Minerva

For other uses, see Minerva (disambiguation).

Minerva was a Roman goddess of crafts and wisdom. This article focuses on Minerva in early Rome and in cultic practice. For information on mythological accounts of Minerva, which were heavily influenced by Greek mythology, see Athena.

Titles and Roles

The name "Minerva" may come from the Indo-European root *men-, from which "mental" and "memory" are also derived. However, the non-Indo-European speaking Etruscans had a goddess Menrva, so the name may be of entirely unknown derivation.

Minerva was the daughter of Jupiter and Juno. She was considered to be the virgin goddess of warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, crafts, and the inventor of music. As Minerva Medica, she was the goddess of medicine and doctors.

Adapting Greek myths about Athena, Romans said that Minerva was not born in the usual way, but rather sprang fully armed from the brain of her father; this image has captivated Western writers and artists through the ages.

MINERVA [Georges Dumézil, Archaic Roman Religion, Volumes I & II (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970)].

The picture presented by the Capitoline companion of Juno Regina is entirely different, almost reversed. The Roman Minerva may be summed up in a word: she is the goddess of arts and trades and of those who practice them. In Italy, outside of Falerii and Etruria, her cult is scantily attested. And in the end her identification with the Greek Athena had greater consequences than that of Juno with Hera. The name may be Italic, and may derive from the Indo-European root *men-, which connotes all the activities of the mind. Minerua dicta, quod bene moneat, we read in Paulus Diaconus, and Festus notes in the carmen Saliare a verb promeneruat, meaning monet, which, in the sense of "instruct," is in complete accordance with the one service which she performs. But the derivation is strange in Latin, and an Etruscan origin is often suggested. The early calendars do not indicate a feast for Minerva, but the day which is called, in the feminine plural, Quinquatrus, the fifth after the Ides of March, the nineteenth, saw her honoured by her people, who were the artisans of every variety. This was the artificum dies, says the calendar of Praeneste, and Ovid gives a very lively description of what took place then.

‘Ye boys and tender girls, pray now to Pallas; ye who shall have won the favour of Pallas will be learned. When once they have won the favour of Pallas, let girls learn to card the wool and to unload the full distaffs. She also teaches how to traverse the upright warp with the shuttle, and she drives home the loose threads with the comb. Worship her, thou who dost remove stains from damaged garments; worship her, thou who dost make ready the brazen cauldrons for the fleeces. If Pallas frown, no man shall make shoes well, though he were more skilful than Tychius; and though he were more adroit with his hands than Epeus of old, yet shall he be helpless, if Pallas be angry with him. Ye too, who banish sicknesses by Phoebus' art, bring from your earnings a few gifts to the goddess. And spurn her not, ye schoolmasters ye tribe too often cheated of your income, she attracts new pupils; and thou who dost ply the graving tool and paint pictures in encaustic colours, and thou who dost mould the stone with deft hand (spurn not the goddess). She is the goddess of a thousand works.’

With this simple theology, can Minerva be truly Roman? In general the opposite is maintained, but the principal argument which is advanced, the absence of the goddess from the early ferial, is not decisive. It merely suggests that in primitive Rome the artisans were not a differentiated class of men, any more than they were in Vedic India, for example. The arts existed. The words which in Rome designate the modelling of clay, weaving, and the activity of the wheelwright are Indo-European a fact which implies transmitted knowledge, skills. But these activities were probably practised in private, within each family; the Minerva, the "teacher," if she then existed, had no place in public worship. Therefore, we must not rule out the possibility that the goddess was native to both Rome and Falerii, but that the Faliscans, exposed at an earlier date and more completely to the influence and prestige of Etruscan techniques, were the first to confirm her as the patroness of these techniques, which were thenceforth practised by numerous specialists, thus making possible her later appropriation by their Roman rivals. In addition to her lodgement in one of the three cellae in the Capitoline temple, Minerva had two sanctuaries: a temple on the Aventine, which is first mentioned at the time of the Second Punic War but is certainly older; and a chapel on the Caelian Hill, which Varro calls Mineruium and which contained a statue brought from Falerii after the capture of that city in 241 whence the curious name of sacellum Mineruae Captae. This is the only cultic name which Minerva receives. As we can see, it alludes only to a historical event, and tells us nothing about her nature. At Falerii itself, was Minerva more than a goddess of the arts and of artisans? In an inscription of the second half of the second century before Christ a praetor with the Etruscan name of Lars Cotena, the son of Lars, says that he has fulfilled a vow to Menerua, de zenatuo sententiad. Judging by the rank of the donor and the intervention of the Senate, some have claimed that at Falerii Minerva was the "city-goddess", but how can we tell? The inscription does not indicate the reasons for the vow. and one may suppose more than one motive for public thanks giving without leaving the limited domain of the Roman goddess. Nor can we deduce this character of "city-goddess" from the appropriation of Minerva by the conquering Romans. They did not " invite" her to come to Rome, like the divinities who had tutela over enemy cities; they captured, or at least "took" her, which rules out the euocatio. The only extension to be observed – very early in Etruria, more slowly in Rome – results from the interpretation of Minerva as Pallas Athena. This equivalence may have been based originally on the known patronage by the two goddesses of the arts and trades, but, following the ordinary process by way of this specific and limited contact, it is the whole Athena, in all her aspects, who is translated as Menrua, Minerua. In the scenes of Greek legend portrayed by Etruscan art, Menrua, usually in arms, is simply the Athena of the poets. It is impossible to know how far this assimilation actually modified and militarised the goddess. It will be recalled that on the cista of Praeneste, probably inspired by Etruscan conceptions, a scene that is not Greek shows a warlike Minerva bizarrely involved with a no less warlike Mars. At Rome, the Hellenization of Minerva is made plain at the great lectisternium of 217, where she is served together with Neptune, here evidently conceived as Poseidon. Ennius lists her among the twelve great gods, and all the poets and orators follow his lead. But we must wait for the time of Pompey to see her worshipped as Athena Nike, and the beneficiary of a foundation de manubiis, that is, made with the help of funds derived from the sale of booty. When Livy names Minerva along with Mars and Lua Mater among the divinities in whose honour it was proper to burn the spoils of the enemy on the battlefield, one may say with some assurance that her name here is only an approximation for Nerio. Even in the fabliau which Ovid tells concerning the feast of Anna Perenna, on 15 March, and in spite of his expression (armifer armiferae correptus amore Mineruae), the relations between the god and the goddess are not those of two warriors. The comic intervention in her behalf of the aged Anna of Bovillae, five days before the Quinquatrus, rather places Minerva on the side of the plebs and against the patrician ruffian Mars. The growing popularity of the Trojan legends, and the belief resulting from them that the penus Vestae harboured a Palladium among other pledges of empire did not produce any rite. Such in summary is the line of evolution of the Roman Minerva. But what did she represent in the Capitoline foundation, by the side of Jupiter and Juno? There is no ancient figuration, any more than for Juno, to orient research. The very simplicity of her file obscures the question, for despite the great achievements in the arts and crafts under the Etruscan kings, it is hard to believe that it was this specialty which qualified her for such an honour.

