Lympha
Encyclopedia
The Lympha is an ancient Roman deity
of fresh water. She is one of twelve agricultural deities listed by Varro
as "leaders" (duces) of Roman farmers
, because "without water all agriculture is dry and poor." The Lymphae are often connected to Fons
, "Source" or "Font," a god of fountains and wellheads
. Lympha represents a "functional focus" of fresh water, according to Michael Lipka's conceptual approach to Roman deity, or more generally moisture.
Vitruvius
preserves some of her associations in the section of his work On Architecture
in which he describes how the design of a temple building (aedes) should reflect the nature of the deity to be housed therein:
The name Lympha is equivalent to, but not entirely interchangeable with nympha, "nymph
." One dedication for restoring the water supply was made nymphis lymphisque augustis, "for the nymphs and august
lymphae," distinguishing the two as does a passage from Augustine of Hippo
. In poetic usage, lymphae as a common noun, plural or less often singular, can mean a source of fresh water, or simply "water"; compare her frequent companion Fons, whose name is a word for "fountain," but who is also invoked as a deity.
When she appears in a list of proper names for deities, Lympha is seen as an object of religious reverence embodying the divine aspect of water. Like several other nature deities who appear in both the singular and the plural (such as Faunus
/faun
i), she has both a unified and a multiple aspect. She was the appropriate deity to pray to for maintaining the water supply, in the way that Liber
provided wine or Ceres bread.
(Υ,υ) and phi
(Φ,φ) are normally transcribed into Latin as u or y and ph or f.
That Lympha is an Italic concept is indicated by the Oscan
cognate
diumpā- (recorded in the dative
plural, diumpaís, "for the lymphae"), with a characteristic alternation of d for l. These goddesses appear on the Tabula Agnonensis as one of 17 Samnite
deities, who include the equivalents of Flora, Proserpina, and possibly Venus (all categorized with the Lymphae by Vitruvius), as well as several of the gods on Varro's list of the 12 agricultural deities. On the Oscan tablet, they appear in a group of deities who provide moisture for crops. In the Etruscan-based cosmological schema of Martianus Capella
, the Lymphae are placed in the second of 16 celestial regions, with Jupiter
, Quirinus
, Mars
(these three constituting the Archaic Triad), the Military Lar
, Juno
, Fons, and the obscure Italo-Etruscan Novensiles. A 1st-century A.D. dedication was made to the Lymphae jointly with Diana
.
The Italic lymphae were connected with healing cults. Juturna
, who is usually called a "nymph," is identified by Varro as Lympha: "Juturna is the Lympha who aids: therefore many ailing people on account of her name customarily seek out this water", with a play on the name Iu-turna and the verb iuvare, "to help, aid." Her water shrine was a spring-fed lacus
in the forum
which attracted cure-seekers, and Propertius connected its potency to Lake Albano and Lake Nemi
, where the famous sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis
was located. Juturna's cult, which Servius identifies as a fons, was maintained to ensure the water supply, and she was the mother of the deity Fons.
In Cisalpine Gaul
, an inscription links the Lymphae to the Vires, "(Physical) Powers, Vigor", personified as a set of masculine divinities, a connection that in his monumental work Zeus Arthur Bernard Cook
located in the flowing or liquid aspect of the Lymphae as it relates to the production of seminal fluid
. As a complement to the Vires, the Lymphae and the nymphs with whom they became so closely identified embody the urge to procreate, and thus these kinds of water deities are also associated with marriage and childbirth. When Propertius alludes to the story of how Tiresias
spied the virgin goddess Pallas Athena bathing, he plays on the sexual properties of lympha in advising against theophanies
obtained against the will of the gods: "May the gods grant you other fountains (fontes): this liquid (lympha) flows for girls only, this pathless trickle of a secret threshold."
