LATIN DICTIONARYLexicon Latīnum
Academy · Biography & Mythology

Mamercus

Μάμερκος

(Μάμερκος), according to one tradition a son of king Numa, who chose this name because one of the sons of Pythagoras likewise bore it. (Plut. Num. 8; Paul. Diac. p. 23, ed. Müller.) Another tradition made Mamercus a son of Mars and Sylvia. (Plut. Parall. Gr. et Rom. 26.) Festus says that Mamercus was a praenomen among the Oscans,who called the god Mars, Mamers. But it would seem that Marcius or Mamercus was the common name for indigenous soothsayers and founders of new forms of religious worship, for it occurs in many instances of this kind. (Hartung, Die Rel. der Röm. vol. i. p. 129.)

From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.