juno sospita

Iuno Sospita of LanuviumAuthor(s): E. M. DouglasSource: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 3, Part 1 (1913), pp. 60-72Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/296022 .Accessed: 14/05/2014 12:42

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Journal of Roman Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 178.17.21.110 on Wed, 14 May 2014 12:42:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1~ A --

- ~ .

FIG. I. ARCHAIC AMPHORA FROM CERVETRI, NOW IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM (B. 57), REPRESENTING HERCULES AND IUNO SOSPITA, POSEIDON AND ATHENA.


IUNO SOSPITA OF LANUVIUM.

By Miss E. M. DOUGLAS.

The city of Lanuvium, now called Civita Lavinia, stands on a beautiful site looking out westwards over its vine-clad slopes across the plain to the sea, and eastwards to the mountains beyond Velletri. The oldest city stood on the crest of the hill; on the central of the three summits was the arx and near were remains which have been connected with a temple. Moreover, excavation has disclosed something of the ancient plan of the city, a theatre, an underground aqueduct and other structures.

Founded according to one Roman legend by a Trojan hero, it was certainly in the earliest times one of the allied cities of Latium Vetus. In 338 B.C. Rome conquered it, and its citizens were incorporated into the Roman state. They first received the inferior status of cives sine sugragio, and later, although at a comparatively early date, the full franchise. The city was prosperous, and much of this prosperity seems to have come from its many temples, " plurima sacrificia et fana" as Cicero calls them, and it was especially connected with the worship of Juno Sospes or Sospita 1 whose temple may have stood on the hill-top, near the arx. The worship of this manifestation or variety of Juno goes back to very ancient days. When Rome conquered the city it was ordered, as Livy expressly records, 2 that the temple and grove of Juno should henceforward be common to the people of Lanuvium and the people of Rome, and as a consequence should be placed under the supervision of the Roman pontifices. In the history of the third and second centuries B.C. the temple is frequently mentioned. Many portents and omens were observed in it and expiations for them were celebrated in Rome. 3 The temple treasury grew rich until in the Civil War of 42 B.C. Octavian pillaged it with other wealthy shrines. 4

Under the empire we have many further references. Pliny saw what he took to be a fine early painting showing two nude female figures, Atalanta and* Helen. 5 He mentions that although the picture survived unhurt, the temple itself was more or less in ruins.

1 The former (Sospes, Seispes, Sispes) is the older, the latter by far the commoner form; on coins Sispita also occurs.

2 Livy, viii, I4, z; Roscher, Lexikon, art. Iuno Sospita, ii, p. 595.

3 Livy, xxi, 62, 4; xxiii, 3I, I5; xxii, II, I7, etc.

4 Appian, V, 24. 5 Jex Blake and Sellers, Elder Pliny's Chapters

on Art, p. 87, note I3.


62 IUNO SOSPITA OF LANUVIUM.

In A.D. I36 Hadrian dedicated there a statuette made up, " ex donis aureis et argenteis vetustate corruptis," 1 and a fragmentary inscription records that he repaired some fallen building, which may possiblv be connected with a restoration of the temple. Antoninus Pius, who was born and frequently resided in Lanuvium, is also recorded to have helped in the restoration of the temple. 2

There was also at Lanuvium, perhaps on the west side of the hill, a cave where a sacred serpent dwelt. This cave and snake have been connected with Juno Sospita, and although no ancient writer actually says this, the occurrence of a snake on the coins of Juno Sospita seem fair proof of it. Recent writers have, however, argued that the Lanuvium snake was connected rather with Vesta than with Iuno. 3

The most complete account of the art type of Juno Sospita is given by Cicero4: "illam vestram Sospitam quam tu numquam . . vides nisi cum pelle caprina, cum hasta, cum scutulo, cum

calceolis repandis." Her attributes were a bird (crow ?) or a snake. The works of art which represent her are few in number and mostly of small dimensions.

A statue in the Capitoline Museum 5 was once supposed to represent Juno Sospita on the unauthenticated grounds that the work was found at Lanuvium, and that she wore a goatskin. But the skin has been shown to be a swine's skin, and therefore more applicable to Demeter; and the treatment of the drapery is Greek rather than Roman. Therefore this statue must be withdrawn from the small number of works believed to portray Iuno Sospita. It is in reality a Roman copy of a fifth-century Greek work, labelled with an erroneous and comparatively modern title.