The Augustan poets
frequently play with the ambiguous dual meaning of lympha as both "water source" and "nymph". In the poetry of Horace
, lymphae work, dance, and make noise; they are talkative, and when they're angry they cause drought until their rites are observed. Some textual editors
have responded to this personification by emending manuscript
readings of lymphae to nymphae. When the first letter of a form of -ympha is obliterated or indistinct in an inscription, the word is usually taken as nympha instead of the less common lympha.
territories, water goddesses are commonly sources of inspiration or divine revelation, which may have the appearance of madness or frenzy. In Greek, "nympholepsy" ("seizure by the nymphs") was primarily "a heightening of awareness and elevated verbal skills" resulting from the influence of the nymphs on an individual. The term also meant a physical snatching or abduction of a person by the nymphs, as in the myth of Hylas
, and by extension became a euphemism or metaphor for death, as evidenced by both Greek and Roman epitaphs. A person who was a religious devotee of the nymphs might also be called a "nympholept."
The Latin verb lympho, lymphare meant "to drive crazy" or "to be in a state of frenzy," with the adjectives lymphaticus and lymphatus meaning "frenzied, deranged" and the abstract noun lymphatio referring to the state itself. Vergil uses the adjective lymphata only once, in the Aeneid
to describe the madness of Amata
, wife of Latinus
, goaded by the Fury Allecto and raving contrary to mos
, socially sanctioned behavior.
Among the Greeks, the Cult of the Nymphs was a part of ecstatic
Orphic
or Dionysiac religion
. The adjective lymphatus was "strongly evocative of Bacchic frenzy," and the Roman playwright
Pacuvius
(220–130 BC) explicitly connects it to sacra Bacchi, "rites of Bacchus
." R.B. Onians explained the "fluidity" of the ecstatic gods in the context of ancient theories about the relation of body and mind, with dryness a quality of rationality and liquid productive of emotion. Water as a locus of divine, even frenzied inspiration links the Lymphae to the Latin Camenae
, who became identified with the Muses.
In his entry on Lymphae, the lexicographer Festus
notes that the Greek word nympha had influenced the Latin name, and elaborates:
Because the states of madness, possession, and illness were not always strictly distinguished in antiquity, "nympholepsy" became a morbid or undesirable condition. Isidore
compares Greek hydrophobia, which literally means "fear of water," and says that "lymphaticus is the word for one who contracts a disease from water, making him run about hither and thither, or from the disease gotten from a flow of water." In poetic usage, he adds, the lymphatici are madmen.
During the Christianization
of the Empire in late antiquity
, the positive effects of possession by a nymph were erased, and nymphs were syncretized
with fallen angel
s and dangerous figures such as the Lamia
and Gello
. Tertullian
amplifies from a Christian
perspective anxieties that unclean spirit
s might lurk in various water sources, noting that men whom waters (aquae) have killed or driven to madness or a terrified state are called "nymph-caught (nympholeptos) or lymphatic or hydrophobic."
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...
of fresh water. She is one of twelve agricultural deities listed by Varro
Varro
Varro was a Roman cognomen carried by:*Marcus Terentius Varro, sometimes known as Varro Reatinus, the scholar*Publius Terentius Varro or Varro Atacinus, the poet*Gaius Terentius Varro, the consul defeated at the battle of Cannae...
as "leaders" (duces) of Roman farmers
Roman agriculture
Agriculture in ancient Rome was not only a necessity, but was idealized among the social elite as a way of life. Cicero considered farming the best of all Roman occupations...
, because "without water all agriculture is dry and poor." The Lymphae are often connected to Fons
Fontus
In ancient Roman religion, Fontus or Fons was a god of wells and springs. A religious festival called the Fontinalia was held on October 13 in his honor. Throughout the city, fountains and wellheads were adorned with garlands.Fons was the son of Juturna and Janus...
, "Source" or "Font," a god of fountains and wellheads
Puteal
A puteal was a classical wellhead, round or sometimes square, set round a well opening to keep people from falling in. Such well heads might be of marble, enriched with bas-reliefs...
. Lympha represents a "functional focus" of fresh water, according to Michael Lipka's conceptual approach to Roman deity, or more generally moisture.
