The Roman god who personified the changing seasons and was often depicted with a cornucopia was Vertumnus.
Vertumnus governed seasonal change, gardens, fruit trees, plant growth, and the transformations that bring crops from blossom to harvest. His name was associated by the Romans with the verb vertere, “to change,” although the deity probably originated from the Etruscan god Voltumna. The cult reached Rome around 300 BCE, and a temple stood on the Aventine Hill by 264 BCE.
Vertumnus was believed to change his shape at will. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, he pursued Pomona, the goddess of orchards, by disguising himself as an old woman and entering her garden. He used a story about the danger of rejecting love to persuade her; the pair became an important literary image of cultivated nature and seasonal abundance.
His festival, the Vertumnalia, was celebrated on August 13. Later artistic traditions commonly showed him with fruit, grain, gardening tools, or a cornucopia, the “horn of plenty.” He is sometimes confused with Pomona, but she specifically protects fruit trees and orchards, while Vertumnus represents change and the productive cycle of the seasons.