(i) The best known work is the statue in the Vatican,6 a good example of the Antonine period, but derived from some earlier model, to judge by the stiff treatment of the folds and the pose of the body, although the head has the developed fullness admired in the age of the copyist. The arms are restorations, and so are the feet and plinth; but the goddess wears the. traditional goatskin, 7 drawn as a helmet over her head, and knotted by the forelegs upon her breast, over the long matronly tunic. She steps forward with dignified haste, ready to defend her people or assail their foes.

1 C.I.L. xiv, no. zo88. 2 The authorities for the history of Lanuvium and

its temple may be found in any account of the town, for ex. C.I.L. xiv, p. i9i, and Eph. epigr. ix, p. 381, ff. G. B. Colburn, Amer. Journ. Arch. I9I2, p. I04. Notizie degli Scavi, I882-I908. There were also temples in Rome dedicated to Iuno Sospita (Delbriick, Tempel am Forum Holitoriurn, etc.).

3 Coins of the gens Procilia (Babelon, ii, 385) and of Pius (Cohen, 473). With respect to Vesta see

Bucheler in Berliner phil. Woch. i908, p. 5i8, and Dessau, Eph. epigr. ix, p .331.

4 Cicero, de Nat. Deor. i, z9, 8z. 5 Cat. Cap. Museum, pl. I7, no. 6, text, p. 84;

Clarac, 418; Reinach, Rip. Sculp. i, p. zoo, no. 732; Locatelli, Museo Cap. iii, pl. 5; Fred. Mori, Museo Cap. i; Scala, pl. 2.

6 Rotonda, no. 552; Reinach, Repert. Sculp. i, p. zoo, no. 731; Helbig, Fiihrer, i, p. 20I, no. 314. Overbeck, Kunstmythologie, ii, i, i 6o gives a list

*of the monuments. 7 Visconti, Pio Clem. ii, p. I58.


IUNO SOSPITA OF LANUVIUM. 63

(2) There is another statue, formerly in the Collection Vescovale, which represents her. 1 She stands frontally to the spectator in queenly pose, a patera in her lowered left hand, and the sceptre in her right. She wears a simple peplos fastened on the shoulders, and over this the goatskin arranged as on the Capitoline statue, aegis-wise, over one shoulder only, but here the girdle passes over the skin. Her feet are shod with sandals.

(3) Iuno Sospita is figured with several of her fellow Olympians upon a base2 in the garden of the villa Doria Pamfili.

no.'

no. z

no. 3 [E

FIG. 2. COINS WITH REPRESENTATIONS OF IUNO SOSPITA.

(4) More valuable as reminiscent of the cult type are the long series of coins, 3 both of the republic and of the empire, which show her standing with or without her attendant serpent and crow, driving in a chariot drawn by goats or crowning her worshipper (fig. 2). Sometimes her head is stamped on the obverse, but always covered with the goatskin in the characteristic manner.

I Clarac, pl. 419; Reinach, Repert. Scuip. i, p. 20o, no. 733.

2 Mllon. d. Inst. vi and vii, pl. 76. 3 Babelon, Alonnaies de la rip. romaine, i, p. 434;

;i, pp. 223, 280, 283, 386, 402, 488; Grueber,

Coins of the Roman Reptblic, pl. 31, 22; pl. 4I, 5-I4, nos. i8, I9; pl. 43, i6-20; pl. 44, I-14; pl. 50, no. 22. For imperial coins see Cohen's index s.v. Iuno.



(5) In the British Museum is an archaic amphora from Cervetri' (fig. I). On the right is Hercules, bearded, with the lion's skin and armed with a sword and the club which he brandishes in his right hand. Opposite to him is Iuno who wears a long chiton, and the- goatskin over her head so that the. horns protrude above her brow. She carries a shield and brandishes her spear against her opponent. Between them stands a lebes, adorned round the rim with four writhing snakes, and there is another similar bowl behind the goddess. Poseidon, trident in hand, attempts to restrain her and behind Hercules is a female figure, probably Athena. Furt- wangler has endeavoured to show that this vase is of Ionian fabric, akin to the Caeretan hydriai, and points to Kyme as the probable provenance.2 The theme is unique in vase paintings, but it has helped to explain the significance of other objects.

