triad The Capitoline Triad was a group of three deities who were worshipped in ancient Roman religion in an elaborate temple on Rome's Capitoline Hill (Latin ''Capitolium''). It comprised Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. The triad held a central place in th ...

: Jupiter, Juno and Minerva.

Precursor lists

The grouping of twelve deities has origins older than the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

or Roman sources.

Hittite

The Greek grouping may have Hittite origins via

Lycia Lycia ( Lycian: 𐊗𐊕𐊐𐊎𐊆𐊖 ''Trm̃mis''; el, Λυκία, ; tr, Likya) was a state or nationality that flourished in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC (as Lukka) to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean Sea in what is ...

, in

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

. A group of twelve Hittite gods is known both from

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge- ...

texts and from artistic representation. All the Hittite Twelve are male, with no individualizing features. The

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

period group is a possible reflex of the Lycians’ twelve gods: By 400 BCE, a precinct dedicated to twelve gods existed at the marketplace in Xanthos, Lycia.

Egyptian

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

mentions a group of twelve gods in Egypt, but this cannot be confirmed in any Egyptian sources.

Greek

The Greek cult of the

Twelve Olympians upright=1.8, Fragment of a relief (1st century BC1st century AD) depicting the twelve Olympians carrying their attributes in procession; from left to right: Hestia (scepter), Hermes (winged cap and staff), Aphrodite (veiled), Ares (helmet and s ...

can be traced to 6th century BCE

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

and has no apparent precedent in the

Mycenaean period Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC.. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainland ...

. The altar to the Twelve Olympians at Athens is usually dated to the

archonship ''Archon'' ( gr, ἄρχων, árchōn, plural: ἄρχοντες, ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, mean ...

of the younger Pesistratos, in 522–521 BCE. By the 5th century BCE, there are well-attested

cults In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...

of the Twelve Olympians in Olympia and at the

Hieron Hiero or hieron (; grc, ἱερόν, "holy place") is a holy shrine, temple, or temple precinct in ancient Greece. Hiero may also refer to: Places and jurisdictions * Hieron, Caria, an Ancient city and former bishopric in Asia Minor, now ...

on the

Bosphorus The Bosporus Strait (; grc, Βόσπορος ; tr, İstanbul Boğazı 'Istanbul strait', colloquially ''Boğaz'') or Bosphorus Strait is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul in northwestern Tu ...

Etruscan

The references to twelve

Etruscan deities Etruscan religion comprises a set of stories, beliefs, and religious practices of the Etruscan civilization, heavily influenced by the mythology of ancient Greece, and sharing similarities with concurrent Roman mythology and religion. As the Et ...

come from later Roman authors, writing long after the influence of the Greek pantheon had become dominant, and must be regarded with skepticism.

Arnobius Arnobius (died c. 330) was an early Christian apologist of Berber origin during the reign of Diocletian (284–305). According to Jerome's ''Chronicle,'' Arnobius, before his conversion, was a distinguished Numidian rhetorician at Sicca Ve ...

states that the

Etruscans The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roug ...

had a set of six male and six female deities which they called ''consentes'' and ''complices'' because they rose and set together, implying an

astronomical Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxi ...

significance, and that these twelve acted as councillors of Jupiter. Scholarly evaluation of this account depends on the hypothesis that the Etruscans originally immigrated to

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

from

. In this case, the Etruscan Twelve might have been cognate to the Hittite Twelve. However, Etruscan artifacts show extensive use of Etruscan translations of Greek mythology; it is just as likely that both the Etruscan Twelve and the Roman Twelve were simply adaptations of the Greek Twelve.

In modern culture

In the Japanese manga ''

Future Diary is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Sakae Esuno. It was serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's '' Shōnen Ace'' between January 2006 and December 2010, and has been collected into 12 ''tankōbon'' volumes. The plot depicts the Di ...

'' by

Sakae Esuno is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for his manga series ''Future Diary'' and ''Big Order''. Esuno started drawing at age 15, at the time he was an admirer of the works of Rumiko Takahashi in particular her horror manga ''Mermaid Saga ...

, each Future Diary Holder is named after one of the Dii Consentes.

References

{{Authority control Roman deities Cultural lists 12 (number)