National Latin Exam Study Guide: A Journey Through Ancient Rome

In Latin, Campus Martius means "Field of Mars", a god highly considered in the Romans pantheon. Paul W. Jacobs III attributes the significance of Mars to his patronage of both military and agriculture.[15] In the calendar year, March was the month named after Mars: this month first marked the beginning of when the consuls started to work until 153 BCE

The Campus Martius may have been named after the Ara Martis ("Mars' altar"), which was talked about starting in the eighth century BCE. It is not know exactly when the Ara Martis was built, as well as when it was destroyed.

 

The social climate and events around the Campus Martius were significant to Roman culture. Livy describes a horse race called Equirria, which started on March 14. The winning horse was killed and sacrificed to Mars. The second event used to support his claim was the Anna Perenna. This event was when the plebs would go out to the Campus Martius to eat and drink. The reason why Anna Perenna was important was because she was an ugly hag and she represented the end of a year, and Mars represented the nice beginning of the year. The last event he talks about is the Tubilustrium festival, which purified military instruments to summon the cruciate assemblies. This celebration used to validate the kings imperium, but later on the festival validated the consuls imperium. By describing these events Jacobs III does a good job of supporting the claim that the Campus Martius was culturally significant.

 

Campus Martius, English Field of Mars, in ancient Rome, a floodplain of the Tiber River, the site of the altar of Mars and the temple of Apollo in the 5th century bc. Originally used primarily as a military exercise ground, it was later drained and, by the 1st century bc, became covered with large public buildings—baths, amphitheatre, theatres, gymnasium, crematorium, and many more temples. The Pantheon is the most notable structure extant. The historian Livy (1st century bc) called the area campus ignifer because of the volcanic smoke often seen there.