Moneta
{{Short description|Epithet of Juno and Mnemosyne}}
{{other uses}}
{{see also|Mnemosyne|Juno (mythology)}}
File:Moneta on Sestertius of Antoninus Pius.jpg
In Roman mythology, Moneta (Latin Monēta) was a title given to two separate goddesses: It was the name of the goddess of memory (identified with the Greek goddess Mnemosyne), and it was an epithet of Juno, called Juno Moneta (Latin Iūno Monēta). The latter's name is the source of numerous words in English and the Romance languages, including “money" and "mint".
File:CSA-T14-$50-1861–62.jpg.]]
The cult of the goddess Moneta was established largely under the influence of Greek religion, which featured the cult of Mnemosyne ("Μνημοσύνη"), the goddess of memory and the mother of the Muses. The goddess's name is derived from Latin monēre (which means to remind, warn, or instruct). She is mentioned in a fragment of Livius Andronicus' Latin Odyssey: Nam diva Monetas filia docuit ("since the divine daughter of Moneta has taught...", frg. 21 Büchner), which may be the equivalent of either Od. 8,480-1 or 488.
The epithet Moneta that was given to Juno, in contrast, is more likely to have derived from the Greek word "moneres" ("μονήρης"), meaning "alone”, or “unique".{{citation needed|date=March 2024}} By the time Andronicus was writing, the folk etymology of monēre was widely accepted, and so he could plausibly transmute this epithet into a reference to separate goddess - the literary (though not the religious) counterpart of the Greek Mnemosyne.
Juno Moneta and Hyginus' Moneta
{{see also|Temple of Juno Moneta}}
File:Juno Moneta denarius 46BC ashmolian.JPG
Juno Moneta, an epithet of Juno, was the protectress of funds, and, accordingly, money in ancient Rome was coined in her temple. The word "moneta" (from which the words "money" and "monetize" are derived) was used by writers such as Ovid, Martial, Juvenal, and Cicero. In several modern languages, including Russian and Italian, moneta (Spanish moneda) is the word for "coin".
Juno Moneta's name (like the name of the goddess Moneta) is derived either from the Latin monēre (since, as the protectress of funds, she "warned" of economic instability) or, more likely, from the Greek "moneres", meaning "alone” or “unique".{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
According to the Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia (which uses the Greek names of the goddess), she was called Moneta (Μονήτα) because when the Romans needed money during the wars against Pyrrhus and Taranto, they prayed to Hera, and she replied to them that, if they would hold out against the enemies with justice, they would not go short of money. After the wars, the Romans honoured Hera Moneta (that is, advisor - invoking the Latin verb moneo, meaning to 'warn' or 'advise'), and, accordingly, decided to stamp the coinage in her temple.[https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/sol/sol-entries/mu/1220 Suda On Line, mu,1220][https://topostext.org/work/240#mu.1220 Suda topostext, mu,1220]
Hyginus in his Fabulae, writes of Moneta as a Titaness daughter of Aether and Tellus, and as the mother by Jove of the nine Muses. Hyginus doesn't seem to identify Moneta with either Juno or Mnemosyne, as the latter is later called a daughter of Jove and Clymene.
Coinage
"Moneta" retained the meanings of "money" and "die" well into the Middle Ages and appeared often on minted coins. For example, the phrase moneta nova is regular on coins of the low countries and the rhineland in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, with the "nova", Latin for "new", not necessarily signifying a new type or variety of coin.{{cite journal | author =B.H.I.H Stewart | year =1962 | title =Moneta and Mot on Anglo-Saxon Coins | journal =British Numismatic Journal | volume =31 | pages =27–30 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=RkQaAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27 | access-date =27 December 2017 }}
In culture
Moneta is a central figure in John Keats' poem "The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream".
References
{{Reflist}}
- {{cite book | last = Simpson | first = D. P. | title = Cassell's Latin Dictionary: 5th Edition | publisher = Macmillan Publishing Co | location = New York | year = 1968 | isbn = 0-02-522570-7 | url = https://archive.org/details/cassellslatindic00simp }}
- {{cite book | title = The American Heritage dictionary of the English language: 4th Edition | publisher = Houghton Mifflin Co | location = New York | year = 2000 | isbn = 0-02-522570-7 | url = https://archive.org/details/cassellslatindic00simp }}
- [http://en.museicapitolini.org/sede/campidoglio_antico/tempio_di_giunone_moneta en.museicapitolini.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114152402/http://en.museicapitolini.org/sede/campidoglio_antico/tempio_di_giunone_moneta |date=2012-01-14 }}