Spes

Spes was the goddess of hope in ancient Roman religion. There are numerous temples dedicated to Spes, and inscriptions show that she received both private devotion and state cult.

A temple to "ancient Hope" (Spes vetus) was said to have existed near the Praenestine Gate during the Republic. It was linked to events in the 5th century BC, although its existence as anything other than a private shrine has been questioned. As a result of pledges made to these goddesses during the First Punic War, Aulus Atilius Calatinus constructed a well-documented Spes temple alongside Fides. In 110 BC, a temple to the triad deities Spes, Fides, and Fortuna was established in Capua.

Spes was one of the divine personifications of the Imperial Virtues cult. Hope was related to the emperor's capacity as Augustus to ensure blessed conditions. Spes, like Salus ("Salvation, Security"), Ops ("Abundance, Prosperity"), and Victoria ("Victory"), was a divine force that had to originate from the gods, as opposed to divine powers that lived within the individual, like Mens ("Intelligence"), Virtus ("Virtue"), and Fides ("Faith, Fidelity, Trustworthiness").

Elpis, the Greek counterpart of Spes, had no official worship in Greece. The main myth in which Elpis appears is the story of Pandora. The Greeks had ambiguous or even negative views about "hope," and the term was unimportant in the Stoic and Epicurean intellectual systems.