Matronae Nersihenae

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The Nersihenae are matrons that have been handed down in a dedicatory inscription on a Roman votive stone from the Jülich area. They date from the 2nd to 3rd century.

Discovery and Inscription

Niersstein.jpg

The time and location of the stone are uncertain and are described differently with the area around Jülich or Neersen . In the 16th century it came into the collection of antiques in Blankenheim Castle of Hermann Graf von Blankenheim-Manderscheid and was acquired by Ferdinand Franz Wallraf in the first years of the 19th century after its dissolution . After Wallraf's death, the stone reappeared for the first time in Johann Peter Weyer's drawings in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum's collection . Then in the further 19th century the stone came into the possession of the Prussian Provincial Museum in Bonn and around 1938 into the holdings of the Neuss Clemens-Sels-Museum (Inv.-No. R 4077 as a matron stone from Niers with the location on the index card of the old inventory “Im River bed of the Niers ”). After the Second World War, the stone was returned to the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn to this day (Inv.-No. 33,196).

The simple votive stone made of light Liedberg sandstone (86.5 × 57.5 × 13.0 cm) has come down to us in relatively good condition. Only the base and cornice as well as the expected pulvini have been chipped off, the narrow sides show fragments of plant decorations. The inscription, laid out in seven lines, is struck in the usual capitalis and clearly legible, only lines 1 and 2 are disturbed by the material cut, but can be supplemented without any problems.

"Matro [nis] / Vatviab (us) / Nersihenis / Priminia / Iustina / pro se et suis / ex imperio ips (arum) l (ibens) m (erito)"

In addition to the Nersinehae , the Matronae Vatviae are mentioned first . The “ex imperio” formula (“ex imperio ipsarum” = “On their [that of the matrons] own command”) identifies the consecration as a so-called revelation inscription . This means that the founder was ordered to be consecrated in a vision or in a dream. The founder, Priminia Iustina, was a local, presumably of Germanic origin, as the copy of the pseudo-gentile name, formed from the Roman cognomen Primus / Primius , shows.

Epithet and interpretation

With the oldest research (including Max Ihm) Gutenbrunner and Neumann derive the nickname of the Nersihenae from the river name of the Lower Rhine Niers ( documented as Nersa for the year 866 ). Albrecht Greule uses Germanic * Nerso = "the one who likes to twist " for its importance , in addition to the conventional derivation from old European tribe formation . Neumann places him in a group of matron names derived from a body of water / river name, such as the Albiahenae , Aumenahenae and Renahenae . Neumann suspects that these matrons lived on the banks of the rivers or streams they were named after for the founders and admirers. Furthermore, he may suspect that they are the same deities who are occasionally referred to as nymphae in local inscriptions.

See also

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Wilhelm Brambach : Corpus inscriptionum Rhenanarum. Friederichs, Elberfeld 1867, p. 137, no.626.
  2. ↑ CIL 13, 7883
  3. ^ Andreas Kokoschke: The personal names in the two Germanic provinces. A catalog volume 1: Gentilnomina. Publishing house Marie Leidorf, Rahden / Westf. 2006, p. 319 GN 989.
  4. ↑ Max Ihm: The mother or matron cult and its monuments. In: Yearbooks of the Association of Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland 83 (1887), pp. 21, 26 No. 314.
  5. ^ Albrecht Greuele: German book of water names . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-019039-7 , p. 377f.