Minerva
Minerva was a Roman goddess of crafts, poetry and wisdom, and is known as the inventor of music.
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 Athena.
Titles and roles
The name "Minerva" is likely imported from the Etruscans who called her Menrva. 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 was the daughter of Jupiter. She was considered to be the virgin goddess of warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, crafts, and the inventor of music. As Minerva Medica, she was the goddess of medicine and doctors.
Adapting Greek myths about Athena, Romans said that Minerva was not born in the usual way, but rather Jupiter had a horrible headache and Vulcan opened up his head and out came Minerva, fully grown, and dressed in armor, a long trailing robe, a helmet, a shield and a spear.
Worship
Ovid called her the "goddess of a thousand works."[citation needed] 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 B.C.E., 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 also 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 B.C.E. by Pompey on the site of the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva (near the present-day Piazza della Minerva and the Pantheon).
In later culture
Universities and educational establishments
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 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.
- Minerva is featured on the seals and logos of many institutions of higher learning:
- University of Lincoln. Minerva's head is used as the logo of this UK University. There is a tradition within the Lincoln rugby team and it is thought they are the Knights of Minerva, each match being won in her honour.
- University at Albany, The State University of New York. Minerva is still venerated by seniors and their 'torch bearers' during a pre-graduation ritual called "Torch Night" there.
- the University of Alabama
- Union College, New York. Union College has also used Minerva as the name of their new academic and social "Third Space" program, the Minerva House System; and, also here, Minerva is the goddess of Theta Delta Chi.
- UFRJ, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil.
- Ghent University, in Belgium
- American Academy of Arts & Sciences, in Cambridge, Mass. The seal's principal figure is Minerva - a symbol appropriate for an organization created in the midst of the American Revolution and dedicated to the cultivation of every art and science to "advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people."
- 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 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.
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.
Societies
- In the early 20th century, Manuel José Estrada Cabrera, President of Guatemala, tried to promote a "Cult of Minerva" in his country; this left little legacy other than a few interesting Hellenic style "Temples" in parks around Guatemala.
- According to John Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy (1798), the third degree of the Bavarian Illuminati was called Minerval or Brother of Minerva, in honor of the goddess of learning. Later, this title was adopted for the first degree of Aleister Crowley's OTO rituals.
- Minerva is the logo of the world famous German "Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science" (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft)
Fictional characters
- Various fictional characters are named after Minerva:
- The Voodoo priestess in the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
- Minerva McGonagall in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.
- Minerva Mink in the Steven Spielberg cartoon: Animaniacs.
- A battleship in the Japanese 2004 animation Gundam Seed Destiny.
- A sentient computer which later transfers its consciousness into a human body in the Robert A. Heinlein novel, Time Enough for Love.
- Minerva Paradizo, a girl-genius character from the Artemis Fowl series who first appeared in The Lost Colony.
- Minerva is the name of the ship that takes Dr Daniel Waterhouse back to the UK in the Neal Stephenson book, Quicksilver.
Referemces
Credits
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