(6) One of the most interesting of these is a three-sided bronze base, found at Perugia, part of which remains there, while the other

FIG. 3. SMALL ETRUSCAN BRONZE ORNAMENT REPRESENTING HERCULES AND IUNO SOSPITA SUPPORTED BY A SATYR. From Roscher, Lexikon, i, 226z.

part is in Munich. 3 Here Hercules steps forward from the right, whilst opposite to him advances Juno Sospita, clad in a long garment over which she wears a goatskin, finely incised. The garment drapes her closely, after the archaic fashion, and falls in a number of stiff folds between the legs; on her feet are pointed shoes. The Boeotian shield on her left arm is ornamented on the inner side with fine geometric designs in stripes. Furtw angler considered that the facial types and treatment and style of the whole work are Ionic from Asia Minor, but that the work was produced in Etruria for Etruscans, either by an Ionian artist or his Etruscan pupils.

1 B.M. no. B. 57; Walters, Cat. Vases, i; Gerhard, Auserl. Vas. pL. 1Z7; Birch, Archaeologia, xxx, p. 342, pl. I8.

2 Roscher, Lex. 222I ; Ber. d. Berl. Arch. Gesell. Ist Nov. 1887.

3 Furtwangler, Bescbreibung der Glyptotbek, p. 7z; Brunn, Bescbreibung, 44; Inghirami, Monumenti Etruscbi, iii, 8; Gerhard, Gottbeiten der Etrusker, iii, pl. z9, 8 ; Micali, Storia degli antichi popoli Italiani, pl. 3, 4.



(7) Another Etruscan work is a small bronze ornament (fig. 3), once applied to some larger object. 1 It consists of the head and shoulders of a satyr, who on his outstretched arms supports two figures. On the left is Hercules with lion's skin and club; on the right is Iuno Sospita armed with a round shield and the sword which she brandishes. She wears a long garment and her head is covered with the goatskin, one horn of which protrudes like a knob behind. There is a series of small metal-work objects in which distinctive attributes are either omitted or too carelessly reproduced to be easily decipherable. Yet owing to their analogy with the last- mentioned work they have all been identified as Iuno and Hercules. 2

(8) About a bronze seal engraved IUNO SOSPITA3 there can be no doubt, for there she stands, weapon in hand, and wearing the goatskin, but in this case her adversary is lacking.

(9) Of greater interest is a gold ring4 where the bezel is upborne by two figures, Hercules with the lion's skin drawn over his head

FIG, 4. GOLD RING WITH BEZEL SUPPORTED BY HERCULES AND IUNO SOSPITA. From Roscher, Lexikon, i, 2261.

and secured by the forepaws knotted on his breast, and Iuno Sospita with the goatskin worn in like manner. They both raise their weapons above their heads with one hand and with the other lay hold upon the weapon of their companion, thus framing the bezel (fig. 4). It has been pointed out that the sword of Juno with curved blade recalls the hasta caelibaris with which the bride's hair was divided. 5

(iO) In the British Museum6 there is a bronze mask of Iuno Sospita; the workmanship is rather rude, but the goat's horns and ears are distinctly shown.

(ii) Lastly there are a number of terra-cotta antefixes found on various sites. Perhaps the best example is the one at Berlin 7 (fig. 5) of which the provenance is not stated. It represents a youthful female head; the nose is broken and there is a crack which runs across below the chin, but otherwise it is well preserved. The ground of the clay is yellowish, lips red, eyebrows, eyelids and eyes

1 Micali, Mon. inedit. pl. zI, 5; Roscher, Lexikon, i, p. zz6z.

2 A list of them is given in Roscher, op. cit. i, zz6z. See also Babelon and Blanchet, Bronz. Bibl. Nat. nos. 579, 58o.

3 Gori, Mus. Etrusc. i, pl. 25. 4 Reifferscheid, Ann. d. Inst. I867, pL1 H, no. ;

Bull. d. Inst. Arch. I858, p. 49.

5 Roscher, Lexikon, i, p. zz6i Ovid, Fast. ii, 6o; Plut. Qu. R. 87, and Rom. iS.

6 Cat. of Bronzes, no. 673.

7 Panofka, Terrakotten des k. Museum, pl. IO, p. 32; Bormann, Die Keramik in der Baukunst, fig. 24.



outlined in black. The eyes are round and prominent, the ears large and outstanding.1 Over her head is a stylised goatskin which comes down into a peak over the nose between the brows, and is heavily outlined in red, following the arch of the brows. In the middle of the forehead is a diamond, a cream centre outlined with a thick red line. Above comes a band of red, and above again the black hairy goat's mask with the horns and animal's ears. Below

FIG. 5. TERRACOTTA ANTEFIX REPRESENTING IUNO AND THE GOATSKIN. BERLIN. From Panofka, Terrakotten des k. Museum, pl. IO, p. 32.

the skin-covering four long black curls fall on either side of the head. A red band passes below the chin, and a red necklace with pendants, alternately black and red. Behind the head rises a horseshoe- shaped cream background, with a red border from which a red and black toothed pattern tends inward: surrounding the head itself is a black zig-zag.

