Lua Mater: Fire, Rust, and War in Early Roman Cult
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The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Lua Mater: Fire, Rust, and War in Early Roman Cult H. J. Rose The Classical Review / Volume 36 / Issue 1-2 / February 1922, pp 15 - 18 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00015699, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00015699 How to cite this article: H. J. Rose (1922). Lua Mater: Fire, Rust, and War in Early Roman Cult. The Classical Review, 36, pp 15-18 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00015699 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 147.188.128.74 on 14 Jun 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW absurd. Friction of wood against iron will fire polator of Servius on Aen. III. 139: ARBORI- the wood, as is seen in the occasional firing of BVSQVE SATISQVE LVES—quidam dicunt diuersis a brake-block on a railway waggon, but only at numinibus uel bene uel male faciendi potestatem an expenditure of energy far greater than any dicatam, ut . Iunoni procreationem liber- unaided man can produce, or even one aided orum, sterilitatem horum tarn Saturno quam with a hand-drill. Lunae; hanc enim sicut Saturnum orbandi Sometimes, instead of being revolved, the potestatem habere. For Lunae, Preller would borer, still pointed, is rubbed to and fro in a groove read Luae, and Wissowa agrees. But (1) the gloss in the fire-block, which makes Mr. Agar"s conjec- is very confused, for it sets out to show that the ture of eViaXXf aropffi possible. The process is same deity can both bless and ban, as Apollo in difficult, and I have never succeeded myself either Vergil's text, though god of leechcraft, sends a with or without a drill; making fire with a flint plague, and goes on to say that different deities, and steel is quite easy if the tinder be dry. acting in pairs, send blessing and curse respec- With the fire-stick, unless just the right pressure tively. (2) The text will make sense without be used, failure results ; if too much pressure be emendation. An astrological reference will used the fire-block merely polishes and no dust surprise no one who knows the commentators is formed ; if too little, again no dust is formed on Vergil, and Luna is connected with orbitas nor any heat. I have often managed to get the (see e.g. Firmicus Maternus, MatAests VI. 29, 3, wood hot and to smoke, but nothing like as hot to take the first passage that comes to hand). as I got myself. I should add that modern man That the functions of the gods were in later will find it easier to hold the fire block in a vice, times closely bound up with the supposed in- and not with the feet. fluences of those heavenly bodies which bore I imagine that the difficulty of making fire their names is well known. I prefer, therefore, before the use of the flint and steel was the to leave this passage on one side, remarking origin of such regulations as those concerning only that if Preller's emendation be accepted it the fire of Vesta, and of such a simile as that in merely strengthens the proof of the unpleasant nature of Lua, which is apparent enough from Od. V. 488 ff. 2 As an old Etonian, I may perhaps be par- her name (as Wissowa sees, I.e. and RKR , doned if I add that the facts which I have cited p. 208). remind me of a famous cricket ground—namely, Agar's Plough. H. P. CHOLMELEY. We are left, then, with a deity con- nected (1) with sowing, or the god of LUA MATER: FIRE, RUST, AND sowing; (2) with plague; (3) with WAR IN EARLY ROMAN CULT. burning. What functions can she have to include these three discrete spheres ONE. of the obscurest and most of activity ? puzzling figures in the Roman pantheon I hold in the first place that we shall is Lua Mater. This paper is an attempt handicap ourselves needlessly if we to clear up some of the problems con- think of her too closely in connection nected with her and with certain other with Saturnus. Connected with him, deities who seem to me to form part of indeed, she must be in some way, or no the same very early circle of ideas. official prayer would mention them Very little is definitely stated about together; but looking at the list in her by the ancients.1 She is invoked Gellius, I think we can find some with Saturn (Lua Saturni, in the com- evidence that these pairings of deities precationes in Gellius XIII. 23, 2). She are rather of the