Moneta, who had been worshipped on the heights for many generations. On the Arx, near her temple, was also the auguraculum,17 and perhaps Juno and her birds were concerned with the early auguries. It is probable that chickens were not introduced into Rome until the first half of the fourth century and perhaps the geese were used in earlier times for such offices. Some scholars have supposed that this bird was a symbol of Juno as goddess of women, because it is one belonging to the house and fertile, also a sign of modesty and virtue.18 However, such is the significance of the goose to man after centuries of domestication and association with the worship of the goddess. It may be that generations earlier the wild goose had an entirely different connotation and use. Perhaps there was connection with the weather. In like manner the sacrifice of a crow and a dog19 on the festival of Moneta, the Calends of June, may be a survival of an earlier rite which started as a rain-charm. One of the most difficult problems concerning Juno Moneta is to explain why the mint was situated in her temple. Mr. Hill20 and others have answered this question by saying that the coining of money gave rather than owed its name to the goddess. But numismatists are divided on the subject, and Hands21 thinks that we should regard her as the camp-goddess, the holder of the spear. Then naturally the means (the money) for carrying on wars, over which Juno presides, would have been produced near her shrine. A very ingenious theory was offered by Corssen,22 who thought that the Romans put the coinage under the patronage of the goddess who sent monitiones, since it was an industry of the state which caused a lingot of metal to be marked with signs fixing the value. It seems best indeed to answer this question by saying that with the Romans the practical prevailed. Her temple, which was on a stronghold, excellently fortified, secluded, and near military watch, was a place of security against invasion and plunder. 17 Jordan, op. cit. I, 2, pp. 104 ff. 18 Pliny, N.H. X, 44; Petronius, S. 137; Aristotle, ed. Didot, 3, 4, 85: Wissowa, op. cit. p. 190, notes 10 and 11. 19 Plut. De Fort. Rom. 12; Macrobius, S. I, 12, 30; Gruppe, Gr. Myth. p. 818; Schwegler, Röm. Gesch. III, p. 259; Otto, op. cit. p. 184. 20 Supra p. 60. 21 Op. cit. pp. 1 ff. 22 Ausspr. 12, p. 438. Even as the Capitoline temple of Jupiter was already used as a place of deposit for the Sibylline books, the other temple on that hill became the center of a state industry which must be safe-guarded more by the natural protection of the site than by the power of a divinity. The coins themselves show only slight tendency to honor Juno Moneta by their types. The oldest which bears her portrait is a triens23 belonging to the third period; and there are only two silver denarii which are stamped with her likeness. She appears to have had no special interest in the coins minted at her temple. As the origin of the name seems to indicate, Juno Moneta was first a goddess of warnings, and perhaps of those which came from the bright sky. 23 Hands, op. cit. pp. 6-7. Regina Juno Regina was worshipped early at Veii, Ardea, Lanuvium, and at Rome as one of the Capitoline triad. It has been commonly thought that the notion of a trinity, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, had its rise among the Etruscans. But the triad appears to have had a cult in pre-Etruscan Rome, and L. R. Taylor2 believes that the idea is possibly Italic in origin. Many indications point to Falerii3 as the earliest home of Minerva, and here the Juno-cult was also most important. Perhaps in that region the combination of the three deities was formed. The cult is unusually well attested as far south as Capua; but it was apparently introduced there after it had become comparatively fixed elsewhere. At Pompeii it was overshadowed by the extraordinary prominence won by Venus.5 Even if the union came about among Italic peoples, Etruria knew each of these three deities well, and Juno Regina was from early centuries the prominent goddess of Veii. Her temple there was situated on the citadel and the image which it enshrined was apparently a čóavov which was a product of early Etruscan art. The figure was brought to Rome in 392 B.C. and placed on the Aventines in a temple which faced the Etruscan bank and was outside the pomoerium, although as an Italic deity Juno could have penetrated within. Priests had charge of the cult at Veii, and they, as well as the primitive rites,1o 1 See, among others, Wissowa, op. cit. p. 191. 2 Op. cit. p. 252. 3 Wissowa, op. cit. pp. 252-3; Carter, Relig. Life of Anc. Rome, p. 26. ' Peterson, op. cit. p. 242. Hülsen-Jordan, Topog. der Stadt Rom, I, 3, pp. 165-6; Müller-Deecke, Die Etrusker, II, p. 44. 