Pax (Latin for Peace), more commonly known in English as Peace, was the Roman goddess of peace derived and adopted from the ancient Greek equivalent Eirene. Pax was seen as the daughter of the Roman king god Jupiter and the goddess Justice. Worship of Peace was organized and made popular during the rule of the emperor Augustus who used her imagery to help stabilise the empire after the years of turmoil and civil war of the late republic. Augustus commissioned an altar of peace in her honour on the Campus Martius called Ara Pacis, and the emperor Vespasian built a temple for her on called the Templum Pacis. Pax had a festival held for her on January 30. In art she is commonly depicted holding out olive branches as a peace offering, as well as a caduceus, cornucopia, corn and a sceptre. Pax is also often associated with spring.

Early Roman worship and mythology was very much based on and adopted from the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses. Ancient Greek deities that aligned with the Roman values of conquest, strength and pragmatism such as Mars and Juno were adopted early on during the Roman kingdom and early republic.

Pax was a relatively unrecognised deity during the early republic as she had little to do with the Roman philosophy. However, during this time the Greek city states had been worshipping Pax’s equivalent - Eirene since the early bronze age where the worship of her peaked during the rise of the Athenian empire and the Peloponnesian war.

As Weinstock explained the Roman idea and word for peace (pax) derived from ‘pacisci’ was seen as more of a pact which concluded a war and led to a surrender or alliance with another faction rather than today’s notion of peace as the lack of war. Peace was seen as the submission to Roman superiority, it was the outcome of war not its absence. Conquest led to pacification.

Pax worship peaked during Augustus Caesar’s reign and the early empire. Augustus introduced Pax as a way to stabilise his reign and to signal to the populace that the previous years of civil war and turmoil that was linked to the decay and fall of the republic had ended and that his reign had bought peace and direction to the ravaged empire. Pax first appeared like Eirene with the caduceus and this can be seen in Augustus’ commission of the Ara Pacis or altar of peace and in coinage at the time. Some argue that Pax could have therefore been used more of a political slogan than an actual goddess at the time, a pact to cease the civil war and to bring prosperity back to the empire through the new imperial system.

Augustus often used religious events and expressions to stress his political messages such as when he became Pontifex Maximus. His construction of the Ara Pacis symbolised peace for the Roman citizens under his rule and some colonies were renamed after the goddess and Augustus such as Pax Julia to Pax Augusta in ancient Lusitania, also coinage was circulated in the colonies supporting Augustus as the bringer of peace where his bust in shown and the goddess Pax on the obverse side. Augustus attempted to establish a cult of Pax in the provinces such as in Spain and Gaul like what he did with the imperial cult. Augustus’s reign emphasised the notion of peace to Roman citizens and recently subjugated peoples as a possible way to bring solidarity to the early empire and to consolidate his political philosophy. The imperial message could’ve communicated that Roman subjects enjoyed the goddess Pax and her benefits only because of the imperium of Augustus and the strength of his armies.

The linking between emperor and Pax or her equivalent was not a new idea and had Greek origins with Alexander the Great and then with Pompey and Julius Caesar, in this time Pax was not seen as a powerful god like Jupiter but a ramification of the emperor’s strength and influence.

Augustus’ successors during the Julio-Claudian dynasty would continue to stress this notion, Pax’s image would slowly change around the reign of Claudius where she becomes more of a winged figure. Pax worship continued with Vespasian who established the Flavian dynasty and ended the civil war and instability of the Year of the Four Emperors. Vespasian constructed the Templum Pacis in AD 75 in her honour and continued linking the goddess Pax to the god Janus as seen in the construction of the temple Janus Quadrifrons near the Forum Pacis as the closing of the gates of Janus was seen as the conclusion of war and the start of peace, and was something that Augustus did in his first years as emperor.