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Head of Minerva by Elihu Vedder, 1896
Head of Minerva by Elihu Vedder, 1896
For other uses, see Douglas Coldwell/Sandboxes/117 (disambiguation).

Minerva, known also as Pallas Athena in Greek mythology, was a Roman goddess. She was considered to be the virgin goddess of warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, crafts, and the inventor of music. [1]

This article focuses on Minerva in early Rome and in cultic practice. For information on literary mythological accounts of Minerva, which were heavily influenced by Greek mythology, see Pallas Athena where she is one of three virgin goddesses along with Artemis and Hestia.

Contents

[edit] Etruscan Menrva

Main article: Menrva

The name "Minerva" is likely imported from the Etruscans who called her Menrva. In Etruscan mythology, Menrva was the goddess of wisdom, war, art, schools and commerce. She was the Etruscan counterpart to Greek Athena and to Roman Minerva. Like Athena, Menrva was born from the head of her father, Tinia.

In Etruscan mythology, Menrva was the goddess of wisdom, war, art, schools and commerce. She was the Etruscan counterpart to Greek Athena and to Roman Minerva. Like Athena, Menrva was born from the head of her father, Tinia.

Her name has the "mn-" stem, linked with memory. See Greek "Mnemosyne" (gr. μνημοσύνη) and "mnestis" (gr. μνῆστις): memory, remembrance, recollection. The Romans would have easily confused her foreign name with their word mens meaning "mind" since one of her aspects as goddess pertained not only to war but also to the intellectual. Minerva is the Roman name for Athena the goddess of Wisdom and Virginity.

[edit] Cult of Minerva in Rome

Menrva was part of a holy triad with Tinia and Uni, equivalent to the Roman Jupiter-Juno-Minerva triad. Minerva was the daughter of Jupiter.

As Minerva Medica, she was the goddess of medicine and doctors. As Minerva Achaea, she was worshipped at Luceria in Apulia where the donaria and the arms of Diomedes were preserved in her temple.[2][3]

Statue of Minerva
Statue of Minerva
A head of "Sulis-Minerva" found in the ruins of the Roman baths in Bath
A head of "Sulis-Minerva" found in the ruins of the Roman baths in Bath

Ovid called her the "goddess of a thousand works." Minerva was worshipped throughout Italy, though only in Rome did she take on a warlike character. Her worship was also taken out to the empire — in Britain, for example, she was conflated with the wisdom goddess Sulis.

The Romans celebrated her festival from March 19 to March 23 during the day which is called, in the feminine plural, Quinquatria, the fifth after the Ides of March, the nineteenth, the artisans' holiday. A lesser version, the Minusculae Quinquatria, was held on the Ides of June, June 13, by the flute-players, who were particularly useful to religion. In 207 BC, a guild of poets and actors was formed to meet and make votive offerings at the temple of Minerva on the Aventine hill. Among others, its members included Livius Andronicus. The Aventine sanctuary of Minerva continued to be an important center of the arts for much of the middle Roman Republic.

Minerva was worshipped on the Capitoline Hill as one of the Capitoline Triad along with Jupiter and Juno, at the Temple of Minerva Medica, and at the "Delubrum Minervae" a temple founded around 50 BC by Pompey on the site of the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva (near the present-day Piazza della Minerva and the Pantheon).


[edit] Minerva in other cultures

[edit] Literary uses of Minerva in Latin

[edit] Universities and educational establishments

The statue of Minerva in La Sapienza University, Rome
The statue of Minerva in La Sapienza University, Rome

As patron goddess of wisdom, Minerva frequently features in statuary, an image on seals, and in other forms, at educational establishments, including:

  • A statue of Minerva is located in the center of La Sapienza University, the most important university of Rome.
  • Minerva is displayed in front of Columbia University's Low Memorial Library as "Alma Mater."
  • Minerva is the name of a female residence at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
  • Minerva is the name of the computer science server used by students at the Harvard Extension School.
  • Minerva is displayed to the East of University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Elliot University Center as a statue.
  • The SUNY Potsdam campus in Potsdam, NY is home to multiple statues of Minerva and a cafe named after her.
  • Minerva is featured on the seals and logos of many institutions of higher learning:
  • Minerva is also the name of the second oldest elite student-association in the Netherlands (Leiden University).
  • Minerva decorates the keystone over the main entrance to the Boston Public Library beneath the words, "Free to all." BPL was the original public-financed library in America and, with all other libraries, is the long-term memory of the human race.
  • Minerva is the Goddess of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. Fraternity Brothers are known as Loyal Sons of Minerva.
  • Minerva is the patron of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, the largest organization of Black women in the world. An image of Minerva sits atop the organization's crest.
  • Minerva is the name of a remote learning facility at Bath Spa University in England, UK.
  • Minerva is featured on the seal of the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.
  • Minerva is displayed as a statue in the entrance to Main Building at Wells College in Aurora, NY.

[edit] Journals

  • Minerva is a section heading in the British Medical Journal.
  • Minerva is a triannual magazine for members of the Royal Dublin Society.
  • Minerva Medica is the name of an Italian publisher of medical journals and books [1].
  • A Norwegian journal is also called Minerva.
  • The journal of the Special Air Service Regiment of the British Army is "Mars and Minerva", taking its name from the regimental badge of the Artists' Rifles.
  • Minerva is also a symbol of Kappa Kappa Gamma- a womens fraternity. she sits atop the crest of KKG.

[edit] Other provincial appearances

[edit] Societies

[edit] Public monuments

  • The Minerva Roundabout in Guadalajara, Mexico, located at the crossing of the López Mateos, Vallarta, López Cotilla, Agustín Yáñez and Golfo de Cortez avenues, features the goddess standing on a pedestal, surrounded by a large fountain, with an inscription which says "Justice, wisdom and strength guard this loyal city".
The Minerva Roundabout in Guadalajara, Mexico, one of the city's most notable landmarks
The Minerva Roundabout in Guadalajara, Mexico, one of the city's most notable landmarks

[edit] Fictional characters

  • Various fictional characters are named after Minerva:

[edit] Science fiction and computer games

  • Robert Zubrin's novel The Holy Land features aliens who worship Minerva.
  • In Square Enix's Final Fantasy games, Minerva's Plate frequently appears as powerful body armor for female characters.
  • There is a popular single-player Half-Life 2 modification called MINERVA, where the player is guided by an unseen character who calls herself Minerva.
  • In James P. Hogan's Inherit the Stars (1977), the first book of the Gentle Giants series, Pluto turns out to be the remains of Minerva, a planet that exploded to form the asteroid belt 50,000 years ago.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Coded Encounters: Writing, Gender, and Ethnicity in Colonial Latin America By Francisco J. Cevallos Candau, page 215
  2. ^ Aristot. Mirab. Narrat. 117
  3. ^ Schmitz, Leonhard (1867), “Achaea (2)”, in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, Boston, pp. 8 

[edit] References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870). See page 1090

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