7 Jordan, op. cit. I, 3, pp. 165 ff. and 538. 8 Livy, V, 21, 3; 22, 7; 23, 7; 31, 3; Plut. Cam. 6; Val. Max. I, 8, 3, calls her Moneta incorrectly. Aust, De Aedil. Sacr. p. 8, no. 10, note 10. 10 Marquardt, Röm. Staatsver. III, p. 396; A. Merlin, L'Aventin dans l'Antiquité, p. 197. were doubtless brought to Rome with the image of the goddess; though later, for some unknown reason, the ritus graecus" was practised in the temple on the Aventine. The festival at the Roman site was held annually on the Calends of September,12 as had probably been the custom at Veii. Besides the temple on the Aventine, Juno Regina had two cult-sites in the quarter of the Circus Flaminius, one vowed in 187 B.C. by M. Aemilius Lepidus, the other by Q. Caecilius Macedonicus and dedicated at his triumph in 146, together with a temple to Jupiter Stator.13 The two temples built by Metellus were connected by a portico and celebrated their anniversary on the same day. We are told by Pliny14 that the temple of Jupiter contained the statue of Juno, and her temple the image of the god, because the workmen in carrying them made a mistake; but such a reason must depend on a false tradition. The close union of the two cults would better account for the strange circumstance. In fact Jupiter Stator seems to have been closely connected with several of the special cults of Juno where she is primarily a war-goddess. It looks as if she had such a character at Veii. The common explanation of Regina would indicate that she was companion of Jupiter Optimus Maximus or that she was queen of the stars.15 If the latter should be true, she would correspond closely in origin to Sospita, according to Ehrlich's16 derivation of the latter term; and in fact Juno Sospita of Lanuvium was sometimes called Regina.17 Roscher18 claims that the peacock was her attribute because it was a symbol of the moon and the starry heavens. Ovid of course tells the story that Juno transferred the many eyes of Argus to the tail of her bird, and this may indeed be a mythological rendering of an early. folkbelief concerning Juno's interest in the stars. 11 Livy, XXI, 62, 8; XXII, 1, 17 f.; XXVII, 37, 7 f.; Diels, Sibyl. Blätter, pp. 55 and 96; Ovid, Am. III, 13, 13; Juvenal, VI, 48. 12 Wissowa, op. cit. p. 188. 13 Jordan, op. cit. I, 3, p. 487 and p. 538. 14 Pliny, N.H. XXXV, 115. 15 Wissowa, Relig. und Kult. 1st ed. p. 115; Roscher's Lex. II, 600. 16 Infra p. 67. 17 Infra p. 70. 18 Juno u. Hera, pp. 30-1. Otto19 maintains that if Juno was called Regina as wife of Jupiter, then the god should have an official title Rex. Of this epithet there is scarce a trace in the tradition, since Otto rejects the evidence for Jupiter Regator, offered by Preller.20 Otto also thinks certain indications show that Jupiter was not deprived of the name because of the Republican hatred of kings. Juno Regina is analogous in many ways, however, to Heral Baoiλea of Argos, and foreign influence may account to some extent for a name which otherwise would not have been preserved on Roman soil. It has been noted that her worship on the Aventine seems to have adopted the Greek ritual very early.21 A. W. Hands22 thinks that Juno was first considered "Queen of the Heaven and wife of Jove." He adds, "As we find a Queen of the Heaven in the East, Astarte, regarded as goddess of love and war, so we find in the West a warlike Juno contemporary with Juno, the goddess of married love. Regularly she is called wife of Jupiter in Arval and saecular acts." There are truly some striking similarities between Juno and the Phoenician goddess, and the Romans from old times identified the highest god of their enemies with their own deity. They commonly called her Juno Caelestis or Caelestis regina caelorum.23 At the destruction of Carthage, Astarte's image was brought to Rome and kept for a time. The development of this Caelestis resembled in several respects that of the Latin Juno. The African deity was originally a moon-goddess and the shrine at Carthage was in the depths of a sacred wood.24 Both divinities seem to have had influence on the sea, winds, and rain. As Cumont25 says of the Phoenician, from the heaven she sends to earth the storm, but likewise the rain with blessings, and gives men and animals life; as a goddess of fertility she was also an earth-goddess and resembled Bona 19 Op. cit. p. 204. 20 Preller, Röm. Myth. I3, p. 205, note 4, who quotes Cicero, Rep. III, 13. 23 and Cassius Dio, XLIV, 11. 21 Supra p. 63. 22 Op. cit. pp. 8-9. 23 Cumont, Pauly-Wissowa, III, 1247 ff. 24 Hild, Daremberg et Saglio, III, 689. Op. cit. 1249-50. |