Juno- Roman GodDeity"Queen of the Gods"

The Sacred Geese

Juno Moneta kept her temple on the Arx, the northern summit of the Capitoline Hill. In 390 BCE, when Gauls scaled the cliffs at night and the watchdogs slept, Juno's sacred geese raised the alarm. Marcus Manlius Capitolinus woke and hurled the first attackers from the rock. The goddess who warned became Moneta, and Rome built its mint inside her temple. The coins struck there carried her image. From her name came the word moneta, and from moneta the word "money."

Bride and Mother

Juno's protection followed a Roman woman from girlhood to old age. On her wedding day, the bride clasped hands with her husband before Juno Pronuba. Without her witness, the marriage was not legitimate. Augustine, drawing on Varro's lost Antiquitates, records the Junones invoked during the ceremony: Juno Cinxia when the bride's girdle was loosened, Juno Unxia when the doorposts were anointed with oil.

Every Roman woman possessed a personal guardian spirit called her juno, just as every man had his genius.

As Juno Lucina, she presided over childbirth. Her temple on the Esquiline Hill was among Rome's oldest, traditionally founded in 375 BCE. Women in labor called on Juno Lucina to bring their children safely "into the light." Knots were untied in her temple to ease the birth. The Matronalia on March 1 was her festival: husbands gave gifts to their wives, and women offered prayers for their marriages and children.

The Serpent at Lanuvium

Juno Sospita, Juno the Savior, was worshipped at Lanuvium, southeast of Rome. Her image set her apart from every other form of the goddess: she wore a goatskin with the head pulled up as a hood, and she carried a shield and spear. She was a warrior.

Each year, a blindfolded virgin descended into a sacred cave beneath Sospita's sanctuary to feed a great serpent. If the serpent accepted the offering, the girl's virginity was confirmed and a fruitful year was assured. Propertius and Aelian both describe the rite. Roman consuls sacrificed at her Lanuvine temple upon taking office.

The Queen of Veii

When Rome conquered Veii in 396 BCE, the Romans did not simply loot the city's temples. They invited Veii's Juno Regina to come to Rome. The ritual was called evocatio: a formal request for the enemy's god to change sides. Livy records that when Roman soldiers asked the statue of Juno whether she wished to go to Rome, the statue nodded. They brought her image across the Tiber and installed it in a new temple on the Aventine Hill. She had protected Veii for centuries. Now she would protect Rome.

The Slave Women's Feast

The Nonae Caprotinae on July 7 honored Juno Caprotina in a festival where slave women feasted under wild fig trees and staged mock battles. The festival commemorated a legend in which slave women disguised themselves as Roman matrons and entered an enemy camp. Once inside, they signaled the Roman army to attack.

On the Kalends of every month, the Regina Sacrorum, wife of the Rex Sacrorum, sacrificed a sow to Juno. The new moon was Juno's, the full moon Jupiter's.

Wrath of Juno

In the Aeneid, Juno is the force that keeps Aeneas from Italy. She hated the Trojans for the Judgment of Paris, when Venus was chosen over her, and for the prophecy that Aeneas's descendants would destroy her beloved Carthage. She sent storms to scatter his fleet and stirred the Latins to war. When the Latin senators hesitated to open the gates of Janus's temple, she tore them open herself.

In the end, Jupiter intervened. Juno relented on one condition: the Trojan name must be erased. The new people would be called Latins, speak the Latin tongue, wear Latin dress. Jupiter agreed. The Trojans vanished into Italy, and Juno's wrath went quiet.