Vitruvius
Vitruvius
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He is best known as the author of the multi-volume work De Architectura ....
preserves some of her associations in the section of his work On Architecture
De architectura
' is a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect Vitruvius and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus, as a guide for building projects...
in which he describes how the design of a temple building (aedes) should reflect the nature of the deity to be housed therein:
The character of the Corinthian orderCorinthian orderThe Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...
seems more appropriate to VenusVenus (mythology)Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
, Flora, ProserpinaProserpinaProserpina or Proserpine is an ancient Roman goddess whose story is the basis of a myth of Springtime. Her Greek goddess' equivalent is Persephone. The probable origin of her name comes from the Latin, "proserpere" or "to emerge," in respect to the growing of grain...
, and the Nymphs [Lymphae] of the Fountains; because its slenderness, elegance and richness, and its ornamental leaves surmounted by voluteVoluteA volute is a spiral scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals...
s, seem to bear an analogy to their dispositions.
The name Lympha is equivalent to, but not entirely interchangeable with nympha, "nymph
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
." One dedication for restoring the water supply was made nymphis lymphisque augustis, "for the nymphs and august
Augustus (honorific)
Augustus , Latin for "majestic," "the increaser," or "venerable", was an Ancient Roman title, which was first held by Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus , and subsequently came to be considered one of the titles of what are now known as the Roman Emperors...
lymphae," distinguishing the two as does a passage from Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
. In poetic usage, lymphae as a common noun, plural or less often singular, can mean a source of fresh water, or simply "water"; compare her frequent companion Fons, whose name is a word for "fountain," but who is also invoked as a deity.
When she appears in a list of proper names for deities, Lympha is seen as an object of religious reverence embodying the divine aspect of water. Like several other nature deities who appear in both the singular and the plural (such as Faunus
Faunus
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the horned god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan....
/faun
Faun
The faun is a rustic forest god or place-spirit of Roman mythology often associated with Greek satyrs and the Greek god Pan.-Origins:...
i), she has both a unified and a multiple aspect. She was the appropriate deity to pray to for maintaining the water supply, in the way that Liber
Liber
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Liber , also known as Liber Pater was a god of viticulture and wine, fertility and freedom. He was a patron deity of Rome's plebeians and was part of their Aventine Triad. His festival of Liberalia became associated with free speech and the rights...
provided wine or Ceres bread.
Name and Italic origins
The origin of the word lympha is obscure. It may originally have been lumpa or limpa, related to the adjective limpidus meaning "clear, transparent" especially applied to liquids. An intermediate form lumpha is also found. The spelling seems to have been influenced by the Greek word nympha, as the upsilonUpsilon
Upsilon is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw. The name of the letter is pronounced in Modern Greek, and in English , , or...
(Υ,υ) and phi
Phi
Phi may refer to:In language:*Phi, the Greek letter Φ,φ, the symbol for voiceless bilabial fricativeIn mathematics:*The Golden ratio*Euler's totient function*A statistical measure of association reported with the chi-squared test...
(Φ,φ) are normally transcribed into Latin as u or y and ph or f.
That Lympha is an Italic concept is indicated by the Oscan
Oscan language
Oscan is a term used to describe both an extinct language of southern Italy and the language group to which it belonged.The Oscan language was spoken by a number of tribes, including the Samnites, the Aurunci, the Sidicini, and the Ausones. The latter three tribes were often grouped under the name...
cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
diumpā- (recorded in the dative
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
plural, diumpaís, "for the lymphae"), with a characteristic alternation of d for l. These goddesses appear on the Tabula Agnonensis as one of 17 Samnite
Samnium
Samnium is a Latin exonym for a region of south or south and central Italy in Roman times. The name survives in Italian today, but today's territory comprising it is only a small portion of what it once was. The populations of Samnium were called Samnites by the Romans...
deities, who include the equivalents of Flora, Proserpina, and possibly Venus (all categorized with the Lymphae by Vitruvius), as well as several of the gods on Varro's list of the 12 agricultural deities. On the Oscan tablet, they appear in a group of deities who provide moisture for crops. In the Etruscan-based cosmological schema of Martianus Capella
Martianus Capella
Martianus Minneus Felix Capella was a pagan writer of Late Antiquity, one of the earliest developers of the system of the seven liberal arts that structured early medieval education...