nature of differentiating is one of the deities to whom arms taken titles than of expressions of permanent from the enemy may be burned (Liv. relationship. For what does the genitive XLV. 33, 1, cf. VIII. 1, 6). Her name case here mean ? Certainly not kinship; is probably connected with lues* There Lua is not wife or daughter of Saturnus, are no inscriptions in her honour, and for Italian numina have no such relation- no record of any sacrifices to her, other ships. Some sort of subordination then than the burning of arms. is most naturally to be assumed, but is it permanent or temporary ? Is Lua A plausible conjecture introduces her, it is true, into the following passage from the inter- who is subordinated to Saturn the only indigitation of Lua ? Not necessarily, 1 See Wissowa in Roscher's Lexikon II. 2146. for the list (supplemented by Fest. epit. 2 v. Domaschewski (Abhandlungen zur rom. 100 M/71 Th.) shows us on the one Rel. p. 109 and n.3) denies this, and declares hand Herie Iunonis, on the other Here that she is an ' Eigenschaftsgottin des Saturnus Martia, in whom it is at least plausible . und zwar . jene Eigenschaft, die das Keimen der Saaten befordert,' but he gives no to recognise two forms of the same proof, etymological or other. name, related probably to the Oscan i6 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW Herentas, and signifying the will or (i.e., Nerio)1 and Lua, and (2) that the wish of Mars and of Iuno respectively Arval Brothers pray (Henzen, p. cciv.), {cf. Osc. herest, uolet). And as for Lua neue luerue Marmar sins incurrere in we find her associated with Mars in a pleores, where, although luerue as it context (Liv. II. cc.) from which Saturnus stands can hardly be right, it is more is wholly excluded. We may then natural to take it is concealing some reasonably hold that the pairings of cognate of lues that, with Biicheler, to deities quoted by Gellius no more emend it away. And whatever we may preclude the possibility of those same think of the origin of Mars, it cannot deities appearing in other partnerships be doubted that he had agricultural than the existence of Zeus Heraios functions, indeed that he is connected proves him permanently subject to in some manner with sowing, for in this Hera, or the indigitation of Apollo as very hymn he is invoked almost in the medicus a.nd paean (Macr. Sat. I. xvii. 15) same breath with the Semunes. forbids us to believe that he was wor- Not only Mars but Quirinus was in- shipped under other titles also. Lua terested in agriculture. His flamen, Saturni is simply Lua, who on this besides his frequent appearance by the occasion is worshipped in conjunction side of the Vestals, sacrifices to Acca with Saturnus. Larentia (Gell. VII. 7), to Consus on It remains, then, to consider her the Consualia (Tert. de sped. 5), and, name and her warlike functions, and to most important of all, to Robigus. In try to explain them in a way which will this last connection I would protest leave room for her occasional association against the suggestion of Wissowa, with the spirit of sowing. In the first op. cit. p. 155, that he acted merely place, lues is as vague a word as ' plague' because his regular functions took up in English. It is used of blight on so little time. If this was so, why was trees and plants in the passage of Vergil not some other unemployed priest, say just quoted, while elsewhere it may the fl. Pomonalis or Falacer, called signify a disease attacking men. Here upon to do the work? Our only au- we want a plague or destruction which thority, Ovid (Fasti IV. no), gives no might attack seeds, and at the same hint that the presence of the flamen time is connected with war and burning. Quirinalis was not absolutely necessary, One naturally thinks of fire. or that anyone else could have acted in That Lua is actually a fire-goddess is his place. I would rather suppose some not likely. It is not she, but Maia and connection of Quirinus8 with this curious later Stata Mater, who are named in ritual, whose most interesting feature is the cult of Volcanus. The latter has the sacrifice of a dog. That this is the apparently no connection at all with result of a sort of bad pun on the name Saturnus, and in the passages which of the dog-star, as Ovid l.c. supposes, mention the burning of arms in his is indeed rightly denied by modern honour (Livy I. 37, 5; XXIII. 46, 5; critics; nor is the augurium caninum XXX.