Portunus (mythology)
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In Roman mythology, Portunes (alternatively spelled Portumnes or Portunus) was a god of keys and doors and livestock. He protected the warehouses where grain was stored. Probably because of folk associations between porta "gate, door" and portus "harbor", the "gateway" to the sea, Portunus later became conflated with Palaemon and evolved into a god primarily of ports and harbors. In the Latin adjective importunus his name was applied to untimely waves and weather and contrary winds, and the Latin echoes in English opportune and its old-fashioned antonym importune, meaning "well-timed' and "badly-timed". Hence Portunus is behind both an opportunity and importunate or badly-timed solicitations (OED).
His festival, on August 17, was the Portunalia. On this day, keys were thrown into a fire for good luck in a very solemn and lugubrious manner. His attribute was a key.
The Ionic temple dedicated to Portunus in Rome (photo and reconstruction drawing, left) is still more familiar by its erroneous designation, the Temple of Fortuna Virilis ("manly fortune") given it by antiquaries. Located in the ancient Forum Boarium by the Tiber, during Antiquity the site overlooked the Port Tiberinus at a sharp bend in the river; from here, Portunus watched over cattle-barges as they entered the city from Ostia.
built ca 100 BCE and restored in the first century BCE. The rectangular building consists of a tetrastyle portico and cella, raised on high podium reached by a flight of steps, which it retains. Like the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, it has a pronaos portico of four Ionic columns across and two columns deep. The columns of the portico are free-standing, while the six columns on the long sides and the four columns at the rear are engaged along the walls of the cella. This form is sometimes called pseudoperipteral, as distinct from a true peripteral temple like the Parthenon entirely surrounded by free-standing columns. It is built of tufa and travertine with a stucco surface.
The temple owes its state of preservation from its being converted to use as a church in 872 and rededicated to Santa Maria Egyziaca (Saint Mary of Egypt). Its Ionic order has been much admired, drawn and engraved and copied since the 16th century (illustration, left). The original coating of stucco over its tufa and travertine construction has been lost.
The circular Temple of Hercules Victor is located behind the Temple of Portunus in the Forum Boarium.