, the Lymphae are placed in the second of 16 celestial regions, with Jupiter
Jupiter (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
, Quirinus
Quirinus
In Roman mythology, Quirinus was an early god of the Roman state. In Augustan Rome, Quirinus was also an epithet of Janus, as Janus Quirinus. His name is derived from Quiris meaning "spear."-History:...
, Mars
Mars (mythology)
Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions...
(these three constituting the Archaic Triad), the Military Lar
Lares
Lares , archaically Lases, were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries or fruitfulness, hero-ancestors, or an amalgam of these....
, Juno
Juno (mythology)
Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan. Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent is Hera...
, Fons, and the obscure Italo-Etruscan Novensiles. A 1st-century A.D. dedication was made to the Lymphae jointly with Diana
Diana (mythology)
In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt and moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy...
.
The Italic lymphae were connected with healing cults. Juturna
Juturna
In the myth and religion of ancient Rome, Juturna was a goddess of fountains, wells and springs. She was a sister of Turnus and supported him against Aeneas by giving him his sword after he dropped it in battle, as well as taking him away from the battle when it seemed he would get killed...
, who is usually called a "nymph," is identified by Varro as Lympha: "Juturna is the Lympha who aids: therefore many ailing people on account of her name customarily seek out this water", with a play on the name Iu-turna and the verb iuvare, "to help, aid." Her water shrine was a spring-fed lacus
Lacus Juturnae
The Lacus Iuturnae — or Lacus Juturnae or Spring of Juturna — is the name of a formal pool built by the Romans near a spring or well in the Roman Forum...
in the forum
Roman Forum
The Roman Forum is a rectangular forum surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, or simply the Forum...
which attracted cure-seekers, and Propertius connected its potency to Lake Albano and Lake Nemi
Lake Nemi
Lake Nemi is a small circular volcanic lake in the Lazio region of Italy south of Rome, taking its name from Nemi, the largest town in the area, that overlooks it from a height.-Archaeology and history:The lake is most famous for its sunken Roman ships...
, where the famous sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis
Diana Nemorensis
Diana Nemorensis, "Diana of Nemi" also known as “Diana of the Wood”, was an Italic form of the goddess who became Hellenised during the fourth century BCE and conflated with Artemis. Her sanctuary was to be found on the northern shore of Lake Nemi beneath the cliffs of the modern city Nemi...
was located. Juturna's cult, which Servius identifies as a fons, was maintained to ensure the water supply, and she was the mother of the deity Fons.
In Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul, in Latin: Gallia Cisalpina or Citerior, also called Gallia Togata, was a Roman province until 41 BC when it was merged into Roman Italy.It bore the name Gallia, because the great body of its inhabitants, after the expulsion of the Etruscans, consisted of Gauls or Celts...
, an inscription links the Lymphae to the Vires, "(Physical) Powers, Vigor", personified as a set of masculine divinities, a connection that in his monumental work Zeus Arthur Bernard Cook
Arthur Bernard Cook
Arthur Bernard Cook was a British classical scholar, known for work in archaeology and the history of religions. He is best known for his three-part work Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. He is often considered one of the Cambridge Ritualists...
located in the flowing or liquid aspect of the Lymphae as it relates to the production of seminal fluid
Semen
Semen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
. As a complement to the Vires, the Lymphae and the nymphs with whom they became so closely identified embody the urge to procreate, and thus these kinds of water deities are also associated with marriage and childbirth. When Propertius alludes to the story of how Tiresias
Tiresias
In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo; Tiresias participated fully in seven generations at Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus...
spied the virgin goddess Pallas Athena bathing, he plays on the sexual properties of lympha in advising against theophanies
Theophany
Theophany, from the Ancient Greek , meaning "appearance of God"), refers to the appearance of a deity to a human or other being, or to a divine disclosure....
obtained against the will of the gods: "May the gods grant you other fountains (fontes): this liquid (lympha) flows for girls only, this pathless trickle of a secret threshold."