1 Loewy, Nature in Greek Art, p. 56.


IUNO SOSPITA OF LANUVIUM. 67 (I2) In the Louvre' is a similar antefix with colours rather less

distinct, but again the diamond mark on the forehead is visible, this time in red, and here the four curls on each side are treated in pearl-like divisions which recall certain of the archaic " Apollos." In this example the background is adorned with three tiers of toothed rays, increasing in size towards the edge of the border. No. io8, although smaller, is practically identical.

(I3) In the 'collection at the Villa Giulia, among the results of excavations at Conca and in the Campagna Romana, there is an antefix2 of the same type but much destroyed and largely restored. The traces of colour have practically disappeared. There are also seven smaller antefixes, all of the same type, uncoloured. These seem slightly less elaborate than the Berlin terra-cotta, and have no necklace, and only in one case are the human ears shown. Two examples only of the small type have horns, for the upper part of the rest is destroyed. All the heads date from the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. and adorned Etruscan temples in different localities.

(I4) At Falerii Veteres was found one of the moulds3 in which the antefixes were cast, and this shows perfectly the archaic oval face and all the details.

Certain conclusions can be drawn from these monuments which may help towards a better understanding of the cult. The earliest dei-ties of the Romans were mostly vague mental conceptions 4 without definite anthropomorphic forms, and only later under the influence of Etruscan artists was their personality sufficiently crystallised for them to be represented by monuments of art. It is noteworthy that all the earlier monuments of Juno Sospita are Etruscan works, but in many details they display a kinship with early Ionic art. The little bronzes with closely-fitting chiton and group of folds falling in front may be compared with the Ionic bronze figurines from various sites, or the korai of the Acropolis. Characteristic are the soft, pointed shoes which the goddess always wears, in conformity with the Etruscan fashion of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. a detail also found in archaic Ionic works.

All these indications tend to prove that the anthropomorphic form of Juno Sospita was first produced by or under the influence of Etruscan artists at a period when they themselves were strongly influenced by Ionian art; that is to say, in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. 5 If sixth-century antefixes of the same type are found in many different localities, it is a sign that the cult was widespread, and the image of the goddess already traditionally

1 Anteroom between Salles C and D, no. 15 ; Martha, L'Art etrusque, p. 174, fig. 141.

2 Villa Giulia, ground floor, end room, case with finds from Conca, etc.

3 Villa Giulia, room ii, case z.

4W. W. Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman Teople, pp. ii6, 146; Wissowa, Religion u. Kultus der Romer, p. 28; Varro, Ant. rer. div. ed. Agahd. p. I64.

5 Martha, L'Art itrusque, pp. 319, f.



fixed; but the goddess herself must be an indigenous deity, older than the attributes described above.

Therefore, under the form of Iuno as known to the Romans through the Etruscans, there existed the cult of a primitive goddess, mother of her people and patron of the city. She was a war-goddess, to whom even in the time of the empire a soldier might pay his vows. Her title of Sospita (z= : rELpa),2 was the one especially honoured at Lanuvium, as is shown by various notices in Livy's history, and by inscriptions3 where she is also Mater Regina.

Thus when Greek ideas were introduced into Latium the identi- fication of the indigenous goddess with Hera was an easy matter, for the two had many characteristics in common. The worship of Iuno at Falerii is said to have been " with Argive rites," 4 which at least implies that the devotees recognised some features common to both the Greek and Italic cults. Ovid relates that the goat alone was hateful to Iuno, because when she fled to the woods the creature revealed her hiding-place: wherefore the goat was yearly slain by boys who threw darts at her. This legend is obviously a late invention to explain a primitive custom, which has been connected with the ceremony of the LEp0c yac/pos. 5

The sacrifice of a goat was common in the ritual of Hera, and at Sparta, where she was called alyofayo,6 and at Corinth there was an annual sacrifice of a goat with peculiar rites to Hera of the Height. I

Ovid, writing in the early days of the empire, states that the ceremony at Falerii was performed after the fashion of the Greek rites, and hence it has been concluded that there was a complete parallel between the ceremonies practised there and those performed at the celebration of the ZEpos yac4os at Argos and Samos, but this would imply that these rites were only instituted at a comparatively late period when Greek influence made itself felt in Latium, although it is generally allowed that in character they are essentially primitive. We are nowhere told that here the image of the goddess was hidden in the woods, yet if such were the case it is curious that all allusion to so important a point has been omitted.

