Meet Juno, Queen of the Gods and Protector of the Roman State

Depending on who you ask, Juno is either a NASA space probe studying Jupiter, or she’s the Roman queen of the gods, wife of Jupiter, god of thunder.

As the Roman counterpart of Hera, the wife of Zeus in Greek mythology, she’s often characterised as a jealous, bitter, and vindictive wife, often punishing the nymphs or goddesses with whom Jupiter had various dalliances.

Yet Juno doesn’t get much credit for her incredible loyalty, even if Jupiter cannot manage the same in return.

That said, she has some additional qualities that come with her absorption by the Roman state. These make her a much more interesting figure within Roman religion and explain why she was so popular in ancient Rome.

And that’s what we’re going to look at today!

Who was Juno?

She was one of the three most important deities in Rome. The other two were her husband Jupiter, and Jupiter’s daughter Minerva. Together, they’re sometimes referred to as the Capitoline Triad.

Her parents were Saturn and Ops, while her siblings were Jupiter, Neptune, Vesta, Pluto, and Ceres. She also gave her name to the month of June.

Where the genius was the deity that accompanied each man throughout his life, the juno was the female equivalent.

While she is often equated with Hera, Juno isn’t just an imitation of a goddess from another culture. As we shall see, she seems to have long roots in Italy. Writer Valerius Maximus portrayed the goddess as stern, quick to anger, and concerned with morality and chastity. He also stressed her ability to intervene in worldly affairs (Mueller 2002: 21). This helps to explain some of her popularity.

What was Juno the goddess of?

Juno protected women and had jurisdiction over anything to do with women’s lives. Her huge range of epithets lets us see her working in specific ways, so Juno Iugalis is the goddess of marriage, while Juno Lucina was a childbirth goddess.

Juno Regina was her state aspect linked with the military, and as Juno Sospita, she protected warriors. This version of Juno often appears related to affairs of state, underlining her protective nature, and consuls went to her temple at Lanuvium every year to worship Juno Sospita. This version of the goddess also existed independently of Rome, being incorporated into the pantheon after the Romans seized Lanuvium.

A list of omens and portents acted as indications of divine wrath, though many of the ones linked with Juno Sospita happened at times when the Roman state was in peril (Hermans 2012: 331).

Meanwhile, Juno Moneta was another warlike aspect and her name translated to ‘Juno the Warner’. Here, her prophetic abilities helped to protect the state. Coins were minted near her temple, and I have seen some people breathlessly declare this aspect as a goddess of money, but that’s oversimplifying the issue.

Another version of Juno saw her linked to the new moon, as Juno Covella. This could explain why the kalends, or the day of the new moon, was considered sacred to Juno. The Kalends of March was especially important, since husbands gave their wives presents to celebrate the Matronalia.

Where did Juno come from?

Some scholars think her cult originally came from central Italy, long before the Romans looked to Hera for inspiration. It’s possible that she was originally part of the Sabine pantheon. The earliest altars to Juno were dedicated by Titus Tatius, a Sabine king (Apel 2023).

Others think that Juno was originally the Etruscan goddess Uni, meaning she came from northern Italy. That said, the idea Juno came from the Sabine culture is considered more likely (Apel 2023).

Juno Sospita complicates matters too, as no one is entirely sure how old her cult is. Yet it seems Juno predates the Romans, making her an incredibly ancient character – long before the comparisons with Hera come along.

In one ancient legend, a local Latin goddess named Fortuna nurses twin babies, Jupiter and Juno. By the 19th century, a new inscription emerged that recast Fortuna as Jupiter’s daughter, rather than his mother. Yet Jupiter and Juno remain the sovereign couple.

Representing Juno

She’s usually shown wearing a tunic or a cloak, while she nearly always wears a diadem or crown to signify her role as queen of the gods. Peacocks were Juno’s sacred birds. In some images, she’s riding in a golden chariot pulled by peacocks.

Most statues depict Juno Regina, where she holds a sceptre and a libation bowl.

As Juno Sospita, she wore a horned goatskin, pointed shoes and carried a shield and spear. The peacock at her side is sometimes replaced by a snake for Juno Sospita. Rianne Hermans suggests this snake is actually Draco (2016: 214). A serpent was linked with Juno Sospita through a rite associated with her temple at Lanuvium, which may explain the serpent on coins featuring this aspect of the goddess.

That said, her Greek counterpart Hera is also linked with a serpent. The dragon, Ladon, guards her golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides. In one version of the myth, Hercules kills Ladon as one of his labours, and a distraught Juno places Ladon in the sky as the Draco constellation.