The Augustan poets
Augustan literature (ancient Rome)
Augustan literature is the period of Latin literature written during the reign of Augustus , the first Roman emperor. In literary histories of the first part of the 20th century and earlier, Augustan literature was regarded along with that of the Late Republic as constituting the Golden Age of...
frequently play with the ambiguous dual meaning of lympha as both "water source" and "nymph". In the poetry of Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
, lymphae work, dance, and make noise; they are talkative, and when they're angry they cause drought until their rites are observed. Some textual editors
Textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
have responded to this personification by emending manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
readings of lymphae to nymphae. When the first letter of a form of -ympha is obliterated or indistinct in an inscription, the word is usually taken as nympha instead of the less common lympha.
Divine madness
In the religions of ancient Greece, Rome, and the CelticCeltic polytheism
Celtic polytheism, commonly known as Celtic paganism, refers to the religious beliefs and practices adhered to by the Iron Age peoples of Western Europe now known as the Celts, roughly between 500 BCE and 500 CE, spanning the La Tène period and the Roman era, and in the case of the Insular Celts...
territories, water goddesses are commonly sources of inspiration or divine revelation, which may have the appearance of madness or frenzy. In Greek, "nympholepsy" ("seizure by the nymphs") was primarily "a heightening of awareness and elevated verbal skills" resulting from the influence of the nymphs on an individual. The term also meant a physical snatching or abduction of a person by the nymphs, as in the myth of Hylas
Hylas
In Greek mythology, Hylas was the son of King Theiodamas of the Dryopians. Roman sources such as Ovid state that Hylas' father was Hercules and his mother was the nymph Melite, or that his mother was the wife of Theiodamas, whose adulterous affair with Heracles caused the war between him and her...
, and by extension became a euphemism or metaphor for death, as evidenced by both Greek and Roman epitaphs. A person who was a religious devotee of the nymphs might also be called a "nympholept."
The Latin verb lympho, lymphare meant "to drive crazy" or "to be in a state of frenzy," with the adjectives lymphaticus and lymphatus meaning "frenzied, deranged" and the abstract noun lymphatio referring to the state itself. Vergil uses the adjective lymphata only once, in the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
to describe the madness of Amata
Amata
Amata , in Roman mythology, was the wife of King Latinus of the Latins. She and Latinus had a daughter, Lavinia, and no sons. When the hero Aeneas sued for Lavinia's hand in marriage, Amata opposed him because she had already promised Lavinia to Aeneas' nemesis Turnus. At the same time she was...
, wife of Latinus
Latinus
Latinus was a figure in both Greek and Roman mythology.-Greek mythology:In Hesiod's Theogony, Latinus was the son of Odysseus and Circe who ruled the Tyrsenoi, presumably the Etruscans, with his brothers Ardeas and Telegonus...
, goaded by the Fury Allecto and raving contrary to mos
Mos maiorum
The mos maiorum is the unwritten code from which the ancient Romans derived their social norms. It is the core concept of Roman traditionalism, distinguished from but in dynamic complement to written law. The mos maiorum The mos maiorum ("ancestral custom") is the unwritten code from which the...
, socially sanctioned behavior.
Among the Greeks, the Cult of the Nymphs was a part of ecstatic
Religious ecstasy
Religious ecstasy is an altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness which is frequently accompanied by visions and emotional/intuitive euphoria...
Orphic
Orphism (religion)
Orphism is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices in the ancient Greek and the Hellenistic world, as well as by the Thracians, associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus, who descended into Hades and returned...
or Dionysiac religion
Dionysian Mysteries
The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. It also provided some liberation for those marginalized by Greek...
. The adjective lymphatus was "strongly evocative of Bacchic frenzy," and the Roman playwright
Theatre of ancient Rome
The theatre of ancient Rome was a thriving and diverse art form, ranging from festival performances of street theatre, nude dancing, and acrobatics, to the staging of Plautus's broadly appealing situation comedies, to the high-style, verbally elaborate tragedies of Seneca...