Nevertheless there were many points of similarity between the Greek and Italic rites: the image of the goddess was taken in procession with flute-players and traditional hymns, while games and dances also took place. Then too, like Iuno at Falerii, the Hera of the ZEpOS yap4os seems to have had certain warlike traits, for at Argos a contest for a shield formed part of the festival, and

1 Notizie degli Scavi, I907, p. 66o, fig. 4 and p. 657.

2 Festus, Trag. e cod. Fam. p. 343.

-3 C.I.L. xiv -nos. 2088-209I.

4 Ovid, Am. iii, 3 ; Dion. Hal. Ars Rhet. i) z I, z ; Aelian, Hep! >cv, xi, I 6.

5 Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i, pp. i85, f. 6 Paus. iii, IS. 7 Zenob. i, Z7; Apostolius, i, 6o; Frazer,

Comment. on Paus. ii, 3, 7.



at Samos the people went in armed procession. This likeness of details would be sufficient to induce writers of the empire, either Greeks themselves, or Romans strongly influenced by Greek learning, to consider that the ritual was conducted more Graio, or " with Argive rites "; and it is probably to this Hellenising tendency also that the myth of Halaesus is due. It is even possible that certain details such as the white robes, and the maidens who bore the sacrificial vessels on their heads, were introduced in later times in imitation of the Greek rites.

Exactly what we are told is that the goat, led apparently into some open place, was slain by boys who threw darts at her, a fact which suggests analogies with the customs of other races at a primitive date. The goat was not slain at an altar by a priest, but without the city and by several persons ; i.e. it was not an ordinary sacrifice in honour of the goddess, but taboo, a sacrifice of expiation. It has been clearly shown that, in order to gain absolution, to restore the pax deorum, savages resort to a purely physical process to expel contagion from the guilty. 2 When it is the community as a whole upon whom the infection rests, they have recourse to the expedient of the scapegoat as a substitute for human sacrifice " and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities."

Since, however, the slaughter of such a victim was fraught with grave spiritual peril, the danger was minimised by the participation of many ministrants. Here, in the rite at Falerii, we have an early example of a custom afterwards prevalent in Roman religion 3; the duty was deputed to boys, since children are freer from spiritual contamination and thus more pleasing to the gods. From this one must conclude that originally the rite was purely expiatory, but at a later date this significance was obscured, and the ceremony became subservient to the festival of the goddess, until finally it degenerated into a contest of lads in her honour, and gave rise to the aetiological myth related by Ovid. It also suggests that the gradual change in the nature of the ceremony led to a desire to connect it more obviously with Iuno, and therefore the goatskin, originally dedicated as a perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice performed, became a distinctive mark of her apparel. Quite possibly it was at Falerii, a city of much culture, that the art type originated; that type which, once created as the anthropomorphic form of Juno Sospita, prevailed as long as the cult endured.

Ovid relates that the goddess was taken round in procession, probably a procession of much the same kind as may be seen nowadays in many Italian leste, when the images of the saints are borne through the village. Although to-day these processions have

1 Schol. Pindar, 01. 7, 1 52; Polyaen. Strat. i, 23. 2 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites,

P. 42I, f; Frazer, Taboo, p. 2I3.

3 Livy, xxxvii, 3: Rites of Arval Brothers, etc.; Warde Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 176.



lost much of their significance, they were once considered potent as rain charms, or to ensure the fertility of the land. In Greece the " walker," who personifies the spirit of vegetation, goes round the fields repeating her chant "God, rain down on us, that strong the corn may grow, that strong the lads may grow." 1 This ceremony recalls the description by Roman writers2 of the Ambarvalia, originally a procession round the village possessions to avert maleficent influences and to call down increase upon the beasts and fields and upon man himself, 3 as in the elaborate ritual of the Iguvium Tables. 4 The procession concluded with a threefold sacrifice of victims, precisely the victims mentioned by Ovid at Falerii. Originally, therefore, two separate ceremonies of different import, the piacular goat sacrifice and the procession to ensure fertility, were united, yet always inorganically, perhaps one should rather say juxtaposed. Both lost something of their earlier meaning, until the whole became a gay festival in honour of Iuno Sospita.

