MATER MATUTA (connected with Lat. mane, matutinus, " morning ')

This article appears in Volume V17, Page 878 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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MATER MATUTA (connected with Lat. mane, matutinus, " morning ') , an old Italian goddess of dawn. The

idea

IDEA (Gr. Ibia, connected with i&eiv, to see; cf. Lat. species from specere, to look at)

of light being closely connected with childbirth, whereby the infant is brought into the light of the world, she came to be regarded as a

double

of Juno, and was identified by the Greeks with Eilithyia. Matuta had a temple in Rome in the Forum Boarium, where the festival of Matralia was celebrated on the rrth of June. Only married women were admitted, and none who had been married more than once were allowed to crown her image with garlands. Under hellenizing influences, she became a goddess of sea and harbours, the Ino-Leucothea of the Greeks. In this connexion it is noticeable that, as Ino tended her nephew Dionysus, so at the Matralia the participants prayed for the welfare of their nephews and nieces bef ere that of their own children. The trans-formation was complete in 174 B.C., when Tiberius Sempronius

Gracchus

GRACCHUS

, after the conquest of

Sardinia

SARDINIA (Gr. 'IXs'o"uva, from a fancied resemblance to a footprint in its shape, Ital. Sardegna)

, placed in the temple of Matuta a map commemorative of the campaign, containing a plan of the

island

ISLAND (O.E. ieg =isle, +land')

and the various engagements. The progress of navigation and the association of divinities of the sky with maritime affairs probably also assisted to bring about the

change

CHANGE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. cambium, cambiare, to barter; the ultimate derivation is probably from the root which appears in the Gr. «a urmu', to bend)

, although the memory of her earlier

function

FUNCTION

as a goddess of childbirth survived till imperial times.

Ovid

OVID [PUBLIUS OvID1us NASO] (43 B.C.–A.D. 17)

Fasti

FASTI

, vi. 475; Livy xli. 28;

Plutarch

PLUTARCH
PLUTARCH (Gr. llXoi rapxos) (c. A.D. 46–120)

, Quaestiones romanae, 16, 17.

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JCSM is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization. Copyright © 1997-present.