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JUNO

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 560 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JUNO , the See also:

chief See also:Roman and Latin goddess, and the See also:special See also:object of See also:worship by See also:women at all the See also:critical moments of See also:life. The See also:etymology of the name is not certain, but it is usually taken as a shortened See also:form of Jovino, answering to Jovis, from a See also:root div, shining. Under See also:Greek See also:influence Juno was See also:early identified with the Greek See also:Hera, with whose cult and characteristics she has much in See also:common; thus the Juno with whom we are See also:familiar in Latin literature is not the true Roman deity. In the Aeneid, for example, her policy is antagonistic to the plans of See also:Jupiter for the See also:conquest of See also:Latium and the future greatness of See also:Rome; though in the See also:fourth See also:Eclogue, as See also:Lucina, she appears in her proper role as assisting at childbirth. It was under Greek influence again that she became the wife of Jupiter, the See also:mother of See also:Mars; the true Roman had no such See also:personal See also:interest in his deities as to invent See also:family relations for them. That Juno was especially a deity of women, and represents in a sense the See also:female principle of life, is seen in the fact that as every See also:man had his See also:genius, so every woman had her Juno; and the goddess herself may have been a development of this conception. The various forms of her cult all show her in See also:close connexion with women. As Juno Lucina she was invoked in childbirth, and on the 1st of See also:March, the old Roman New See also:Year's See also:day, the matrons met and made offerings at her See also:temple in a See also:grove on the Esquiline; hence the day was known as the Matronalia. As Caprotina she was especially worshipped by female slaves on the 7th of See also:July (Nonae Caprotinae); as Sospita she was invoked all over Latium as the saviour of women in their perils, and later as the saviour of the See also:state; and under a number of other titles, Cinxia, Unxia, Pronuba, &c., we find her taking a leading See also:part in the See also:ritual of See also:marriage. Her real or supposed connexion with the See also:moon is explained by the alleged influence of the moon on the lives of women; thus she became the deity of the Kalends, or day of the new moon, when the See also:regina sacrorum offered a See also:lamb to her in the regia, and her See also:husband the rex made known to the See also:people the day on which the Nones would fall. Thus she is brought into close relation with See also:Janus, who also was worshipped on the Kalends by the rex sacrorum, and it may be that in the See also:oldest Roman See also:religion these two were more closely connected than Juno and Jupiter. But in See also:historical times she was associated with Jupiter in the See also:great temple on the Capitoline See also:hill as Juno Regina, the See also:queen of all Junones or queen of See also:heaven, as Jupiter there was Optimus See also:Maximus (see JUPITER), and under the same See also:title she was enticed from See also:Veil after its See also:capture in 392 B.c., and settled in a temple on the Aventine.

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