Di nixi

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Religion in
ancient Rome
Marcus Aurelius sacrificing
Marcus Aurelius (head covered)
sacrificing at the Temple of Jupiter
Practices and beliefs
Priesthoods
Deities

Deified leaders:

Other deified persons:

Related topics

In

birth goddess Lucina and her counterpart collective, the Nixi.[5]

A statuary group of three kneeling nixi or nixae stood in front of the Temple of

Antiochus the Great after his defeat at Thermopylae in 191 BC, or perhaps from the sack of Corinth in 146.[6]

In the

Herakles (Hercules).[7] While the ancient Greek gynecologist Soranos had disapproved of giving birth on one's knees as "painful and embarrassing,"[8] he recommends it for the obese and for lordotic women, that is, those with a concave curvature of the lower back that would tilt the uterus out of alignment with the birth canal.[9]

Topography and ritual

As guardians of the threshold of life, the Nixi or Nixae may also have been associated with new life in the sense of

Saecular Games. A lengthy inscription[15] marks the occasion of these games under Augustus in 17 BC and notes a nocturnal sacrifice carried out for the Ilithyis, Eileithyiai, the Greek counterparts of the Nixae as birth goddesses.[16] The phrase nuptae genibus nixae ("brides laboring on their knees") appears twice in this invocation. The attitude of devotion or reverence expressed by genibus nixae or genu nixa, which might also be translated as "on bended knee," is formulaic in Latin texts and inscriptions.[17]

It has been suggested that the iconography of kneeling became associated with birth because women sought divine aid for what was often a life-threatening experience in the ancient world. Kneeling also played a role in initiation ritual for

mystery religion, which offered the promise of rebirth.[18]

Women prayed and held sacred banquets at the Saecular Games, which were characterized by an "overt and unusual celebration of women, children, and families in a

Roman state.[19]

Romanized Isis nursing Infant Harpocrates

Robert E.A. Palmer has speculated that the area where the altar of the Nixae was located (Piazza Navona
) continued to have significance into the modern Christian era:

The shadow of the Nixae hangs over

Mother of God and whether she traced her pedigree to Mother Earth or the Isis with the Infant Harpocrates?[20]

See also

  • Ciconiae Nixae, a landmark listed in the 4th-century regionaries, but probably two separate sites, the Ciconiae, or "Storks," perhaps a sculpture, and the altar to the di nixi in Region IX.

References

  1. ^ Pierre Grimal, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology (Blackwell, 1986, 1996, originally published 1951 in French), pp. 311–312 online.
  2. J.G. Frazer, Pausanias's Description of Greece (London, 1913), vol. 4, p. 436 online; Marcel Le Glay, "Remarques sur la notion de Salus dans la religion romaine," La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell' imperio romano: Études préliminaires au religions orientales dans l'empire romain, Colloquio internazionale Roma, 1979 (Brill, 1982), p. 442 online.
  3. ^ Nixi Dii appellabantur, quos putabant praesidere parientium nixibus, p. 175 in Müller's edition.
  4. Varro as preserved by Nonius
    : enixae dicuntur feminae nitendi, hoc est conandi et dolendi, labore perfunctae: a Nixis quae religionum genera parientibus praesunt.
  5. ^ Lucinam Nixosque pares, Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.294; M.N. Tod and A.J.B. Wace, A Catalogue of the Sparta Museum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), p. 117 online.
  6. ^ Festus: Nixi Di appellantur tria signa in Capitolio ante cellam Minervae genibus nixibus, velut praesidentes parentium nixibus. Quae signa sunt qui memoriae prodiderint Antiocho rege Syriae superato M'. Acilium subtracta a populo Romano adportasse, atque ubi sunt posuisse. Etiam qui capta Corintho advecta huc, quae ibi subiecta fuerint mensae. Latin text as presented by G. Sauron, "Documents pour l'exégèse de la mégalographie dionysiaque de Pompeii," in Ercolano, 1738–1988: 250 anni di ricerca archeologica («L'Erma» di Bretschneider, 1993), p. 358 online.
  7. ^ W.W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus (Oxford University Press, 1912, reprinted 2002), vol. 2, p. 48 online; Frazer, Pausanias's Description of Greece, p. 436.
  8. ^ Soranus of Ephesus, Gyn. 2.5, as cited by Sauron, "Documents pour l'exégèse de la mégalographie dionysiaque de Pompeii," p. 358 (this does not correspond to the numbering by Temkin following).
  9. obesity in pregnancy
    .
  10. ^ Le Glay, "Remarques," pp. 431–433.
  11. ^ Ad nixas; William Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1908), p. 242.
  12. ^ Comment by H.S. Versnel in response to Le Glay, "Remarques," p. 442.
  13. ^ John H. Humphrey, Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing (University of California Press, 1986), pp. 558, 560; Le Glay, "Remarques," p. 442.
  14. How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics
    (Oxford University Press, 1995), devotes a chapter to the meaning of tarentum.
  15. ^ Available at LacusCurtius online.
  16. ^ Sauron, "Documents pour l'exégèse de la mégalographie dionysiaque de Pompeii," p. 358; Le Glay, "Remarques," p. 442.
  17. Vergil, Aeneid 3.607; Tibullus 1.2.85f.; Apuleius, the Cupid and Psyche tale, Metamorphoses 6.3. See Sauron, "Documents pour l'exégèse de la mégalographie dionysiaque de Pompeii," p. 358; R. B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate (Cambridge University Press, 1951, 2000), p. 185 online.
  18. ^ Sauron, "Documents pour l'exégèse de la mégalographie dionysiaque de Pompeii," pp. 357–358.
  19. ^ Beth Severy, Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire (Routledge, 2003), p. 58 online.
  20. Robert E.A. Palmer
    , Studies of the Northern Campus Martius in Ancient Rome (American Philosophical Society, 1990), p. 57.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Di_nixi&oldid=1147112364"