Lanuvium, Latium, March 246
Hecatee
Donor
Sorry for the delay, I was in Italy (again...) last week and this week end for a conference (I was talking of Byzantine theology in alternate history...) and so was somewhat late in my writing... Still the trip gave me the opportunity to visit a lesser known sanctuary near Rome...
Lanuvium, Latium, March 246
The long procession walked up the street toward the sanctuary in which Juno Sospita was waiting for the offering. Heading the procession was a middle aged man, Publius Licinius Murena, of an old local family dating back to the republican era. He was part of those Licini Murenae that had stayed in the Mons Albani region, keeping large properties in the area while the emperors bought most of the rest of the land. There neighbors had been the divine Julius Caesar, who had a villa on lake Nemi’s shore, or the Antonii family, who had given birth to the emperor Antoninus Pius.
Commodus, the son of the divine Marcus Aurelius, had been born in their local villa, which his father gave him when he reached adulthood, providing him with the necessary fortune required by the census for a senator, the first step of that man’s brief career which had ended in an ambush in Germania in which the 23 years old man had been foolish and yet heroic, dying on a German’s spearpoint and causing incredible grief to his elderly father.
Licinius Murena had been more lucky : he’d survived his stint as an officer in auxiliary units, being based in Alexandria as a junior centurion for three years, promoted and sent to in Mesopotamia for five and then, promoted again following some winning fighting against an eastern intrusion, on the Danube for his last two years of mandatory service as primus pilus of a cohors equitata. He’d then entered the Academia Militaria Practica, becoming a military Tribunus Machinatorum for a legion based in Britannia where he’d served five years.
During this time his elder brother Marcus had died, making him the heir to the family’s fortune. With what he’d made as an officer he had enough to request entering the senate, but this did not interest him. Instead he’d taken a position as procurator sexagenarii that saw him assigned to the province of Norica where he’d supervised his lesser colleagues for two years before coming home, aged 39 years and very rich. Military life had taught him to live frugally, even when posted in the rich east, and he’d not spent much of his large salaries.
His elderly father was delighted to see his son and heir again but had not lived long to enjoy this pleasure, dying a month later but not without extracting a last promise of his son, a promise he was now fulfilling.
The procession was now passing in front of the large portico at the base of the sanctuary’s first terrasse. Many of the shops were still empty. The old temple, often believed the most ancient of the region alongside the sanctuary of Diana on lake Nemi’s shore and Jupiter’s sanctuary on top of the Mons Albanus, had long suffered from neglect as large villa replaced the older farmsteads and the free farmers had been replaced by slaves.
Yet it was no longer in disrepair. Under the personal supervision of Licinius Murena had the temple been restored to its former glory. A new roof had been made in the ancient style, with its open gable. The terracota plaques that adorned it, of which a number had fallen over the centuries, had been replaced by a series of marble carvings. The terrasses had also been repaired, with new mosaics on the ground and in the back of the niches, which had also received new statues to go alongside those offered to the sanctuary by Lucius Licinius Murena, consul in the time of the divine Julius Caesar.
The procession had now arrived at the sacred grotto. The local young virgins carrying baskets of food advanced toward the dark abyss where the sacred snake awaited them. The ritual was old, and had been almost lost : if not for some old writings they would not have known how to venerate Juno Sospita, whose’ impressive statue waited in her temple.
The food had been gifted and the procession now took the direction of the last terrasse, that of the temple itself. There Licinius Murena covered his head with a fold of his narrow-stripped toga, mark of his status as much as the golden ring that shone at his finger, gifted by the emperor himself has he’d been admitted in the equestrian order, two decades earlier.
Taking a blade from the assistant, he turned toward the heifer which obligingly went down on her front paws, a willing sacrifice if one ever saw one. Quickly, in a practiced hand, the nobleman cut the beast’ throat without even a drop of blood on his toga. He then turned toward the crowd while assistants collected the blood and prepared the sacrifice.
“Citizens of Lavinium, my father asked me to restore the ancient temple of our ancestors so that we too may pray for Juno’s benefaction. I am told the sacred snake did eat the offering our children made to him, and that this is a sign of a good harvest. Let’s thus thank the goddess with our heart, and remember my father whose piety led to this auspicious day !”
