LUCINA. — Epithet of JUNO under which she had a sanctuary on the Esquiline. This sanctuary, whose festival was on March 10, occupied the site of an older lucus (sacred grove). The ancients explained the epithet LUCINA as referring either to birth (the goddess gives light to those being born) or to the light of the moon; in any case, the goddess was always regarded as a goddess of childbirth. At every birth an obol was paid into the treasury of her temple (as at every death into that of LIBITINA, and at every attainment of majority into that of IUVENTAS).
BIBL.: G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, 2nd ed., Munich 1912, pp. 183 sq.; E. L. Shiedl, Juno, Northampton, Mass., 1926, pp. 157 sq.; C. Koch, Der römische Juppiter, Frankfurt, 1927, pp. 357 sq., 108 sq.