Unxia
Unxia ( lat. ) Was an epithet of the Roman deity Juno , under whom she had a function as protection and marriage goddess.
The ritualized procedure at a Roman wedding was divided into various individual steps, each of which was placed under the special protection of the goddess, who was given a special nickname for it. The Juno Unxia stood by the bride when she entered the new house and smeared the door posts against evil spells and for the holy initiation with fragrant perfume oil. Its name is derived from the Latin verb ungere , which means "anoint, perfume". The nickname Ungsia was probably originally derived from this word , which changed to Unxia over the centuries through so-called reciprocal assimilation . Unxia was closely related to Cinxia, also an epithet of Juno, which is derived from cingere ("gird") and related to putting on and taking off the bridal girdle.
In the work of the late antique rhetor and church father Arnobius the Elder , Unxia appears in accordance with this tradition as the goddess of anointing. Barren cows were offered as sacrifices to her .
In Jülich , North Rhine-Westphalia , a Latin Weihaltar was found at an unknown time ( walled in a tower of the Church of St. Mary's Assumption ), which has meanwhile been lost, but on which, according to reports, the following part of the text was still preserved: "Deae Unciae / Quintinus / Quintinianus / Quintus / Candidus / [- -] "(" The goddess Uncia [consecrated] by Quintinus [and] Quintinianus [and] Quintus [and] Candidus [...] "). Whether the stone originally contained more text or whether further passages were even preserved in modern times cannot be clearly stated due to the tradition. According to the ancient historian Fritz Moritz Heichelheim , Uncia is probably a spelling of the Juno epithet Unxia, i.e. evidence of their veneration in the Germanic provinces. Against this interpretation, however, speaks that the designation Dea (or the male form Deus ) on inscriptions mostly prefixes native, non-Roman deities. The archaeologist Peter Noelke therefore considers Uncia to be a previously unknown Celtic goddess who has nothing to do with the Roman Juno.
literature
- Michael Pokrowskij: Contributions to the Latin theory of stem formation. In: Journal for Comparative Linguistic Research. Volume XXXVIII, 1905, p. 282 f. (to form the name).
- Carl Olof Thulin : Iuno 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume X, 1, Stuttgart 1918, Sp. 1114-1123, here Sp. 1118.
- Johann Baptist Keune : Unxia . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 6, Leipzig 1937, Col. 95 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Fritz Moritz Heichelheim : Uncia 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IX A, 1, Stuttgart 1961, Col. 604 (on the inscription from Jülich).
- Frank Biller: Cultic centers and matron worship in the southern Germania inferior (= Osnabrück research on antiquity and the reception of antiquity. Volume 13). Marie Leidorf, Rahden (Westphalia) 2010, ISBN 978-3-89646-734-8 , p. 69 f. (also dissertation, University of Osnabrück 2005 - detailed treatment of the inscription from Jülich).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martianus Capella , De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii 2,149 ( online ).
- ↑ Emil Aust : cinxia. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume III, 2, Stuttgart 1899, Col. 2563.
- ↑ Arnobius the Elder , Adversus Nationes 3.25.
- ↑ Arnobius the Elder, Adversus Nationes 7:21.
- ↑ CIL XIII, 7870
- ^ Fritz Moritz Heichelheim : Uncia 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IX A, 1, Stuttgart 1961, Col. 604.
- ^ Peter Noelke : On the state of research into the Roman Jülich until 1986. In: Contributions to the history of Jülich. Volume 56, 1988, pp. 11-18, here p. 14.