Some of Juno Sospita’s iconography looks very similar to that of Minerva, goddess of war, except the diadem gives Juno away. Juno’s epithet of Sospita presents her as ‘saviour’ (Hermans 2016: 200).

Worshipping Juno

Juno was worshipped throughout central Italy, as well as in Rome. She also appeared elsewhere in the empire as Juno Dolichena, the consort of Jupiter Dolichenus.

People offered coins to Juno Lucina before every birth. After a successful birth, families set up a whole table of gifts for Juno Lucina for a month (Apel 2023).

Juno Lucina also played a role in the Lupercalia, the mid-February fertility festival. The goat skins used to ‘whip’ women to make them fertile were sacred to Juno.

Not much is known about how people worshipped Juno Sospito, though it seems that an annual sacrifice was involved.

Myths Involving Juno

One of the fascinating things about Juno is the role she plays in the rise of Rome. This is something unique to Juno, and absent from myths about Hera. Surprisingly, for a figure so intrinsically tied to the state, Juno often opposed the empire.

According to the Aeneid by Virgil, Juno was the patron goddess of the city of Carthage. She hated Aeneas, a hero from Troy. Throughout the poem, Juno hounds Aeneas, but eventually, Aeneas must triumph as he is the ancestor of the Romans.

In another myth about the early days of Rome, Juno intercedes on behalf of the Sabines, who invaded Rome. Romulus, Rome’s first king, had told his subjects to kidnap Sabine women to provide wives, and their husbands and fathers attacked Rome to get them back. It is Juno that opens the Janus Gate to let them into Rome (Apel 2023). Given her apparent importance to the Sabines, it’s hardly surprising Juno would weigh in on their side.

It wasn’t all bad.

The Romans shut themselves in the city after the Gauls defeated them in c. 387 BCE. When the Gauls tried to scale the walls at night, the geese in Juno’s precinct made so much noise that the Roman soldiers woke up and fought off the Gauls. This myth was important in showing Juno’s protection of Rome, rather than her always standing against it (Apel 2023).

Other myths are more familiar from the Greek stories they borrow from. In one example, Juno was jealous that Jupiter had given birth to Minerva from his forehead. She visited Flora, the goddess of flowers, who touched her with a special flower – some say it was a foxglove. Juno conceived Mars as a result, and Juno showered Flora with honours to show her gratitude.

In another myth, Juno is convinced that Jupiter is having an affair with a nymph named Io. Juno turns Io into a heifer and places Argus, a loyal servant on guard. Argus has a hundred eyes, so whenever some of them are asleep, the others are awake.

Jupiter sends his son Mercury to see Argus, and he lulls him to sleep. Once all one hundred eyes are closed, Mercury cuts off Argus’ head. Juno is upset at the death of her servant, and she mounts his eyes in a peacock’s tail to honour him.

What do we make of her?

Juno is indeed a complex figure, far more than I can do justice to here. Her protection over women is only one aspect to her; elsewhere, she enjoys a triple aspect of fertility, sovereignty, and war. I can’t help thinking this makes her more interesting than being just the wife of Jupiter.

Scholars might argue about whether Juno is simply the Roman version of Hera, or whether Juno is the product of cultural exchanges between pre-Roman people and the Greeks. In a lot of ways, this is beyond the scope of this blog, which is concerned with folklore.

So as far as ordinary people went, they certainly had an interest in this fascinating and multi-faceted goddess. From offerings to give thanks for a safe birth, to celebrating the new moon every month, people had reasons to celebrate Juno. Maybe we should too.

What do you think of this fascinating goddess?

References

Apel, Thomas (2023), ‘Juno’, Mythopedia, 19 May. 2023. https://mythopedia.com/topics/juno. Accessed on 7 Jul. 2023.

Hermans, Rianne (2012), ‘Juno Sospita: A Foreign Goddess through Roman Eyes’, in Saskia T. Roselaar (ed.), Processes of Integration and Identity Formation in the Roman Republic, Leiden: Brill, pp. 327-336.

Hermans, Rianne (2016), ‘Juno Sospita and the draco: Myth, Image, and Ritual in the Landscape of the Alban Hills’, in Jeremy McInerney and Ineke Sluiter (eds), Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity: Natural Environment and Cultural Imagination, Leiden: Brill, pp. 196-227.

Mueller, Hans-Friedrich (2002), Roman Religion in Valerius Maximus, London: Routledge.