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In ancient Roman religion, birth and childhood deities were thought to care for every aspect of conception, pregnancy, parturition, and infant development. Some major deities of Roman religion had a specialized function they contributed to this sphere of human life, while other deities are known only by the name with which they were invoked to promote or avert a particular action. Several of these slight "divinities of the moment" are mentioned in surviving texts only by Christian polemicists.
Contents
- Conception and pregnancy
- The Parcae
- Birthing
- Into the light
- Neonatal care
- Dies lustricus
- Child development
- Later literature
- References
An extensive Greek and Latin medical literature covered obstetrics and infant care, and the Greek gynecologist Soranus (2nd century AD) advised midwives not to be superstitious. But childbirth in antiquity remained a life-threatening experience for both the woman and her newborn, with infant mortality as high as 30 or 40 percent. Rites of passage pertaining to birth and death had several parallel aspects. Death in childbirth was common: one of the most famous was Julia, daughter of Julius Caesar and wife of Pompey the Great. Her infant died a few days later, severing the family ties between her father and husband and hastening the civil war that resulted in the end of the Roman Republic. Some ritual practices may be characterized as anxious superstitions, but the religious aura surrounding childbirth reflects the high value Romans placed on family, tradition (mos maiorum), and compatibility of the sexes. Under the Empire, children were celebrated on coins, as was Juno Lucina, the primary goddess of childbirth, as well as in public art. Funerary art, such as relief sculpture on sarcophagi, sometimes showed scenes from the deceased's life, including birth or the first bath.
Only those who died after the age of 10 were given full funeral and commemorative rites, which in ancient Rome were observed by families several days during the year (see Parentalia). Infants less than one year of age received no formal rites. The lack of ritual observances pertains to the legal status of the individual in society, not the emotional response of families to the loss. As Cicero reflected:
Some think that if a small child dies this must be borne with equanimity; if it is still in its cradle there should not even be a lament. And yet it is from the latter that nature has more cruelly demanded back the gift she had given.
Conception and pregnancy
The gods of the marriage bed (di coniugales) are also gods of conception. Juno, one of the three deities of the Capitoline Triad, presides over union and marriage as well, and some of the minor deities invoked for success in conceiving and delivering a child may have been functional aspects of her powers.
The Parcae
The Parcae are the three goddesses of fate (tria fata): Nona, Decima, and Parca (singular of Parcae), also known as Partula in relation to birthing. Nona and Decima determine the right time for birth, assuring the completion of the nine-month term (ten in Roman inclusive counting). Parca or Partula oversees partus, birth as the initial separation from the mother's body (as in English '"postpartum"). At the very moment of birth, or immediately after, Parca establishes that the new life will have a limit, and therefore she is also a goddess of death called Morta (English "mortal"). The profatio Parcae, "prophecy of Parca," marked the child as a mortal being, and was not a pronouncement of individual destiny. The first week of the child's life was regarded as an extremely perilous and tentative time, and the child was not recognized as an individual until the dies lustricus (see below).
Birthing
The primary deity presiding over the delivery was Juno Lucina, who may in fact be a form of Diana. Those invoking her aid let their hair down and loosened their clothing as a form of reverse binding ritual intended to facilitate labor. Soranus advised women about to give birth to unbind their hair and loosen clothing to promote relaxation, not for any magical effect.
Into the light
Lucina as a title of the birth goddess is usually seen as a metaphor for bringing the newborn into the light (lux, lucis). Luces, plural ("lights"), can mean "periods of light, daylight hours, days." Diespiter, "Father of Day," is thus her masculine counterpart; if his name is taken as a doublet for Jupiter, then Juno Lucina and Diespiter can be understood as a male-female complement.
Diespiter, however, is also identified in Latin literature with the ruler of the underworld, Dis pater. The functions of "chthonic" deities such as Dis (or Pluto) and his consort Proserpina are not confined to death; they are often concerned with agricultural fertility and the giving of nourishment for life, since plants for food grow from seeds hidden in the ground. In the mystery religions, the divine couple preside over the soul's "birth" or rebirth in the afterlife. The shadowy goddess Mana Genita was likewise concerned with both birth and mortality, particularly of infants, as was Hecate.
