{"id":71,"date":"2015-12-06T00:58:14","date_gmt":"2015-12-06T00:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/?page_id=71"},"modified":"2015-12-24T07:04:30","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T07:04:30","slug":"diana-lucina","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/diana-lucina\/","title":{"rendered":"Diana Lucina"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Denarius<\/a>
Denarius depicting Lucilla, daughter of Marcus Aurelius on the obverse and Diana Lucina holding a torch<\/a> on the reverse. Minted between 164-183 CE.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lucina is another epithet for Diana making her a goddess of childbirth. While it may seem odd that the Romans would have chosen a virgin goddess who never experienced pregnancy or motherhood, the Romans had a different way of connecting things. Diana is a goddess of childbirth because of her identity as the moon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cicero explains this logic well:<\/p>\n

She <\/em>[Diana] is invoked at childbirth because the period of gestation is sometimes seven or, as more often, nine revolutions of the moon, which, because they complete measured spaces <\/em>[mensa spatial] are called months <\/em>[menses]. 1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Female menstruation is on a monthly cycle, just like the moon, so the ancients thought the two were connected. They believed the moon controlled life and death as well, and as quickly as a baby was born, a mother could die in childbirth, which was unfortunately often the case 2<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n

In the end, the moon goddess was called on at the birth of a child because the moon governed birth, death<\/a>, growth, and decline.<\/em> – Cicero 3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

In the Story of Cinyras and Myrrha<\/em> in Ovid\u2019s Metamorphoses, Myrrha calls on Diana Lucina after being transformed into a tree as punishment for sleeping with her father and becoming pregnant with his child:<\/p>\n

\u201cTo call Lucina: like a woman in labor the tree, contorted, cried and wept; the goddess stood near in pity, reached out helping hands, sang charms to aid the birth, and the tree cracked open, the bark was split, the burden loosed, a baby gave his first cries, and naiads cradled him on the soft leaves, and used his mother\u2019s tears to wash him.\u201d 4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Diana was called on in times of transition, including the transition from maiden to mother that occurs during pregnancy. At her sanctuary in Aricia, anatomical votives of wombs<\/a> have been found, left by those who worshipped Diana and sought her help with their pregnancies.<\/p>\n

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  1. C.M.C. Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia<\/em> (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 135. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia<\/em>, 136. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia<\/em>, 136. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Ovid, Metamorphoses<\/em>, Translated by Rolfe Humphries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983),\u00a0250-251. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Lucina is another epithet for Diana making her a goddess of childbirth. While it may seem odd that the Romans would have chosen a virgin goddess who never experienced pregnancy or motherhood, the Romans had a different way of connecting things. Diana is a goddess of childbirth because of her identity as the moon. Cicero … Continue reading Diana Lucina<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":360,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-71","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}