The collegia artificum or opificum, which a materially false but ideologically interesting tradition attributed to Numa (Plut. Num. 17), were presided over, like the sodalities, by a magister. We know little of their life before the Empire. The greater number had the Quinquatrus of 19 March as their festival, in honour of Minerva, the patron goddess of the crafts. In a list which is not exhaustive, Ovid (F. 3.809–32) names on this occasion the weavers, the fullers, the dyers, the cobblers, the doctors, the schoolmasters, the sculptors, and the painters. The flute-players, who were particularly useful to religion, held their agapae in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter (Liv. 9.30.5 and 10), but also worshipped Minerva in the Minusculae Quinquatrus on the Ides of June (Fest. p. 267 L). The fishermen and divers of the Tiber (CIL, VI, 1872) seem to have been the participants in the ludi piscatorii on 7 June (Fest. p. 345, cf. p. 318 L), while those who worked with water, qui artificium aqua exercent, feasted Juturna (Serv. Aen . 12.139).

Worship

Ovid called her the "goddess of a thousand works." Minerva was worshipped throughout Italy, though only in Rome did she take on a warlike character. Minerva is usually depicted wearing a coat of mail and a helmet, and carrying a spear.

The Romans celebrated her festival from March 19 to 23 during the Quinquatria, the artisans' holiday and a lesser version, the Quinquatrus was held on June 13. Minerva was worshipped on the Capitoline Hill as one of the Capitoline Triad along with Jupiter and Juno.

In 207 BC, a guild of poets and actors was formed to meet and make votive offerings at the temple of Minerva on the Aventine hill. Among others, its members included Livius Andronicus. The Aventine sanctuary of Minerva continued to be an important center of the arts for much of the middle Roman Republic.

Minerva in the Modern World

• In the early 20th century, Manuel José Estrada Cabrera, President of Guatemala, tried to promote a "Cult of Minerva" in his country; this left little legacy other than a few interesting Hellenic style "Temples" in parks around Guatemala.

• According to John Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy (1798), the third degree of the Bavarian Illuminati was called Minerval or Brother of Minerva, in honor of the goddess of learning. Later, this title was adopted for the first degree of Aleister Crowley's OTO rituals.

• In January 1972, a Republic of Minerva was established on two previously-unclaimed reefs in the South Pacific. In June of the same year, the territory was invaded by military forces from the Kingdom of Tonga, which continues to chase settlers off the disputed islands, at gunpoint. In 2003, the government-in-exile changed to a (non-hereditary) monarchy and renamed the "Principality of Minerva". An "Organization for Minerva Liberation" maintains a website at http://freeminerva.info/

• A European governmental organization named "Minerva" (Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activities in Digitisation) is concerned with the digitisation of cultural and scientific content.

• Minerva was one of the proposed names for the planet Uranus after it was discovered by William Herschel, but was not widely adopted.
• Minerva was the name of a Belgian auto-constructor based in Mortsel near Antwerp.It was the firm of a Dutch called Sylvain de Jong, born in Amsterdam, who settled in Belgium in 1883. First he made bicycles under the name Minerva, in 1900 he made his first motorbike and ended up making cars in 1904. His first attempts were already made in the late 19th century. He made luxury cars until worldwar II. After the war they tried to make Minerva healthy again. Minerva made in the fifties Land Rovers (with Minerva signs) for the Belgian army. Car production stopped in 1956. See also Minerva Cars.[1]
• According to legend, the Queen of Spades depicts Minerva.
• Minerva is a computer operating system for the Sinclair QL computer. Developed by Laurence Reeves <http://www.bergbland.info/> to replace the original Sinclair QDOS (Quantum Dynamic Operating System, not to be confused with the Quick & Dirty Operating System, that later morphed into MS-DOS). The Minerva Operating System started to appear about 1986. The last version was 1.98.

External links

• The official website of the government-in-exile of the Principality of Minerva
• Organization for Minerva Liberation
• Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activities in Digitisation