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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
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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. 6, 9) Lua does not appear. But otherwise connected with Sirius than it is noteworthy that for a fire-god to by date, I think. From the fact that be connected with an agricultural deity the victim at the augurium was a red is by no means unexampled. Maia her- dog, it seems to me a likely guess that self is the goddess of growth or increase, Robigus' dog was red also, the colour of to judge by her name, and her month is of the dreaded ' rust.' that in which the early summer vegeta- tion is growing. Vesta again is con- 1 Minerua is not an indiges, and so is out of nected, or at least the Vestal Virgins place here. But cf. Appian, Punica 133, which, are, with agricultural rites—the spelt following Polybios no doubt, names Athena. Livy obviously draws upon the same author in harvest in May, the ritual of the Argei, the above passage, and we may rectify the the Fordicidia, the Ecus October. But mistake by supposing that Polybios explained with Mars Lua seems to have a two- Nerio by Athena, in the latter's capacity as a fold connection, viz.: (1) that the war-goddess Cf. Wissowa, RKR*, pp. 148, 208. 2 Tert., I.e., mentions Mars in this connection ; deities to whom arms may be sacrificed Numa Pompilius Marti et Robigini fecit j but are, in Livy XLV. 38,1, Mars,' Minerua' this is, apparently, a mere slip. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW Departing a little from the main accident, a hint of the truth. He clearly argument of this paper, I would here associates rust with hot weather, and offer a suggestion as to the real meaning rightly enough in a way, though pre- of this rite. We are familiar enough sumably neither that or any other fungus with corn-spirits in animal form, thanks would prosper unless the atmosphere to Mannhardt and Fraser. I believe were also damp. The line of reasoning that we have here a bad corn-spirit, one is this, I think: fire is hot and red who destroys corn instead of making it (long after Robigus was forgotten, grow, and is killed in order to get rid of Giotto was indicating fire in his frescoes him, not to let him transmigrate into a by a neat patch of red paint); rust is new and more vigorous body. The old red (at least its spores are) and comes corn-spirit is killed when his work is in hot weather; therefore rust is a done and his incarnation, the ripe ears, kind of fire, and the red dog (we still may no longer stand; but Robigus in speak of red cattle, meaning a warm his dog-avatar is killed early in the brown colour) is fire-colour or rust- year, in April, some time before the colour. sacred spelt-harvest of the Vestals, to We can now, I think, find a place prevent him damaging the crop at all. for a deity who is connected with seeds So at Carseoli something—Ovid's cor- and yet with fire; Lua, the spirit of rupt text does not enable us to say exactly lues, can, among other things, blight what—was done to another avatar of the the precious seed-corn, if she be not red mildew, the fox (Fast. IV. 711); propitiated. apparently the beast was burned to I would call attention in this con- death. The conception of an evil power nection to the loose use of the verb as something which could be killed, and urere. If a crop, such as flax or poppies, so got finally rid of, in some incarnate which exhausts the soil, can be said to form, was not strange to ancient magic; ' burn' it (Virg. Georg. I. 78), there Apollonios of Tyana had a plague-demon is no need even to be particular to stoned in the shape of an old man assign Lua's evil activities to some (Philostr. Vita A poll. IV. 10). Paxdeorum sphere in which a firey-coloured fungus was indeed what the Roman craved, is involved. humbly enough, in the case of such But there is yet another and more mighty ones as Iuppiter and Quirinus; literal kind of fire which can on occa- but in the case of one or two obnoxious sion damage crops and much else. demons it would appear to have been Ferro atque igne uastare was a common- allowable to assail them iusto pioque place of ancient warfare, horribly revived hello. Later, when the idea of sacrifice as in our own day. We have, indeed, no the giving of food to the gods swamped 1 proof that Lua was called in to help all other conceptions, the respectable with her ' fire' in the destruction of sheep was added, and the exta of the such of the enemy's seed-corn as escaped dog presented like those of a more nor- the material activities of the army, but mal victim; and long before that, it it is not unlikely, since we have already may well be, Quirinus was called in to seen her busy in connection with another lend his aid. piece of war-magic, the ' sacrifice' of I have said that the dog-star had the arms. For that it was simply war- little or nothing to do with dog-sacrifice, magic I am fairly convinced. If the or the killing of dog-demons; yet I arms were a present to the god, why think Ovid's fancy contains, if only by were they not put in a temple ? To burn food before a god is a different
1 matter, for to the average Roman, or Much harm has been done by scholars in Greek, of periods whereof we have any trying to force all kinds of sacrifice into one formula, whether gift, communal meal, god- record, the notion clearly was that the eating, or simple magical rite. All these inter- deities lived on the smoke or steam of pretations have their value, and I doubt if we the sacrifices. But in the case of can say that one is more primitive than another. captured arms, the motive seems rather For the world in general certainly, for many individual peoples probably, several causes have to be the destruction by sympathetic been at work. magic of the other arms which are still NO. CCLXXXIV. VOL. XXXVI. i8 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW in possession of the enemy.1 As to the utility, well understood by the ancients, gods invoked, Volcanus is clearly at of ashes as manure.8 And, to return to home in an act involving destruction Robigus for a moment, whether my by fire; Mars and Nerio are equally suggestion of the real significance of appropriate, that their greater potency the sacrifice be right or wrong, this may reinforce the spell; while Lua, connection of war, fire, and agriculture, who by reason of her ' burning' of the may help us to understand why the corn, or, if I am right, of its seeds, is fl. Quirinalis in particular was chosen perhaps called in as a sort of fire- to perform the rite. Fire here drives goddess. out fire, the clean and beneficent fire But in considering any Roman rite, of the warlike and agricultural deity we should always keep in view the fighting the impure flames of the hurtful maxim, 6 rpdxras KOI Idaerai. As Geneta daimon. We may, then, fairly suppose Mana is the goddess of birth and also that Lua had a good side as well as a of death ; as Ianus is Patulcius Clusius, bad one in her activities (possibly, if and so on, we may expect a god who we knew a little more about her, we can destroy by fire to help by fire also. might find some title suggesting it). One way of helping is clearly to burn To sum up, we find Lua belonging up what is harmful. Thus we see to a group of deities whose functions, Volcanus connected with the Tubilus- fairly distinct but often interlocking, trium, not, as Ovid imagines, because 2 concern the closely connected group of the trumpets are made by his art, for human activities—war, agriculture, and he seems never to have been a god of the use of fire; her functions appear to smiths, but by the purifying virtues of have been normally maleficent, but not his element. Compare also the purify- necessarily or invariably so; and there- ing fires of the Parilia, the familiar fore we find her in the honourable com- torches of many ceremonies, such as pany of Saturnus and Mars, propitiated marriage, and the purgatorial fires of and asked for help as they are, and not, many faiths, including that of Vergil. as apparently Robigus was, attacked. This may be wholly negative—there is H. J. ROSE. something altogether bad, which we want taken away, and so we burn it. 6 Virg. Georg. I. 80. But that it is positive also is an idea not lightly to be dismissed. The most terrible of fires, the thunderbolt, may AESCHYLUS, PROMETHEUS 8 VINCTUS 801. not only destroy but also confer deity. It is from a funeral pyre that Herakles The Scholia on this passage, and Hesychius, mounts to heaven; Empedokles and explain