Although she shares many attributes with the Greek Goddess Athena, Minerva is believed to have originally been an Italic goddess with cult centres in Etruria, Rome and Falerii.
Origins of Minerva
Minerva’s Etruscan name was Menerva. There are various theories surrounding the meaning of her name. Some believe it comes from “meminisse” — to remember or the root word “men” relating to the mind.
Cicero claims that Minerva’s name means either “she who levels down” or “she who threatens“. Generally, it is agreed that Minerva derives her name from one of her primary attributes: wisdom and instruction.
It seems that Minerva had a separate presence in Rome before the city adopted the Etruscan form of the goddess. She was initially privately worshipped in the city as a teacher of the arts. However, Minerva’s cult developed under Etruscan influence and Minerva joined Jupiter and Juno as part of the public cult of the Capitoline triad.
As part of the triad, she was regarded as the daughter of Jupiter, a father-daughter association that Robert Graves believes developed from an older relationship between the two deities, where Minerva, in fact, tamed some of Jupiter’s wilder attributes.
The Goddess of Arts, Crafts, Wisdom and War
Besides being a goddess of the Capitoline triad, of wisdom and the mind, Minerva was a goddess of handicrafts, associated with spinning, weaving and the dyeing of cloth. She was also a patron of medicine, teachers, artists and writers, who, according to Ovid, worshipped the goddess at her temple on the Aventine.
Depicted with a plumed helmet and in armour in Etruscan art, Minerva is also linked to war. Cicero refers to her connection with the god Mars and the tradition where battlefield spoils were burnt to both deities. Graves also associates her with the moon, through her role as a goddess of wisdom and as the inventor of numbers.
Minerva’s Shrines in Rome
Besides the grand public temple on the Capitoline, Minerva had more modest shrines elsewhere in Rome. One was founded on the Aventine 263 or 262AD and acted as a headquarters to a guild of writers and actors during the Second Punic war.
The shrine of Minerva Capta at the foot of the Caelian hill contained the statue of the goddess brought from the italic city of Falerri. Legend states that whilst the Falerrians were led away into captivity following the Roman conquest of the city, their goddess agreed to accompany their victors to Rome. The day of the shrine’s inauguration became Minerva Capta’s birthday, marked by the celebration of the Quinquatrus.
The Quinquartrus
Originally this was a festival to Mars until it was rededicated to Minerva to mark the establishment of her temple on the Caelian hill. The Quinquatrus was celebrated on the 19 March and called the Quinquartrus Nefastus Publicus.
The festival lasted for five days. The first day was sacred as the goddess’s birthday and so no blood was spilt in the games held in her honour. The following four days, however, were celebrated with gladiatorial contests.
Resources
Ovid (translated and edited by A J Boyle and R D Woodard) Fasti 3 809-848. Penguin Classics
Price, Simonand Kearns Emily (eds) (2003). The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion. Oxford University Press: Oxford
Graves, Robert(1990) The White Goddess. Faber and Faber: London and Boston
Cicero, (trans. Horace CP McGregor) The Nature of the Gods. Penguin Books
Dumezil, Georges (trans Philip Krapp) (1996) Archaic Roman Religion Vol I. The John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore and London.
