Juno (Iuno)

JUNO (Iuno). - Italic and Roman goddess. The classic figure of Jupiter's spouse, familiar from Latin poetry, is merely a historical product determined in large part by the influence of Hellenic poetry: Juno in Italy has a long and varied past. The goddess's name, not connected with the root of Jupiter's name, as was once believed, belongs to the group of invenis, invenca, iunix and contains in itself the meaning of young (woman?), new (moon?). The most ancient Italic and Roman cult of Juno confirms these etymological interpretations. Outside Rome, Juno is intensively worshipped in almost all the centers of Latium, in Etruria (where the name Uni derives from the Latin Iuno) and in Tuscan-Umbrian territory.

In various localities she assumes the importance of a city goddess, with the characteristics of a queen and a warrior. Thus in Latium, Iuno Sospes Mater Regina, at Lanuvium, who in her iconography appears armed and clothed in a goat's skin; in her sacred precinct, in a cave, dwelt a sacred serpent: when it did not accept the food offered to it by a woman (priestess?), this meant that she was not a virgin. Also at Ardea and in Etruscan Veii Juno bears the title of queen; at Tibur and Falerii (Civita Castellana) she has the epithet Curitis or Quiritis (from the Sabine curis = spear?) and also at Perugia she is the patron goddess of the city. In this dominant position of hers she is alone, without a divine "spouse" of equal rank. In Etruria and elsewhere (Tibur, Tusculum, traces also at Rome), under Etruscan influence, she often forms a pair with Hercules. The characteristics of femininity dominate in her: the goat, whose skin she wears at Lanuvium and which is her victim at Falerii, expresses the aspect of the fecundity of female nature. This nevertheless does not exclude that already in the archaic age she could appear as the spouse of Jupiter, as seems to have been the case at Ardea: not only because the identification of Juno with the Homeric Hera was current in the Etruscan imagination, but also because the great goddess of chthonic nature could be particularly suited to complement the world of the god of the sky. At Rome, the most ancient documents of the cult of Juno are contained in the so-called calendar of Numa. Here the goddess forms a pair with Jupiter, even without any reference to a mythical marriage: while the days of the full moon (Idus) are sacred to Jupiter, the Kalendae, the darkest nights, those of the new moon, are sacred to Juno. She receives, in fact, under the name of Iuno Covella, a sacrifice on every first of the month in the Curia Calabra; and the festivals of her most important temples all occupy the Kalendae of the various months. At the same time the goddess preserves all her characteristics of fertile femininity. The Nonae Caprotinae (July 7) are a festival of hers celebrated by women and particularly by female slaves, in licentious forms: the character of the festival, the epithet "Caprotina" given also to the goddess and the importance that a caprificus tree occupies in the festival highlight the meaning of her cult. Also in the Lupercalia - another festival celebrated by persons dressed in goat skins, the Luperci - Juno has her part: the report according to which the festival would have been celebrated in her honor is isolated; but the goat-skin thong with which the Luperci struck women to make them fertile was significantly called amiculum Iunonis. Its use goes back, according to cult legend, to a suggestion of Iuno Lucina. The latter, who in her appellation carries an allusion to light, appears in her cult as the protectress of women in childbirth; she has her sanctuary on the Esquiline; her festival, March 1, is a great festival of women, popularly called "Matronalia". In inscriptions from Norba, Iuno Lucina appears as the spouse of Jupiter. But the Roman public cult ignores kinship relations among the gods: therefore when the cult of Jupiter reaches its highest expression in the Capitoline cult, Iuno Regina, although not present in the three-celled temple, no longer has that parity of rank with the great God which is revealed by the structure of the calendar: she and Minerva are at Jupiter's side, in an equal and subordinate position, in the aedes Iovis capitolina. In the historical-religious period whose center is the Capitoline cult, Juno will still have independent temples and cults of great importance: in these her original characteristics survive, all the more so since a large part of such cults are Italic cults adopted and suitably transformed by Rome. Iuno Moneta on the arx (Capitol), who has her festival on October 1, appears as the protectress of the city; in her precinct are geese sacred to the goddess. Iuno Regina is "evoked" from Veii through the work of Camillus in 392 B.C. Iuno Curritis comes from Falerii. Iuno Sospita, arrived from Lanuvium, loses the serpent's cave, but preserves the iconography: her sanctuary near the Theater of Marcellus has its festival on February 1. In the public consciousness Juno, on the model of the Olympian Hera, is considered as the spouse of Jupiter. She becomes, perhaps for this reason and it is not known precisely since when, the goddess of marriage: in Iuno Pronuba, Iuno Iuga there are perhaps sublimated the originally independent divinities Pronuba, Iuga, etc. In the syncretistic period Juno is identified with foreign goddesses, among which the most important is the Caelestis of Carthage.

Iuno, in another sense, is the particular divinity of each individual woman: as man has his Genius, woman has her own Iuno. This is documented from the Augustan age onward, although there is also talk of the Genius of women. The goddesses too have their own Iuno: the Iuno Deae Diae figures in the ritual of the fratres Arvales.

Angelo Brelich