Fülöp Gyula (szerk.): Festschrift für Jenő Fitz - Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei. B. sorozat 47. (Székesfehérvár, 1996)

M. Šašel Kos: The gooddess Aecorna in Emona

difficult to build dwellings. A note in Tacitus (Ann., 1,16 ff.) is illustrative of how inhospitable this marshland must have seemed to the future colonists. One of the complaints raised by soldiers of the Pannonian legions who had mutinied in A.D. 14 was that after a long service, apud horridas gentes, those of them who survived their service were given, instead of fields, marshland and desolate mountains, unsuitable for cultivating (ubi per nomen agrorum uligines paludum vel inculta montium accipiant). As colonia Iulia Emona had just been founded at that time, it is clear that the note in Tacitus refers to the Ljubljana Marshland.53 The Romans gradually began to drain it; but up to the Roman period it must have looked impressive, doubtless exercising a great impact on the imagination of the local people.

In trying to elucidate the role of Aecoma it may once again be useful to take as a starting point the broad North-Adriatic area and compare her to some of the local deities known to have been worshipped in Liburnia, in Istria, and in Venetia. The origin of her cult must probably have sprung from similarly primitive credences as those of the Veneti, of whom it is known that they liked to build their sactuaries in groves, often along rivers, by lakes, or springs, as well as by swamps.54 Theopompus describes how at sowing-time they offered flat cakes to the crows, in the hope of preventing them from devouring the seeds (preserved in Aelian and others, see FGrHist II A, pp. 594-595).5S These birds were perhaps regarded by the Veneti as the souls of their dead. Strabo reports (5,1, 9, c. 215) that they worshipped Diomedes, to whom they used to sacrifice a white horse,56 further remarking that two groves were especially revered in their country, one sacred to the Argive Hera, the other to the Aetolie Artemis. These were apparently two Venetic goddesses, one a patroness of arms and marriage rites, the other of pastoral life and hunting, protectress of animals, whose cult must have been similar to the cult of the earlier mentioned Greek goddesses. These are cults closely connected with nature and its mysterious, divine powers, whether health-bringing or evilbringing, on which man was greatly dependent, and with such important turning-points in Hie as coming of age, military education, and marriage. It is interesting that the deities known from the Venetic inscriptions, or Latin inscriptions from Venetic sanctuaries, are frequently female deities, some of which may possibly have had their origin in the pre-Indo-European period. Several Venetic goddesses are known, such as Trumusijat- of Làgole and others whose names are not preserved, but one of the best known was certainly the important Venetic deity Reitia, the main goddess of Ateste (present-day Este), worshipped both by men and women. On the basis of ex-voto objects found in her

(53) J. SaSel, Krónika 7 (cit. n. 11), p. 118. A. Melik, Ljubljansko mosliscarsko jezero in dedisiina po njem, Ljubljana 1946, p. 107 ff.

(54) Giulia Fogolari, in: Ead., A.L. Prosdocimi, I Veneti antichi. Linguae cultura, Padova 1988, pp. 169-171 ; A. Mastrocinque, Santuari e divinità dei Paleoveneli, Padova 1987.

(55) A.L. Prosdocimi, Un frammento di Teopompo sui Veneti, Mem. Acc. Patav. 76 (1963-64), pp. 201-223; Mastrocinque, op. cit. (n. 54), p. 129 ff. See also C. Voltán, L'offerta rituale alle “comacchie" presso i Veneti, Archivio Veneto, ser. V, 125 (1985), pp. 5-34.

(56) R. KatiCiC, Diomedes an der Adria (in Croat., with summary), Godifnjak 27, Centar za balkanoloska ispilivanja 25 (1989), pp. 39-78; Mastrocinque, Sanctuari (cit. n. 54), p. 79 ff.

(57) A. Mastrocinque, Sanctuari (cit. n. 54), passim; C.B. Pascal, The

Cults of Cisalpine Gaul (Coll. Latomus, vol. 75), Bruxelles 1964,

p. 112 f.

sanctuary on the estate Baratella it can be concluded that the nature of her cult must have been rather multiform. She presided over the rites connected with the transition from adolescence to adult age, and over marriage rituals; she was the protectress of animals, a healer, perhaps also connected with fertility and childbirth, and a goddess who pronounced oracles. During the 2nd century B.C. or even earlier, she gradually became indentified with Minerva.57 By contrast, no dedications to Aecorna have yet come to light which were erected by a woman, thus it can at least be safely affirmed that she was not a special protectress of women or of typically feminine activities.

Local deities, attested in Istria and Liburnia, are likewise mostly female deities: Eia Augusta is known from Pola and Nesactium,58 and probably, as Heia, also from the island of Cissa (present-day Pag), where she is equated with Bona Dea.59 Ika Augusta, documented at Flanona, was interpreted as a goddess of the water-spring, although discovery of a dedication to the same goddess at Pola made this interpretation dubious.60 Most probably the character of her cult was multiform, such as that of the Venetic goddesses, and being protectress of a waterspring was only one aspect of her divinity. Sentona is attested on several altars which came to light in the Liburnian territory, between Alvona and Flanona, but she is also known on an inscription from Katun, the 10th region.61 Iria Venus is known from Karlovici62, and Venus Anzotica from Aenona in Liburnia.63 Further attested are the Istrian Seixomnia Leucitica from Karojba, Liburnian Latra, and others whose characteristics, however, are not known,

Aecorna fits well into the Pantheon of local North-Adriatic female deities, but she is distinguished from the other goddesses, seemingly at least, by the greater impact which in her own right - and not merely equated to any of the Greco-Roman goddesses - she exercised upon the local inhabitants, and by the weightier role she played in their daily life. This is indicated on the one hand by the fact that her worship survived, unlike that of the earlier mentioned Venetic goddesses, well into the Roman period, and on the other hand by the fact, that the number of dedications to her is relatively great; they were, moreover, erected by persons of every social position, from slave or freedman to officer of equestrian order. Whether she was a Marsh Goddess, and a special protectress of merchants and craftsmen, or, as I think, also a goddess whose role was more complex and at the same time similar to that of some powerful Genius loci, we shall never know exactly; it remains one of the many mysteries which we hope, by studying its various aspects, to define better, but which can never be quite elucidated.

(58) A. Deorassi, Culti dell'Istria preromana e romana, Scritti vari di antichita, p. 159 ff.; In. It. X, 1, Nos. 3, 659, 660; Vesna Girardi lURKié, La continuità dei culti illirici in Istria durante il periodo romano, Atti dei Centro di ricerche storiche di Rovigtio 14 (1983-84), p. 8 f.

(59) IUug, 260.

(60) Df.grassi, ibid. (cit. n. 58); IUug, 415 (Pola); CIL III, 3031 (Flanona).

(61) V. Girardi JurkiC, op. cit. (n. 58), p. 12 f. See also IUug, 448.

(62) Degrassi, op. cit. (n. 58), p. 160; V. Girardi Jurkic, p. 14; CIL III, 3033 (Mommsen wrongly assigns it to the inscriptions from Flanona) = In. It. X, 3, No. 197.

(63) AE 1938, 31 ; 1940, 6. See also Nin, povijesni i umjetnicki spomenici, Zadar 1979, pp. 73-7; cf. J.J. Wilkes, Dalmatia, London 1969, p. 310.

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