Tellus

Tellus is the ground underfoot, addressed as Mother. Unlike her husband Caelus she had real cult: a temple in Rome vowed by Publius Sempronius Sophus in 268 BCE, during an earthquake — a consul promising a building to the earth while the earth was shaking. She receives sacrifice in the agricultural festivals alongside Ceres, and she is invoked in oaths and treaties where the earth is called to witness.

Parentage

• parent: AetherThe transmitted Latin genealogy; Greek parentage is not substituted.Hyginus, Fabulae, Preface (primary)
• parent: DiesThe transmitted Latin genealogy; Greek parentage is not substituted.Hyginus, Fabulae, Preface (primary)

Children

• Dione
• Hyperion
• Ops
• Polus
• Saturn

Domains

• earth
• motherhood

Epithets

• MaterReference treatment of the title Tellus Mater. (secondary)

Relations

• spouse: CaelusWife of Caelus, earth under sky.Reference treatment of Caelus as husband of Tellus. (secondary)
• mother of: SaturnMother of Saturn.Reference treatment of the Caelus and Tellus parentage of Saturn, Ops and Janus. (secondary)
• mother of: OpsMother of Ops.Reference treatment of the Caelus and Tellus parentage of Saturn, Ops and Janus. (secondary)
• parent: AetherThe transmitted Latin genealogy; Greek parentage is not substituted.Hyginus, Fabulae, Preface (primary)
• parent: DiesThe transmitted Latin genealogy; Greek parentage is not substituted.Hyginus, Fabulae, Preface (primary)

Sources

• Tellus, Mother Earth, is the Roman earth goddess, wife of Caelus and mother of Saturn and Ops, whose temple at Rome was vowed by Publius Sempronius Sophus during the earthquake of 268 BCE.: Reference treatment of Tellus and of the Temple of Tellus vowed after the 268 BCE earthquake. (secondary)