Lanuvium, Latium, March 246
The long procession walked up the street toward the sanctuary in which Juno Sospita was waiting for the offering. Heading the procession was a middle aged man, Publius Licinius Murena, of an old local family dating back to the republican era. He was part of those Licini Murenae that had stayed in the Mons Albani region, keeping large properties in the area while the emperors bought most of the rest of the land. There neighbors had been the divine Julius Caesar, who had a villa on lake Nemi’s shore, or the Antonii family, who had given birth to the emperor Antoninus Pius.
Commodus, the son of the divine Marcus Aurelius, had been born in their local villa, which his father gave him when he reached adulthood, providing him with the necessary fortune required by the census for a senator, the first step of that man’s brief career which had ended in an ambush in Germania in which the 23 years old man had been foolish and yet heroic, dying on a German’s spearpoint and causing incredible grief to his elderly father.
Licinius Murena had been more lucky : he’d survived his stint as an officer in auxiliary units, being based in Alexandria as a junior centurion for three years, promoted and sent to in Mesopotamia for five and then, promoted again following some winning fighting against an eastern intrusion, on the Danube for his last two years of mandatory service as primus pilus of a cohors equitata. He’d then entered the Academia Militaria Practica, becoming a military Tribunus Machinatorum for a legion based in Britannia where he’d served five years.
During this time his elder brother Marcus had died, making him the heir to the family’s fortune. With what he’d made as an officer he had enough to request entering the senate, but this did not interest him. Instead he’d taken a position as procurator sexagenarii that saw him assigned to the province of Norica where he’d supervised his lesser colleagues for two years before coming home, aged 39 years and very rich. Military life had taught him to live frugally, even when posted in the rich east, and he’d not spent much of his large salaries.
His elderly father was delighted to see his son and heir again but had not lived long to enjoy this pleasure, dying a month later but not without extracting a last promise of his son, a promise he was now fulfilling.
The procession was now passing in front of the large portico at the base of the sanctuary’s first terrasse. Many of the shops were still empty. The old temple, often believed the most ancient of the region alongside the sanctuary of Diana on lake Nemi’s shore and Jupiter’s sanctuary on top of the Mons Albanus, had long suffered from neglect as large villa replaced the older farmsteads and the free farmers had been replaced by slaves.
Yet it was no longer in disrepair. Under the personal supervision of Licinius Murena had the temple been restored to its former glory. A new roof had been made in the ancient style, with its open gable. The terracota plaques that adorned it, of which a number had fallen over the centuries, had been replaced by a series of marble carvings. The terrasses had also been repaired, with new mosaics on the ground and in the back of the niches, which had also received new statues to go alongside those offered to the sanctuary by Lucius Licinius Murena, consul in the time of the divine Julius Caesar.
The procession had now arrived at the sacred grotto. The local young virgins carrying baskets of food advanced toward the dark abyss where the sacred snake awaited them. The ritual was old, and had been almost lost : if not for some old writings they would not have known how to venerate Juno Sospita, whose’ impressive statue waited in her temple.
The food had been gifted and the procession now took the direction of the last terrasse, that of the temple itself. There Licinius Murena covered his head with a fold of his narrow-stripped toga, mark of his status as much as the golden ring that shone at his finger, gifted by the emperor himself has he’d been admitted in the equestrian order, two decades earlier.
Taking a blade from the assistant, he turned toward the heifer which obligingly went down on her front paws, a willing sacrifice if one ever saw one. Quickly, in a practiced hand, the nobleman cut the beast’ throat without even a drop of blood on his toga. He then turned toward the crowd while assistants collected the blood and prepared the sacrifice.
“Citizens of Lavinium, my father asked me to restore the ancient temple of our ancestors so that we too may pray for Juno’s benefaction. I am told the sacred snake did eat the offering our children made to him, and that this is a sign of a good harvest. Let’s thus thank the goddess with our heart, and remember my father whose piety led to this auspicious day !”
