Menrva (also spelled Menerva) was an
Etruscan goddess
Etruscan religion comprises a set of stories, beliefs, and religious practices of the Etruscan civilization, heavily influenced by the mythology of ancient Greece, and sharing similarities with concurrent Roman mythology and religion. As the Et ...
of war, art, wisdom, and medicine. She contributed much of her character to the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
Minerva
Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Roma ...
. She was the child of
Uni
Uni or UNI may refer to:
Entertainment
*Uni Records, a division of MCA, formally called Universal City Records
*"U.N.I.", a song by Ed Sheeran from ''+'' (''Plus'')
*Uni, a species in the Neopets Trading Card Game
*Uni, a character in the anim ...
and
Tinia
In Etruscan religion and mythology, Tinia (also Tin, Tinh, Tins or ''Tina'') was the god of the sky and the highest god in Etruscan mythology, equivalent to the Roman Jupiter and the Greek Zeus. However, a primary source from the Roman Varro s ...
.
Although Menrva was seen by Hellenized Etruscans as their counterpart to
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
, Menrva has some unique traits that make it clear that she was not an import from Greece. Etruscan artists under the influence of Greek culture, however, liked to portray Menrva with
Gorgoneion
In Ancient Greece, the Gorgoneion (Greek: Γοργόνειον) was a special apotropaic amulet showing the Gorgon head, used by the Olympian deities Athena and Zeus: both are said to have worn the gorgoneion as a protective pendant,. and often ...
, helmet, spear, and shield, and, on one mirrorback, as bursting from the head of her father, Tinia. Also, she commonly is seen as the protector of
Hercle
In Etruscan religion, Hercle (also ''Heracle'' or ''Hercl''), the son of Tinia and Uni, was a version of the Greek Heracles, depicted as a muscular figure often carrying a club and wearing a lionskin. He is a popular subject in Etruscan art, part ...
(Heracles) and ''Pherse'' (
Perseus
In Greek mythology, Perseus (Help:IPA/English, /ˈpɜːrsiəs, -sjuːs/; Greek language, Greek: Περσεύς, Romanization of Greek, translit. Perseús) is the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty. He was, alongside Cadmus ...
). On a bronze mirror found at
Praeneste
Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; grc, Πραίνεστος, ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Pre ...
, she attends Perseus, who consults two
Graeae
In Greek mythology the Graeae ( grc, Γραῖαι; ; English translation: "old women", "grey ones", or "grey witches"; alternatively spelled Graiai and Graiae) were three sisters who had gray hair from their birth and shared one eye and one t ...
, and, on another, holds high the head of
Medusa
In Greek mythology, Medusa (; Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα "guardian, protectress"), also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those ...
, while she and seated Perseus and
Hermes
Hermes (; grc-gre, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orato ...
all gaze safely at its reflection in a pool at their feet. These images are more likely to reflect literary sources than any
cult practice. On a bronze mirror from
Bolsena
Bolsena is a town and ''comune'' of Italy, in the province of Viterbo in northern Lazio on the eastern shore of Lake Bolsena. It is 10 km (6 mi) north-north west of Montefiascone and 36 km (22 mi) north-west of Viterbo. The an ...
, c. 300 BCE, she is portrayed attending a scene of Prometheus Unbound with
Esplace (Asclepius), who bandages Prometheus' chest.
Often, Menrva is depicted in a more essentially Etruscan style, as a lightning thrower.
Martianus
Martianus Minneus Felix Capella (fl. c. 410–420) was a jurist, polymath and Latin prose writer of late antiquity, one of the earliest developers of the system of the seven liberal arts that structured early medieval education. He was a nati ...
mentions her as one of nine Etruscan lightning deities. Depiction with a thunderbolt may be seen on later Roman coins of Minerva as well.
Menrva seems to have been associated with weather phenomena. The Greeks never attributed an association with weather to Athena, making this another important difference between the two religious cults that demonstrates their separate characteristics.
Menrva's name is indigenous to Italy and might even be of Etruscan origin, stemming from an Italic moon goddess, ''*Meneswā'' 'She who measures'. It is thought that the Etruscans adopted the inherited Old Latin name, ''*Menerwā'', thereby calling her Menrva. However, this has been disputed. Carl Becker suggests that her name appears to contain the
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
root ''*men-'', which he notes was linked in Greek primarily to memory words (cf. Greek "mnestis"/μνῆστις 'memory, remembrance, recollection'), but which more generally referred to 'mind' in most Indo-European languages.
[Becker, ''A Modern Theory of Language Evolution'' 2004, p. 190: mentions *MN preserved in Greek as "]Mnemosyne
In Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion, Mnemosyne (; grc, Μνημοσύνη, ) is the goddess of memory and the mother of the nine Muses by her nephew Zeus. In the Greek tradition, Mnemosyne is one of the Titans, the twelve divine chil ...
"/μνημοσύνη, and Minerva.
Menrva often was depicted in the
Judgement of Paris
Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct uses. Aristotle s ...
, called Elcsntre (Alexander, his alternative name in Greek) in
Etruscan __NOTOC__
Etruscan may refer to:
Ancient civilization
*The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy
*Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization
**Etruscan architecture
**Etruscan art
**Etruscan cities
** Etrusca ...
, one of the most popular Greek myths in Etruria.
Menrva was part of a
triple deity
A triple deity is a deity with three apparent forms that function as a singular whole. Such deities may sometimes be referred to as threefold, tripled, triplicate, tripartite, triune, triadic, or as a trinity. The number three has a long history ...
with Uni and Tinia, later reflected in the Roman
Capitoline Triad
The Capitoline Triad was a group of three deities who were worshipped in Religion in ancient Rome, ancient Roman religion in an elaborate temple on Rome's Capitoline Hill (Latin ''Capitolium''). It comprised Jupiter (mythology), Jupiter, Juno (my ...
of
Juno
Juno commonly refers to:
*Juno (mythology), the Roman goddess of marriage and queen of the gods
*Juno (film), ''Juno'' (film), 2007
Juno may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Fictional characters
*Juno, in the film ''Jenny, Juno''
*Ju ...
,
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...
, and
Minerva
Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Roma ...
.
References
External links
*
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Arts goddesses
Etruscan goddesses
Etruscan religion
Health goddesses
War goddesses
Wisdom goddesses
Thunder goddesses
Minerva