21.06.2013 Views

Final Draft - Preview Matter - Florida State University

Final Draft - Preview Matter - Florida State University

Final Draft - Preview Matter - Florida State University

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

form of Uni worshipped here is associated with the Latin Juno, Phoenician Astarte, and Greek<br />

Ino-Leucothea and Eileithuia. 453 Jannot does not assign Ino-Leucothea as the dedicatee of<br />

Temple B and instead asserts that she was venerated in Temple A as Ino-Leucothea or Mater<br />

Matuta. 454 The difference in attribution of the dedicatees of the temples does not rule out the<br />

possibility of syncretism for Uni and Ino-Leucothea. 455 Perhaps, these two temples were meant<br />

to venerate different aspects of the same goddess. This is not out of the question since well-<br />

known sanctuaries, such as that of Hera at Paestum or the Acropolis of Athens, possessed<br />

multiple temples dedicated to the same goddess. Paestum is also comparable in that it was a port<br />

city. If these temples were dedicated to different goddesses, a comparison might be found in the<br />

St. Omobono sanctuary in Rome, which possessed temples dedicated to Fortuna and Mater<br />

Matuta. In any case, the abundance of Etruscan images of Juno Sospita, which begin in the<br />

Archaic period, and the fact that this iconographic type may have been created by Etruscan<br />

artists 456 lead me to conclude that the worshippers of Uni-Astarte may have associated her<br />

directly with Juno Sospita. 457 Since Juno Sospita, Uni, and Astarte are all civic goddesses, who<br />

are in turn associated with womanly affairs, 458 an antefix in the form of the head of Juno Sospita<br />

would make perfect sense for the decoration of a temple in the religio-political context of a<br />

multicultural port town. That the Etruscans may also have conceived of Uni-Astarte in the guise<br />

of Juno Sospita may be supported by the images of other deities who have been influenced by<br />

Near-Eastern iconography, as will be demonstrated in Chapter VII.<br />

Thus, as we have seen in the previous chapters with examples of deities that take on<br />

serpent and wolf forms, the choice to use animal iconography is indicative of a complex and<br />

multivalent nature. Juno Sospita is an excellent example of an important goddess whose nature is<br />

clouded rather than clarified by the use of a goat skin as a conspicuous element of her<br />

iconography. Faunus’ iconography is by no means certain, and this problem stems from<br />

conflicting ways of depicting the god. There seems to be a discrepancy between the presentation<br />

453<br />

Fitzmeyer 1966, 288.<br />

454<br />

Jannot 2005, 90.<br />

455<br />

Serra Ridgway (1990, 529) uses the expression “aspects of the manifold powers of the Mother Goddess Uni (or<br />

Astarte)” to describe the dedicatees of this sanctuary.<br />

456<br />

Douglas 1913, 64-8.<br />

457<br />

Simon (2006, 61) suggests that because Astarte was a warrior goddess, the Etruscans were more likely to<br />

conceive of Uni as being in combat.<br />

458<br />

Palmer (1974, 46) states the following, “If Juno’s relation to womankind remains vague in our meager sources,<br />

Astarte had been venerated for her fecundity long before she even came to Etruria.” This supports the notion that<br />

we must not exorcise fertility from Juno Sospita.<br />

93

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!