In ancient Roman religion

Religion in ancient Rome

Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

 and myth

Roman mythology

Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...

, Lucina was the goddess of childbirth

Childbirth

Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...

. She safeguarded the lives of women in labour. Later, Lucina was an epithet

Epithet

An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...

 for Juno

Hera

Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...

. The name was generally taken to have the sense of "she who brings children into the light" (Latin: lux "light"), but may actually have been derived from lucus ("grove") after a sacred grove of lotus tree

Lotus tree

The lotus tree is a plant that occurs in two stories from Greek mythology:* In Homer's Odyssey, the lotus bore a fruit that caused a pleasant drowsiness and was the only food of an island people called the Lotophagi or Lotus-eaters...

s on the Esquiline Hill

Esquiline Hill

The Esquiline Hill is one of the celebrated Seven Hills of Rome. Its southern-most cusp is the Oppius .-Etymology:The origin of the name Esquilino is still under much debate. One view is that the Hill was named after the abundance of holm-oaks, exculi, that resided there...

 associated with the goddess. The asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 146 Lucina

146 Lucina

146 Lucina is a main-belt asteroid. It is large, dark and has a carbonaceous composition.It was discovered by Alphonse Borrelly on June 8, 1875, and named after Lucina, the Roman goddess of childbirth....

 is named after the goddess.

Lucina was chief among a number of deities who influenced or guided every aspect of birth and child development, such as Vagitanus

Vagitanus

In ancient Roman religion, Vagitanus or Vaticanus was one of a number of childbirth deities who influenced or guided some aspect of parturition, in this instance the newborn's crying. The name is related to the Latin noun vagitus, "crying, squalling, wailing," particularly by a baby or an animal,...

, who opened the newborn's mouth to cry, and Fabulinus

Fabulinus

In the popular religion of ancient Rome, though not appearing in literary Roman mythology, the god Fabulinus taught children to speak. He received an offering when the child spoke its first words...

, who enabled the child's first articulate speech. Among other minor deities within this sphere of influence were the Di nixi, Alemonia

Alemonia

In ancient Roman religion, the goddess Alemonia or Alemona was responsible for feeding fetuses in utero.Early Roman religion was concerned with the interlocking and complex interrelations between gods and humans. In this, the Romans maintained a large selection of divinities with unusually specific...

, Partula, Prorsa Postverta, Levana

Levana

In ancient Roman religion, Levana was the goddess of newborn babies. Her name comes from the practice of the father lifting the child off the ground where it was placed by the child's mother to show that he officially accepts the child as his own.Thomas de Quincey's prose poem Levana and Our...

, Cunina

Cunina

In ancient Roman religion, Cunina was a minor goddess of infants. She was responsible for guarding the cradle.Early Roman religion was concerned with the interlocking and complex interrelations between gods and humans. In this, the Romans maintained a large selection of divinities with unusually...

, Rumina

Rumina

In ancient Roman religion, Rumina, also known as Diva Rumina, was a goddess who protected breastfeeding mothers, and possibly nursing infants. Her domain extended to protecting animal mothers, not just human ones...

, Potina

Potina

In ancient Roman religion, Potina was the goddess of children's drinks.Early Roman religion was concerned with the interlocking and complex interrelations between gods and humans. In this, the Romans maintained a large selection of divinities with unusually specific areas of authority. A sub-group...

, Edusa, Sentia

Sentia

This article is about the goddess. For the automobile, see Mazda Sentia.In ancient Roman religion, Sentia was the goddess who oversaw children's mental development. It is also said it was the goddess who gave awareness to the young child....

, Statanus

Statanus

In Roman mythology, Statanus, also known as Statulinus or Statilinus, was a deity who presided over a child's first attempts to stand up. Statanus, along with his wife, Statina, guarded children as they left their parents' homes for the first time and then returned...

, Abeona

Abeona

In ancient Roman religion, Abeona was a goddess who protected children the first time they left their parents' home, safeguarding their first steps alone....

, and Paventia

Paventia

In ancient Roman religion, Paventia or Paventina was a divine personification of fear. She is one of many Roman deities whose name embodies a "functional focus." In particular, she is said to avert fear from infants. She appears in lists made by early Christian writers mocking minor deities who...

.