Feronia (mythology)

Feronia was a marginal rural goddess in Roman religion, to whom woods and springs were sacred, and a more important goddess among the Latins.

Function

Many versions of Feronia’s cult have been supposed, and it is not quite clear that she was only one goddess or had only one function in ancient times. It seems certain that Feronia originated as a Latin, rather than Etruscan goddess.

Some Latins believed Feronia to be a harvest goddess, and honoured her with the harvest firstfruits [Livy xxvi.11.8.] in order to secure a good harvest the following year.

Feronia also served as a goddess of travellers, fire, and waters.

Slaves regarded Feronia as a goddess of freedom, and believed that sitting on a holy stone in one of her sanctuaries would set them free.

Erylus, king in Praeneste, was Feronia’s son, according to a tradition recorded by Virgil. In a different tradition, her son was the underworld god Herulus.

Cult sites

Feronia had a temple at the base of Mt. Soracte in Capena; this Lucus Feroniae (Fiano Romano) was the site ("locus") of a grove sacred to her in which took place an annual festival in her honour, [Strabo, v.2.9; Filippo Coarelli, "I Santuari del Lazio in eta Repubblicana" (Rome) 1987] which was in the nature of a trade fair, whose participants were protected by the sacred nature of the grove. The place, in the territory of Capena in southwestern Etruria, was plundered of its gold and silver by Hannibal's retreating troops in 211 BCE, when he turned aside from the Via Salaria to visit the sanctuary; [Livy.] later it became an Augustan "colonia", testified to by a single inscription, copied in a manuscript of the rule of the Farfa Abbey ["Codex Vaticanus Latinus" 6808.] as "colonia Iulia Felix Lucoferonensis" [L. R. Taylor, "The Site of Lucus Feroniae" "The Journal of Roman Studies" 10 (1920), pp. 29-36. Ms Taylor identified the site as Nazzano.]

Another important site was in Anxur (Terracina, southern Latium), where Servius recorded a marriage of Iuppiter Anxur and Feronia [Coarelli 1987.] and one on the Campus Martius in the center of Rome, in what is now Largo di Torre Argentina. According to another tradition, some slaves who had just been freed would go to the temple at Terracina and receive upon their shaved heads the "pileus", a hat that symbolized their liberty.

Festivals and namesakes

The festival of Feronia was on November 15.

The unrelated "Feralia" on February 21 is a festival of Jupiter "Feretrius," not Feronia.

"Feronia" is also a genus of Coleoptera (beetles) and a genus of plants in the Rutaceae.

Notes