The story of the goat sacrifice at Falerii is strange, but still stranger is that of the serpent cult at Lanuvium which was extremely primitive in character. 5 Every year certain maidens were sent down blindfold into the grotto to bear offerings to the serpent. If they were chaste he received the food at their hands and they returned safely to their parents, whereupon the peasants took it as an omen that the year would be fertile. On a series of coins issued by L. Roscius Fabatus, circa 70 B.C. (fig. 2, no. 3) the scene is thus represented on the reverse6: FABATI; Female figure standing right, feeding from her dress a serpent erect before her; behind female figure, symbol, temple cake. The type remains the same, but the symbols in the field vary. The serpent is immense, crested, and rears himself in an attitude reminiscent of the serpent votive reliefs.7 The girl undoubtedly appears to feed him " from her dress," but the coins are difficult to make out. It seems more natural that she should carry the offering in a basket hung on her arm, as Propertius implies; such a little basket, indeed, as forms the symbol in the background on one of the coins. 8

The rite apparently continued undisturbed for a lengthy period, for it is described at the end of the last century B.C. by Propertius, who implies that the guilty maidens did not return safely; and by Aelian in the third century A.D. according to whom all the maidens returned, but she who had been proved guilty was punished in accordance with the law, a somewhat milder version.

1 M. Hamilton, Greek Saints and their Festivals, p. Izo.

2 Virgil, Georg. i, 338; Cato, R.R. 14I . 3 W. W. Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. I24, f. 4 Michel Breal, Les Tables Eugubines, p. xxii. 5 Propertius, Eleg. iv, 8, 3-I4; Aelian, N.A.

xi) i 6.

6 Grueber, Coins of the Romanz Republic, pl. 43, nos. i6-zo; pl. 44, nos. I-I4; pl. 50, no. zo; vol. i, p. 422, ff. nos. 3394-35I0.

7 Berlin, no. 722-4; Beschreibung konig. Mus. zu Berlin, I89I, p. 270, 27I ; Kekule von Stradonitz, Griech. Skulp. p. 20z.

8 Grueber, op. cit. i, p. 372, no. 2894: cf. p. 37I, no. 8.



In any case, this ceremony, of a high antiquity, must have been a rite to consult the oracle and to ensure fertility. There is a great dread among primitive peoples of the baneful effects of unchastity. 1 The Battas of Sumatra hold that such a crime will blast the whole harvest if not repaired, and the Bataus of Borneo believe it is punished by the spirits who visit the whole tribe with the failure of crops and other misfortunes. The Karens of Burma cause the guilty to make expiation by sacrifice with the following prayer: '' God of heaven and earth, god of the mountains and hills, I have destroyed the productiveness of the country . . . now I repair the mountains, now I heal the hills and the streams and the land. May there be no failure of crops, etc." In many places the guilty persons are drowned or throttled. Among the Tolalaki, Central Celebes, the condemned are shut up in a basket and drowned: no drop of their blood may be spilt on the ground, for that would hinder the earth from ever bearing fruit again.

Perhaps it was this reluctance to pollute the earth with guilty blood which originally caused the sacrifice of the maiden within the cavern. There is no mention of the number of the maidens or how they were selected for their perilous task. Possibly they were chosen by lot, and if more than one were sent each year, the number must have been uneven, for how could any omen be drawn if perchance the numbers were equal ? In analogous cases usually one victim is sufficient, 2 and certainly the presence of a companion, even if she also were blindfold, would to some small extent mitigate the horrors of that awful descent as described by Propertius.

The belief in a serpent or dragon as a spirit of fertility or guardian of springs and fertilising streams is found in very widely separated districts. An oracular serpent, however, to whom sacrifice was offered, generally leads back to a hero cult, and that may have been the case at Lanuvium; for the cult in the grotto seems to have combined awkwardly, if at all, with the worship of Iuno, in spite of the attempt to render it subordinate by giving to the goddess the snake as. an attribute. The two rites remained distinct and incongruous, that of Iuno as Sospita in her temple on the arx, and the terrible rite of the serpent in the dark grotto on the hillside.