In contrast to the vast majority of deities, both birth goddesses and underworld deities received sacrifices at night. Ancient writers conventionally situate labor and birth at night; it may be that night is thought of as the darkness of the womb, from which the newborn emerges into the (day)light.
The cyclical place of the goddess Candelifera, "She who bears the candle," is uncertain. It is sometimes thought that she provides an artificial light for labor that occurs at night. A long labor was considered likely for first-time mothers, so at least a part of the birthing process would occur at night. According to Plutarch, light symbolizes birth, but the candle may have been thought of as less a symbol than an actual kindling of life, or a magic equivalent to the life of the infant. Candelifera may also be the nursery light kept burning against spirits of darkness that would threaten the infant in the coming week. Even in the Christian era, lamps were lit in nurseries to illuminate sacred images and drive away child-snatching demons such as the Gello.
Neonatal care
Once the child came into the light, a number of rituals were enacted over the course of the following week. An offerings table received congratulatory sacrifices from the mother's female friends. Three deities—Intercidona, Pilumnus, and Deverra—were invoked to drive away Silvanus, the wild woodland god of trees: three men secured the household every night by striking the threshold (limen; see liminality) with an axe and then a pestle, followed by sweeping it.
In the atrium of the house, a bed was made up for Juno, and a table set for Hercules. In the Hellenized mythological tradition, Juno tried to prevent the birth of Hercules, as it resulted from Jupiter's infidelity. Ovid has Lucina crossing her knees and fingers to bind the labor. Etruscan religion, however, emphasized the role that Juno (as Uni) played in endowing Hercle with his divine nature through the drinking of her breast milk.
Dies lustricus
Nundina presides over the dies lustricus, the purification day when the child was given a name (praenomen). This occurred on the eighth day for girls and the ninth day for boys, a difference Plutarch explains by noting that "it is a fact that the female grows up, and attains maturity and perfection before the male." Until the umbilical cord fell off, typically on the seventh day, the baby was regarded as "more like a plant than an animal," as Plutarch expresses it. The ceremony of the dies lustricus was thus postponed until the last tangible connection to the mother's body was dissolved, and the child was seen "as no longer forming part of the mother, and in this way as possessing an independent existence which justified its receiving a name of its own and therefore a fate of its own." The day was celebrated with a family feast.
On the dies lustricus, the Fata Scribunda were invoked. The "Written Fates" probably refers to a ceremonial writing down of the child's new name, perhaps in a family chronicle. To the Romans, the giving of a name was as important as being born. The receiving of a praenomen inaugurated the child as an individual with its own fate.
Child development
In well-to-do households, children were cared for by nursemaids (nutrices, singular nutrix, which can mean either a wet nurse who might be a slave or a paid professional of free status, or more generally any nursery maid, who would be a household slave). Mothers with a nursery staff were still expected to supervise the quality of care, education, and emotional wellbeing of children. Ideally, fathers would take an interest even in their infant children; Cato liked to be present when his wife bathed and swaddled their child. Nursemaids might make their own bloodless offerings to deities who protected and fostered the growth of children. Most of the "teaching gods" are female, perhaps because they themselves were thought of as divine nursemaids. The gods who encourage speech, however, are male. The ability to speak well was a defining characteristic of the elite citizen. Although women were admired for speaking persuasively, oratory was regarded as a masculine pursuit essential to public life.
Children wore the toga praetexta, with a purple band that marked them as sacred and inviolable, and an amulet (bulla) to ward off malevolence.
Later literature
James Joyce mentions a few Roman birth deities by name in his works. In the "Oxen of the Sun" episode of Ulysses, he combines an allusion to Horace (nunc est bibendum) with an invocation of Partula and Pertunda (per deam Partulam et Pertundam) in anticipation of the birth of Purefoy. Cunina, Statulina, and Edulia are mentioned in Finnegans Wake.