The beautification of Medusa

While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers of the Archaic Period imagined Medusa and her two immortal sisters as having monstrous form that is both male and female, human and animal, with  round faces, wide eyes, beards, and gaping mouths with extended tongues and gnashing, sharp teeth, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century BCE began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying and she loses the frightful teeth and beard but retains her wild hair and her uncompromising riveting gaze. In an ode written in 490 BCE, Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa".  Art historians attribute this to the emergence of a new artistic emphasis on the ideal form that codified standards of perfection and beauty.

In fact, the depiction of a snake-haired Medusa does not become widespread until much later in the 1st century BCE, further perpetuated by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses (4.794–803), who explains that Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, but when Poseidon had sex with her in "Minerva's (i.e. Athena's) temple, Athena punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes.

I found this an interesting side note: a number of early classics scholars interpreted the myth of Medusa and her beheading by the hero Perseus as quasi-historical, a sublimated memory of an actual invasion.  Comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell proposed that in the early thirteenth century BCE, a historic rupture or sociological trauma actually occurred in which the Hellenes overran Athena's chief shrines and stripped her priestesses of their apotropaic Gorgon masks.

Read more about it in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's article, "Medusa in Ancient Greek Art."  https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/medu/hd_medu.htm

Image: Gilded silver roundel thought to have been a bridle ornament, Roman, 150-235 CE, now in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum.  Image courtesy of the museum.

 

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The Roman nature of Neptune

Some scholars argue that Indo-European people, having no direct knowledge of the sea as they originated from inland areas, reused the theology of a deity originally either chthonic or wielding power over inland freshwaters for the god of the sea as contact was made with seafaring peoples. They then paired him with Salacia, the goddess of saltwater who subsequently came to represent the virile force of Neptune.  This conclusion was arrived at by the numerous findings of inscriptions mentioning Neptune in the proximity of such locations. Servius the grammarian also explicitly identified Neptune as the deity in charge of all the rivers, springs, and waters.

Before the 1st century BCE, the Romans thanked the god Portunus or Fortunus for naval victories, but Neptune supplanted him in this role by at least the first century BCE when Sextus Pompeius, younger son of Pompey Magnus, called himself "son of Neptune." 

Like Poseidon, Neptune was also worshipped by the Romans as a god of horses, under the name Neptunus Equester, a patron of horse-racing.  This may account for the marine-themed sculptures, such as dolphins, in the circus that were used to mark laps during each race. In Roman mythology, Neptune worked with Minerva to create the chariot.

Neptune was also considered the legendary progenitor god of a Latin stock, the Faliscans, who called themselves Neptunia proles. In this respect he was the equivalent of Mars, Janus, Saturn and even Jupiter among Latin tribes. 

The Neptunalia was the festival of Neptune celebrated by the Romans on July 23, at the height of summer. The festival included free and unrestrained merrymaking, and outings in the wood between the Tiber and the Via Salaria where springwater and wine were drunk to escape the heat. Neptune is one of only four Roman gods to whom it was appropriate to sacrifice bulls, the other three being Apollo, Mars and Jupiter, although Vulcan was also allowed the offering of a red bull and a red bull calf which symbolized the force of his forge.

Neptune is often depicted with two paredrae (accompanying deities), Salacia and Venilia, who represent the overpowering and the tranquil aspects of water. Salacia would impersonate the gushing, overbearing waters and Venilia the still or quietly flowing waters.

Neptune, the god of the sea, stands completely nude with his weight on his right leg. Originally, his raised right hand would have supported a trident, and he may have held a dolphin or ship's ornament in his left. Even with these attributes missing, the figure's unkempt hair, spiky crown of water plants, and mobile, restless-looking pose identify him as the sea god.

The elongated but muscular physique, small head, and majestic stance, as well as the way in which the figure’s arms extend into the space around it, derive from the innovations of the Greek sculptor Lysippos in the late 300s B.C.E. The mannered and almost playful exaggeration of the traits in this statuette, however, typifies a Roman revival of the style in the late 100s B.C.E. Image courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Neptune in the caves of the gardens of the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte in Maincy, France courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Velvet.

Fountain of Neptune by Antonio Della Bitta (1878) that I photographed in the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy.

 

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Minerva or Bellona?

Despite the Roman association between Minerva and Athena and the frequent depiction of both goddesses with armor, unlike Athena, Minerva was not considered a war goddess in the Roman pantheon. The Romans had their own war goddess Bellona, originally an ancient Sabine goddess of war identified with Nerio, the consort of the war god Mars, and later with the Greek war goddess Enyo. 

Bellona's main attribute is the military helmet that was worn on her head much like Athena.  Bellona  is often depcicted holding a sword, spear, or shield, and brandishing a torch or whip as she rides into battle in a four-horse chariot. 

Bellona had a temple near the Theatre of Marcellus dedicated in 296 BCE near the Circus Flaminius by Appius Claudius Caecus, during the war with the Etruscans and Samnites. The Roman Campus Martius area, in which Bellona’s temple was situated, had extraterritorial status. Ambassadors from foreign states, who were not allowed to enter the city proper, stayed in this complex. Since the area of the temple was outside the pomerium, the Senate met there with ambassadors and received victorious generals prior to their triumphs. Beside the temple was the war column (columna bellica), which represented non-Roman territory. To declare war on a distant state, a javelin was thrown over the column by one of the priests concerned with diplomacy (fetiales) toward the direction of the enemy land. This symbolic attack was considered the opening of war.

Bellona's festival was celebrated on June 3, and her priests were known as Bellonarii and used to wound their own arms or legs as a blood sacrifice to her. These rites took place on March 24, called the day of blood (dies sanguinis), after the ceremony. In consequence of this practice, which was similar to the rites of Cybele in Asia Minor, both Enyo and Bellona became identified with her Cappadocian aspect, Ma.

In the military cult of Bellona, she was associated with Virtus, the personification of valour. Her worship by the legions extended her cult into the provinces. Temples to Bellona have been recorded in France, Germany, Britain, and North Africa.

In art, Bellona and Minerva have been frequently confused.  French artist Augustin Pajou created a sculpture between 1775-1785 that he dubbed Minerva but bearing the attributes of Bellona.  I was surprised on reading the J. Paul Getty Museum's entry for the sculpture stating Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom (a shared attribute with Athena) and war (??), striding forward to protect Painting, Sculpture, Music, Justice, and Medicine, the attributes of which lie at her feet.  But she wears the helmet and carries the torch of Bellona. A beautiful ancient Roman relief in the Carthage National Museum, however, clearly illustrates the difference between the two deities.  In this relief, Minerva stands beside a collection of a warrior's armor (although not the goddess of war, Minerva was considered a patron of warriors) but does not wear a helmet or brandish a weapon or torch.

Roman relief of Minerva at the Carthage National Museum courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Mourad Ben Abdallah (digitally enhanced).

"Minerva" by Augustin Pajou at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California courtesy of the museum. 

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