The Coward Does it with a Kiss by Rohase Piercy

Juno’s brother and consort, Jupiter, is also attested throughout ancient Italy at Praeneste in Latium the sibling Deities are presented as the children of ‘Fortuna Primigenia’, primordial Goddess of Fate and Destiny. In the Latin city of Lanuvium the Temple of Iuno Sispes Mater Regina – Juno Saviour, Mother and Queen - housed a sacred snake, a creature associated with healing and regeneration the discovery of terracotta body-parts, traditionally offered as an accompaniment to prayers for healing, in the vicinity of the Temple would suggest that this was indeed an ancient function of the Goddess. Her epithets Regina, Mater, Curitis, Sispes and Lucina are all pre-Roman, as is her identification with the month we still call ‘June’, when the sun’s vital force is seen to reach its zenith at the Summer Solstice, the longest day. Juno was worshipped in Italy well before the unification of the Latin states under Rome’s leadership.

The invitation appears to have been accepted: Uni was worshipped in Rome as Iuno Regina, and her Temple on the Aventine Hill housed the ancient wooden cult statue transported from Veii. Following the conquest of the Etruscan city of Veii in 396 BCE an evocatio was performed, issuing a solemn invitation to the Etruscan Goddess to transfer her allegiance to Rome. Contemporary Roman commentators also saw a link to iuvare, ‘to aid’ or ‘to benefit’, re-enforcing Juno’s identification with her Etruscan counterpart Uni, whose name is thought to mean ‘She Who Gives’. Emile Benveniste identifies the original meaning of this root as ‘vital force’, connecting it with the Vedic word ayuh, ‘genius of the vital force’. The etymology of Juno’s name is thought to be linked to the Latin iuven, ‘youthful’, shortened to iun as a prefix (as in iunior, younger). Juno’s Greek counterpart, Hera, offered a role-model to women throughout every stage of life, from Pais (child) to Khera (widow) but Juno goes a step further, and personifies the female principle itself. The concept of female Deity would soon be all but obliterated by the new religion of Christianity with its masculine threefold God, but women of the Classical era still took it for granted that they, like their Bronze Age ancestresses, reflected the Divine image equally with men. Whatever the social, political and domestic restrictions imposed by patriarchal Rome upon its women, here was something no husband, father or master could deny: a little piece of the Celestial Goddess, the Saviour, Mother and Queen of Rome, resided in every woman, slave and free, as a guide and companion through life.

Guiding spirit, higher self, female genius, call her what you will, according to Roman belief we all have one, just as every man has his ‘genius’.

The Coward Does it with a Kiss by Rohase Piercy