TexasMadness
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Matralia
Another Roman Festival! If we could come back as "anything", I would come back as a rich guy in Rome during the height of all of this. Seriously, I think there is rarely more than 2 weeks between festivals!
Matralia was the festival of the Mater Matuta, the Mother Dawn. June 11th is the day that Servius Tullius, the 6th king of Rome, dedicated the the temple of Mater Matuta in the 6th century BCE.
During the Matralia, women honored Mater Matuta at dawn...but only single women or women who had been married once were allowed to participate. The women brought golden cakes baked in earthen pots. The mothers did not pray for their own children, but their sister's children. Servants were not allowed in the temple either. But their mistresses brought them in per force and then slapped them and threw them out.
There is much speculation why the treatment of slaves was such at this time. The goddess Matuta did not approve of slaves - perhaps because slaves stand in the shadows that the dawn shines light upon, or perhaps because of the legend that the Greek equivalent of Matuta (Ino) had a husband who lay with slaves.
Here's what's left of the Temple of Mater Matuta and Fortuna (I believe that's a Christian Church in the background which was mostly built on top of the ruins):
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6/11/2009, 3:49 pm
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PerpetuallyCurious
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Re: Matralia
I would love to spend a year in Europe just studying the old ruins from the south to the far north. Especially the more obscure ones that have not been made into tourist traps.
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6/11/2009, 4:08 pm
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Saijen SilverWolf
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Re: Matralia
That makes 2 of us, Curious!
Texas, I love these little tidbits you post!!! Thank you for doing that.
--- Blessed Be,
~*~ Saijen ~*~
~~*~~  .~~*~~ |
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6/11/2009, 9:16 pm
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TexasMadness
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Re: Matralia
Well, you're quite welcome! It makes me sit down and do some research so it gives me an excuse to work in some learnin'. I liked when I posted stuff like this on a more regular basis, but I just got out of the habit.
I'm hoping to keep up on the reading now - I do a lot of google book searches and I've actually been reading old texts from the 1800s on these things. It's cool that out-of-copyright things are free to the public like that now. And it's also interesting to read the differences in the old texts compared to some of the newer neopagan interpretations. Sometimes I'm sure it's from new discoveries but sometimes I bet it's from twisting the old stories! I still prefer the old books either way.
For instance: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities 1878, just there for you to read!
Last edited by TexasMadness, 6/11/2009, 10:11 pm
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6/11/2009, 10:09 pm
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