The gate of the year

Figure above left:

Marble statue of Iuno Sospita, dating to the II century A.D., now in the Vatican Museums, Vatican City.
Iuno Sospita was a goddess venerated in the ancient Latin city of Lanuvium, where an important temple dedicated to the goddess was located. Her cult was later transferred in Rome, during the IV century A.D., and her temple was built in the Forum Holitorium. Its remains are still visible on the outer wall of the Church of San Nicola in Carcere (Rome). The goddess was represented holding a shield and a spear, meaning her function of patroness of the city, and her head is covered with a goat skin, which recalls her original role as goddess of the fertility of the fields and Lady of rain and weather, to whom a goat was sacrificed. The association of Iuno Sospita with the fertility of the soil and with the Underworld is confirmed by the testimony of Aelianus (Nature of animals, XI, 16), where it was narrated of a ritual celebrated in a sacred grove, near sanctuary of the goddess at Lanuvium, during which a group of blindfolded young virgins offered some cakes to a great serpent, living into a cave, propitiating in this way the fertility of the agricultural year. The poet Propertius (Elegies, IV, 8, 12-14) reported that, when the girls came back to their families, after having performed the ritual, the farmers exclaimed: “It will be a fertile year!” (fertilis annus erit). This suggests that the ritual was probably a female initiatory ceremony associated with the fertility of the fields and of nature. The girls were likely young maidens, just entered into the puberty period, and expressed the emergence of the generative power.
[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Juno_Sospita_Lanuvium.jpg]

Figure above right:

Clay antefix, from the city of Satricum, in Latium, dating to the V century B.C., now in the Altes Museum (Staatliche Museen), Berlin, Germany. The representation shows a female divinity, with goat horns and ears, identified with the Etruscan goddess Uni, who was subsequently assimilated with the Latin Iuno. This object testifies of the antiquity of the representation of the goddess Iuno in the shape of a goat-woman, that underlies her cult in the city of Lanuvium.
[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-0490_Juno-Sospita-Antefix_Altes_Museum_anagoria.JPG]

Figure below:

Denarius of Republican age (64 B.C.), from a private collection. On the front side is represented Iuno Sospita with her head covered with a goat’s head. On the back side, is represented a virgin of Lanuvium handing some food to a monstrous serpent.
[Image: http://numismatics.org/search/results?q=fulltext%3AJuno+Sospita]




Human-Animal Transformation

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Figure above left: Marble statue of Iuno Sospita, dating to the II century A.D., now in the Vatican Museums, Vatican City. Iuno Sospita was a goddess venerated in the ancient Latin city of Lanuvium, where an important temple dedicated to the goddess was located. Her cult was later transferred in Rome, during the IV century A.D., and her temple was built in the Forum Holitorium. Its remains are still visible on the outer wall of the Church of San Nicola in Carcere (Rome). The goddess was represented holding a shield and a spear, meaning her function of patroness of the city, and her head is covered with a goat skin, which recalls her original role as goddess of the fertility of the fields and Lady of rain and weather, to whom a goat was sacrificed. The association of Iuno Sospita with the fertility of the soil and with the Underworld is confirmed by the testimony of Aelianus (Nature of animals, XI, 16), where it was narrated of a ritual celebrated in a sacred grove, near sanctuary of the goddess at Lanuvium, during which a group of blindfolded young virgins offered some cakes to a great serpent, living into a cave, propitiating in this way the fertility of the agricultural year. The poet Propertius (Elegies, IV, 8, 12-14) reported that, when the girls came back to their families, after having performed the ritual, the farmers exclaimed: “It will be a fertile year!” (fertilis annus erit). This suggests that the ritual was probably a female initiatory ceremony associated with the fertility of the fields and of nature. The girls were likely young maidens, just entered into the puberty period, and expressed the emergence of the generative power. [Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Juno_Sospita_Lanuvium.jpg] Figure above right: Clay antefix, from the city of Satricum, in Latium, dating to the V century B.C., now in the Altes Museum (Staatliche Museen), Berlin, Germany. The representation shows a female divinity, with goat horns and ears, identified with the Etruscan goddess Uni, who was subsequently assimilated with the Latin Iuno. This object testifies of the antiquity of the representation of the goddess Iuno in the shape of a goat-woman, that underlies her cult in the city of Lanuvium. [Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-0490_Juno-Sospita-Antefix_Altes_Museum_anagoria.JPG] Figure below: Denarius of Republican age (64 B.C.), from a private collection. On the front side is represented Iuno Sospita with her head covered with a goat’s head. On the back side, is represented a virgin of Lanuvium handing some food to a monstrous serpent. [Image: http://numismatics.org/search/results?q=fulltext%3AJuno+Sospita]