During the Republic, a temple to "ancient Hope" (Spes vetus) was supposed to have been located near the Praenestine Gate.[2][3] It was associated with events that occurred in the 5th century BC,[4][3] but its existence as anything except perhaps a private shrine has been doubted.[5]
Spes was one of the divine personifications in the Imperial cult of the Virtues. Spes Augusta was Hope associated with the capacity of the emperor as Augustus to ensure blessed conditions.[11]
Like Salus ("Salvation, Security"), Ops ("Abundance, Prosperity"), and Victoria ("Victory"), Spes was a power that had to come from the gods, in contrast to divine powers that resided within the individual such as Mens ("Intelligence"), Virtus ("Virtue"), and Fides ("Faith, Fidelity, Trustworthiness").[12]
Greek Elpis
The Greek counterpart of Spes was Elpis, who by contrast had no formal cult in Greece. The primary myth in which Elpis plays a role is the story of Pandora. The Greeks had ambivalent or even negative feelings about "hope", with Euripides describing it in his Suppliants as "delusive" and stating "it has embroiled many a State",[13] and the concept was unimportant in the philosophical systems of the Stoics and Epicureans.[3]
Momigliano, Arnaldo (1987), "Religion in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem in the First Century B.C.", On Pagans, Jews, and Christians, Wesleyan University Press
