Plutarch's Romane Questions: With dissertations on Italian cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, aryan marriage, sympathetic magic and the eating of beansPlutarch
Religion
Plutarch's Romane Questions: With dissertations on Italian cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, aryan marriage, sympathetic magic and the eating of beans
Plutarch
Rome -- Religion -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Social life and customs -- Early works to 1800
In the same way, I submit, the original Italian Juno was no Nature-deity,
no moon-goddess—the name was that of a class of spirits, like the
correlative term _genii virorum_. There were many Junones, as there were
many fauns in Italy, many satyrs and nymphs in Greece, many Pucks and
fairies in England. When the Italians learnt that Hera was the goddess
under whose protection the Greek women were, they naturally thought of the
Juno who was the guardian-spirit of each Italian woman, and applied to Juno
the cult and myths that belonged to Hera. Hence the answer to Plutarch's
question, why were the months sacred to Juno? (_R. Q._ 77). Because they
were sacred to Hera.
But there were other spirits whom Italian women invoked besides their
Junones, such as Juga, who yoked man and wife, Matrona, Pronuba, Domiduca,
Unxia, Cinxia, Fluonia, Lucina, and other departmental spirits or
_indigetes_, whose names appear in the _Indigitamenta_. These spirits, when
once Juno had become a personal individual deity, came to be explained as
special manifestations of the goddess, who was consequently called Juno
Juga, Juno Matrona, &c.[54]
VI. DI INDIGETES.
Before Greek gods and myths were known to them, the Italians worshipped not
only Lares, Manes, Genii, and Junones, but also the spirits known as Di
Indigetes. These spirits were not conceived in human or in animal form.
They had not human parts or passions. They did not form a community. They
had no common abode. There is nothing in Italian religion corresponding to
the Olympus of Greek mythology. They did not marry or give in marriage.
Above all, what distinguishes them both from Greek gods and from the
tree-spirits, which also were worshipped by the Italians, is that they were
rather _numina_ or forces than beings. They were the forces which regulated
and controlled all human actions, psychological and physiological, and
through which all the work of man's hands could alone be brought to a
favourable issue. When, however, we come to examine these _numina_, we find
that the name of the _Indiges_ is simply the name of the action which he
controls: the _Indiges_ of sowing is Saturnus; of remembering, Minerva; of
suckling, Rumina, and so on. It is a canon of savage logic that he who
possesses the name of a person or thing has that person or thing in his
power; hence the Roman's belief that he could control any process,
psychical or physical, if only he could put a name to it. This primitive
form of magic was organised by the Roman State. The pontiffs were intrusted
with the duty of drawing up catalogues (_indigitamenta_) of all the stages
and processes of a man's life, from his begetting and birth to his death
and burial; and as the State was but a community of farmers, similar
catalogues were made of all the agricultural operations by which crops are
raised. To be effectual, it was necessary that these lists should be
complete. As the Roman could avert or remedy any evil by simply naming the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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