According to the account of Aelian the severity of the rite had been relaxed in the third century A.D. in that the maiden came up alive to be judged by the laws, but it was apparently restored in its most barbaric form before the fifth century, in which troublous times there was a revival of pagan customs of all kinds, if one can trust the narrative of a Christian writer who naturally aimed at painting any pagan ceremony as black as possible. Prosper narrates the suppression of the cult which had degenerated into a priestly

1 Frazer, Golden Bough: The Magic Art, ii, p. 107, ff.

2 Frazer, op. cit. ii, p. r55, and Comment. on Paus. ix, 26, 7*



fraud, and says 1: " Near the city of Rome was a cavern in which a serpent of marvellous size used to appear. It was formed by a mechanical contrivance, and held a sword in its mouth, and its eyes were made of gleaming gems, most wonderful and fearful to behold. Every year maidens who had been vowed to him were decked out with flowers, and were given in sacrifice in the following manner: inasmuch as when they, bearing down the offerings, unwittingly touched the step of the stairs where that great serpent through diabolical arts used to hang, the impetus of the sword cut off those who approached, so that innocent blood used to be shed. And him a certain monk, the worthy relative of Stilicho, then patrician, overthrew in the following way: with a stick in his hand he tested each step by touching it softly, so that suddenly he touched that monster and discovered the diabolical fraud. Descending the passage he cut down the serpent, and broke it in pieces; showing that those are no gods who are made with hands."

One further point about Iuno Sospita is noticeable in works of art, namely, her frequent association with Hercules.

It was as the male divinity of fertility that the Italic Hercules was paired with Iuno, the great mother of her people,2 united in non-Greek fashion, and sometimes apparently at variance, a fact which caused the Etruscans to interpret this Italic story in accordance with the Greek myth of the feud of Hera and Herakles. It has been suggested that in these examples of contest Juno is represented, not as the wife of Hercules, but rather as his maiden bride who must be seized by force. 3 Even the Roman bride, when about to be led to the home of her bridegroom, was symbolically torn from her mother's arms. 4

Iuno Sospita, then, was an indigenous Italian goddess, whose cult had absorbed into itself many primitive elements, originally quite distinct, barbaric elements which harmonised ill with her title of Sospita. She was at first the mother goddess of a small rude community; then her cult developed and expanded with the growth of her people, at each fresh phase acquiring some new epithet which marked her adaptation to their new requirements. In historic Rome, however, the feeling for the patriarchal system was too strong to admit of the supremacy of a female divinity, and therefore it was Iupiter Optimus Maximus who reigned from his temple on the Capitol over the growing fortunes of the Roman state. With the increase of Hellenic culture Iuno became identified with Hera, and sank from her position of great patron goddess to being one of a number of barely personified half-foreign deities, with little or no real influence on the religious life of the people.

1 Prosperus Aquitanus, Liber de promiss. et praedict. dei, iii, 38.

2 Reifferscheid, Ann. d. Inst. i867, p. 352, pL. 40.

3 Peter in Roscher's Lex. i, p. 2264. 4 Catullus, Carmina, Oxford text, lxi, 79-87,

lxii, 20-24.


Article Contentsp. [60]p. [61]p. 62p. 63p. 64p. 65p. 66p. 67p. 68p. 69p. 70p. 71p. 72

Issue Table of ContentsThe Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 3, Part 1 (1913), pp. 1-156Front MatterVirgil and Roman Studies [pp. 1-24]Some Notable Judicia Populi on Capital Charges [pp. 25-59]Iuno Sospita of Lanuvium [pp. 60-72]Cicero's Journey to His Province of Cilicia in 51 B.C. [pp. 73-97]Roman and Native Remains in Caledonia [pp. 98-115]Some Conjectures on the Reign of Vespasian [pp. 116-126]A Romano-British House near Bedmore Barn, Ham Hill, Somerset [pp. 127-133]The Ara Pacis Augustae [pp. 134-141]A Sarcophagus Lid in the Terme Museum, Rome [pp. 142-144]Notices of Recent PublicationsReview: untitled [pp. 145-146]Review: untitled [pp. 146-148]Review: untitled [pp. 148-150]Review: untitled [pp. 150-151]Review: untitled [pp. 151-152]Review: untitled [pp. 152-153]Review: untitled [pp. 153-154]Review: untitled [p. 154]Review: untitled [pp. 154-156]

Back Matter

juno sospita

Documents

jstor terms

jstor archive

journal of roman studies

roman legend

roman pontifices

roman state

city of lanuvium

terms conditions of