A complete dictionary of the Greek and Roman antiquities explaining the obscure places in classic authors and ancient historians relating to the religion, mythology, history, geography and chronology of the ancient Greeks and Romans, their ... rites and customs, laws, polity, arts and engines of war : also an account of their navigations, arts and sciences and the inventors of them : with the lives and opinions of their philosophers / compiled originally in French ... by Monsieur Danet ; made English, with the addition of very useful mapps.

FELICITAS,

Felicity, a Heathen Divinity. She was the Daughter of Hercules, as Euripides and Pausanias say, and deserved Divine Honours, because she sacrificed her self for the Athenians against the Lacedemonians, according to the answer of the Oracle.

Publick Felicity had many Altars and Temples at Rome, as it appears by Roman Hi∣storians, and was called Faustitas, especially in relation to private Felicity. In this sense Ho∣race speaks of her, when he says,

Tutus bos etiam rur a perambulat, Nutrit rura Ceres, almaque Faustitas.

St Austin speaks of this Goddess in the 4th Book de Civitate Dei, c. 18. and shews that Fe∣licity is the same with good Fortune, and that the Romans acknowledged themselves, that Felicity, Virtue and Victory were neither Gods nor Goddesses, but only Gifts of God, seeing that they demanded them of Jupiter. Wherefore if we consider what they meant by adoring Felicity, Virtue and Victory like Divinities, it is nothing else but the adoring the supream Divinity, as the dispenser of these great favours.

Felicity was represented like a Divinity sit∣ting on a Throne, holding with her right Hand Mercury's Wand, and with the left a Horn of Plenty, with this Motto Felicitas Pub∣lica, as we see in a Medal of the Empress Ju∣lia Mammea. Lucullus built her a Temple at Rome, and Julius Caesar began another, which Lepidus finished.

The Ancients represented Felicity holding a Cup in her right Hand, and a Scepter in the left, as appears by the Medals of Adrian and Alexander Mammeus. But Moderns represent her under the Figure of a blindfold Lady, holding up a Sword with one hand, and a pair of even Scales with the other.