Editing Discordia (section)

===Early Fifth-century===
Discordia's opposite, [[Concordia (mythology)|Concordia]] ("Concord"), the Roman equivalent of the Greek [[Harmonia]] ("Harmony"), was a Roman goddess who had a temple (the [[Temple of Concord]]) dedicated to her in the [[Roman Forum]].
The opposition between ''concordia'' (concord) and ''discordia'' (discord), and their personifications Concordia and Discordia&mdash;a dichotomy made use of by Virgil in the ''Aeneid''&mdash;becomes, for late antiquity Latin poets, "something of an obsession".<ref>Hardie, pp. 4, 48.</ref>

[[Augustine]], in his  ''[[The City of God|City of God]]'' (426 AD)&mdash;responding to the accusation that the 410 AD [[Sack of Rome (410)|Sack of Rome]] was the result of Christianity and the failure to appease the pagan gods&mdash;argues that Rome's pre-Christian history, which was rife with civil discord and civil war, might just as well be said to have been the result of Rome's failure to appease Discordia.<ref>Hardie, pp. 110&ndash;111; [[Augustine]], ''[[The City of God|City of God]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/augustine-city_god_pagans/1957/pb_LCL411.375.xml 3.25].</ref> He notes that, following the dedication of the Temple of Concord in Rome,<ref>Presumably referring to the reconstruction of the temple by [[Lucius Opimius]], following the death of [[Gaius Gracchus]] in 121 BC.</ref> there was even worse civil discord, and remarks sarcastically that it would have been more appropriate for Rome to have built instead a "temple to Discord".<ref>Compare [[Plutarch]], ''Lives. Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/plutarch-lives_tiberius_gaius_gracchus/1921/pb_LCL102.239.xml 17], where Plutarch reports that following "the erection of a temple of Concord by Opimius ... at night, beneath the inscription on the temple, somebody carved this verse:—''A work of mad discord produces a temple of Concord.''".</ref> He goes on to ask "why Concord should be a goddess, but Discord not", and&mdash;in what he describes as having "our fun with such inanities"&mdash; concludes that:
{{blockquote|Thus the Romans to their peril chose to live under the menace of so evil a goddess unplacated, and never reflected that the tale of Troy and its destruction begins with the resentment of Discord. You know, of course, that when she was not invited with the other gods, she contrived to set three goddesses disputing by placing before them the golden apple. Hence the quarrel of the deities, the victory of Venus, the kidnapping of Helen and the destruction of Troy. It follows that if she was perhaps offended because she of all the gods had obtained no temple in the city, and was therefore already upsetting the state with such great tumults, she may well have been far more fiercely aroused when she saw erected a temple to her adversary on the spot where that slaughter—the spot where her handiwork, that is—had taken place!|[[Augustine]], ''[[The City of God|City of God]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/augustine-city_god_pagans/1957/pb_LCL411.375.xml 3.25]; translation by George E. McCracken}}

The opposition of Concordia and Discordia is particularly explicit in the Christian poet [[Prudentius]]'s early fifth-century allegory ''[[Psychomachia]]'' ("Battle of the Soul"), in which armies of personified Virtues and Vices do battle.<ref>Hardie pp. 5, 49.</ref> Here the Vice Discordia becomes explicitly identified with religious heresy. After the army of Vices had been defeated, Discordia, in disguise, entered the camp of the celebrating Virtues, seeking to attack surreptitiously the "greatest" of the Virtues Concordia:<ref>Hardie, p. 118; [[Prudentius]], ''[[Psychomachia]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/prudentius-fight_mansoul/1949/pb_LCL387.327.xml 683&ndash;684]</ref>
{{blockquote|wearing the counterfeit shape of a friend. Her torn mantle and her whip of many snakes were left lying far behind amid the heaps of dead on the field of battle, while she herself, displaying her hair wreathed with leafy olive, answered cheerfully the joyous revellers. But she has a dagger hidden under her raiment, seeking to attack thee, thou greatest of Virtues, thee alone, Concord, of all this number, with bitter treachery.|[[Prudentius]], ''[[Psychomachia]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/prudentius-fight_mansoul/1949/pb_LCL387.327.xml 684&ndash;691]; translation by H. J. Thomson}}

But Discordia is discovered, and with the army of Virtues, swords drawn, surrounding her and demanding to know "her race and name, her country and her faith, what God she worships, of what nation he that sent her",<ref>[[Prudentius]], ''[[Psychomachia]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/prudentius-fight_mansoul/1949/pb_LCL387.329.xml 705&ndash;708].</ref> she answers:
{{blockquote|I am called Discord, and my other name is Heresy. The God I have is variable, now lesser, now greater, now double, now single; when I please, he is unsubstantial, a mere apparition, or again the soul within us, when I choose to make a mock of his divinity. My teacher is Belial, my home and country the world.|[[Prudentius]], ''[[Psychomachia]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/prudentius-fight_mansoul/1949/pb_LCL387.329.xml 709&ndash;714]; translation by H. J. Thomson}}

At which point Faith, the Virtues' queen, unwilling to hear any more of their "outrageous prisoner’s blasphemies", stopped Discordia's speech by driving a javelin through her tongue,<ref>''[[Psychomachia]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/prudentius-fight_mansoul/1949/pb_LCL387.329.xml 715&ndash;718]</ref> and:
{{blockquote|Countless hands tear the deadly beast in pieces, each seizing bits to scatter to the breezes, or throw to the dogs, or proffer to the devouring carrion crows, or thrust into the foul, stinking sewers, or give to the sea-monsters for their own. The whole corpse is torn asunder and parcelled out to unclean creatures; so perishes frightful Heresy, rent limb from limb.|[[Prudentius]], ''[[Psychomachia]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/prudentius-fight_mansoul/1949/pb_LCL387.329.xml 719&ndash;725]; translation by H. J. Thomson}}

[[Martianus Capella]] (fl. c. 410–420), has Discordia, along with Seditio (Sedition) as being a deity of the third celestial region.<ref>Block, [https://referenceworks-brill-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/display/entries/NPOE/e321400.xml s.v. Discordia]; Petrovicova, [https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA536929195&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00445975&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=mlin_oweb&isGeoAuthType=true&aty=geo "Martianus Capella's interpretation of Juno"]; [[Martianus Capella]] 1.47.</ref>