Origins and Functions
Varro places Feronia in his list of Sabine gods who had altars in Rome. Inscriptions to Feronia are found mostly in central Italy. She was among the deities that Sabine moneyers placed on their coins to honor their heritage. She may have been introduced into Roman religious practice when Manius Curius Dentatus conquered Sabinum in the early 3rd century BC.
Many versions of Feronia’s cult have been supposed, and it is not quite clear that she was only one goddess or had only one function in ancient times. Some Latins believed Feronia to be a harvest goddess, and honoured her with the harvest firstfruits in order to secure a good harvest the following year.
Feronia also served as a goddess of travellers, fire, and waters.
In Vergil's Aeneid, troops from Feronia's grove fight on the side of Turnus against Aeneas. The Arcadian king Evander recalls how in his youth he killed a son of Feronia, Erulus, who like Geryon had a triple body and a triple soul; Evander thus had to kill him thrice. Erulus, whom Vergil identifies as king at Praeneste, is otherwise unknown in literature.
Read more about this topic: Feronia (mythology)
Famous quotes containing the words origins and, origins and/or functions:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)