Speaking of children protection in the Roman religion, the first goddess that comes to mind is Mater Matuta. This paper, however, does not focus directly on Mater Matuta, but on other divine figures to some extent related to her.
The first one is Crana-Cranaë-Cardea, the nymph of the thresholds. Ovid (Fasti, 6, 101-182) recalls a myth in which Janus, in exchange for a sexual intercourse with her, gave Crana a branch of hawthorn, that had the power to ward off the bad influences from the thresholds. Crana used the plant for this purpose to protect the young Proca. She was called by his nurse, once she realized that the child was victim of striges, nocturnal winged creatures (noctis aves), which can come into the house during the night to suck infants’ blood. According to Ovid, the myth would therefore explain both the traditional use of hawthorn branches to hunt striges and the fact that Crana was considered a protective deity for children. Mc Donough 1997 links her cult to the Matralia, by emphasizing its contiguity in the Roman religious calendar: Crana was celebrated at the calends of June, just ten days after the ceremony in the temple of Mater Matuta. Moreover, Crana protected from the possible negative influences outside the threshold, that is to say outside the family unit.
Then, I will analyse Ino. The myth of Ino is a particularly intricate and disorienting one. Indeed, she is alternatively mother, step-mother, nurse, maternal aunt; in these roles, she can be good and evil, towards her own children and towards other’s people children. She exposes her offspring to danger, even though not intentionally. In general, it’s a narrative full of women who can either protect or threaten infants. There are also the Maenads, who notoriously were reputed to tear their own children limb from limb in their madness. In some versions of her narrative, we find Ino herself among the Maenads. The cult of Ino and her son Melicertes arose in Italy and they were called by the Greeks Leukothea and Palaemon, and by the Romans Matuta and Portunus. The story narrated by Ovid in the Fasti (6, 501-547) – it is said – originated the Matralia festival.
The other deity is Thesan, the Etruscan goddess connected with the Dawn, like Mater Matuta. The iconographical theme of the kidnap of the young Chefalus was particularly widespread. She seems to be an anti-curotrophic figure, in contrast with Mater Matuta, but this is not completely true. In fact, the abduction by the Dawn expresses the ancestral awareness of its danger: the sick child will escape the danger only if he manages to survive the night, and therefore the Dawn. If she returns the infant to its mother - as the maternal aunts will symbolically do after the Matralia - the baby will be safe. Indeed, Ino in the narratives concerning the foundation of Matralia bears some kind of ambiguity, as well.
My main aim is to suggest how ambivalently the ensemble of women gravitating towards an infant --- including mothers, grandmothers, maternal aunts, (wet)nurses, and divine interlocutors --- was perceived. The narratives seem to suggest that, at least theoretically, all these female figures --- even
the mother --- could be either benevolent or malevolent towards the baby. Incidentally, I will try to suggest that the Roman religious calendar from the 1st of June to the 11th of June was full of details which might allude to each other, with the aim of underlining the importance of human and divine
kourotrophia, by using the concept of intertext in literary criticism.
Then, I will analyse Ino. The myth of Ino is a particularly intricate and disorienting one. Indeed, she is alternatively mother, step-mother, nurse, maternal aunt; in these roles, she can be good and evil, towards her own children and towards other’s people children. She exposes her offspring to danger, even though not intentionally. In general, it’s a narrative full of women who can either protect or threaten infants. There are also the Maenads, who notoriously were reputed to tear their own children limb from limb in their madness. In some versions of her narrative, we find Ino herself among the Maenads. The cult of Ino and her son Melicertes arose in Italy and they were called by the Greeks Leukothea and Palaemon, and by the Romans Matuta and Portunus. The story narrated by Ovid in the Fasti (6, 501-547) – it is said – originated the Matralia festival.
The other deity is Thesan, the Etruscan goddess connected with the Dawn, like Mater Matuta. The iconographical theme of the kidnap of the young Chefalus was particularly widespread. She seems to be an anti-curotrophic figure, in contrast with Mater Matuta, but this is not completely true. In fact, the abduction by the Dawn expresses the ancestral awareness of its danger: the sick child will escape the danger only if he manages to survive the night, and therefore the Dawn. If she returns the infant to its mother - as the maternal aunts will symbolically do after the Matralia - the baby will be safe. Indeed, Ino in the narratives concerning the foundation of Matralia bears some kind of ambiguity, as well.
My main aim is to suggest how ambivalently the ensemble of women gravitating towards an infant --- including mothers, grandmothers, maternal aunts, (wet)nurses, and divine interlocutors --- was perceived. The narratives seem to suggest that, at least theoretically, all these female figures --- even
the mother --- could be either benevolent or malevolent towards the baby. Incidentally, I will try to suggest that the Roman religious calendar from the 1st of June to the 11th of June was full of details which might allude to each other, with the aim of underlining the importance of human and divine
kourotrophia, by using the concept of intertext in literary criticism.
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