Pacuvius
Pacuvius
Marcus Pacuvius was the greatest of the tragic poets of ancient Rome prior to Lucius Accius.He was the nephew and pupil of Ennius, by whom Roman tragedy was first raised to a position of influence and dignity...
(220–130 BC) explicitly connects it to sacra Bacchi, "rites of Bacchus
Bacchus
Bacchus is the Roman name for Dionysus, the god of wine and intoxication.Bacchus can also refer to:* Temple of Bacchus, a Roman temple at a large classical antiquity complex in Baalbek, Lebanon...
." R.B. Onians explained the "fluidity" of the ecstatic gods in the context of ancient theories about the relation of body and mind, with dryness a quality of rationality and liquid productive of emotion. Water as a locus of divine, even frenzied inspiration links the Lymphae to the Latin Camenae
Camenae
In Roman mythology, the Camenae were originally goddesses of childbirth, wells and fountains, and also prophetic deities.There were four Camenae:*Carmenta*Egeria*Antevorta, or Porrima...
, who became identified with the Muses.
In his entry on Lymphae, the lexicographer Festus
Sextus Pompeius Festus
Sextus Pompeius Festus was a Roman grammarian, who probably flourished in the later 2nd century AD, perhaps at Narbo in Gaul.He made an epitome in 20 volumes of the encyclopedic treatise in many volumes De verborum significatu, of Verrius Flaccus, a celebrated grammarian who flourished in the...
notes that the Greek word nympha had influenced the Latin name, and elaborates:
Popular belief has it that whoever see a certain vision in a fountain, that is, an apparition of a nymph, will go quite mad. These people the Greeks call numpholêptoi ["Nymph-possessed"] and the Romans, lymphatici.
Because the states of madness, possession, and illness were not always strictly distinguished in antiquity, "nympholepsy" became a morbid or undesirable condition. Isidore
Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...
compares Greek hydrophobia, which literally means "fear of water," and says that "lymphaticus is the word for one who contracts a disease from water, making him run about hither and thither, or from the disease gotten from a flow of water." In poetic usage, he adds, the lymphatici are madmen.
During the Christianization
Christianization
The historical phenomenon of Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once...
of the Empire in late antiquity
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
, the positive effects of possession by a nymph were erased, and nymphs were syncretized
Syncretism
Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...
with fallen angel
Fallen angel
Fallen angel is a concept developed in Jewish mythology from interpretation of the Book of Enoch. The actual term fallen angel is not found in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. Christians adopted the concept of fallen angels mainly based on their interpretations of the Book of...
s and dangerous figures such as the Lamia
Lamia (mythology)
In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet , referring to her habit of devouring children....
and Gello
Gello
In the myth and folklore of the Near East and Europe, Gello is one of the many names for a female demon or revenant who threatens the reproductive cycle by causing infertility, spontaneous abortion, and infant mortality.By the Byzantine era, the gello had become a type of demonic possession...
. Tertullian
Tertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...
amplifies from a Christian
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
perspective anxieties that unclean spirit
Unclean spirit
In English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common rendering of Greek pneuma akatharton , which in its single occurrence in the Septuagint translates Hebrew ....
s might lurk in various water sources, noting that men whom waters (aquae) have killed or driven to madness or a terrified state are called "nymph-caught (nympholeptos) or lymphatic or hydrophobic."
See also
- FonsFontusIn ancient Roman religion, Fontus or Fons was a god of wells and springs. A religious festival called the Fontinalia was held on October 13 in his honor. Throughout the city, fountains and wellheads were adorned with garlands.Fons was the son of Juturna and Janus...
- NymphNymphA nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
- NymphaeumNymphaeumA nymphaeum or nymphaion , in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs....
- LymphLymphLymph is considered a part of the interstitial fluid, the fluid which lies in the interstices of all body tissues. Interstitial fluid becomes lymph when it enters a lymph capillary...
, lymph nodeLymph nodeA lymph node is a small ball or an oval-shaped organ of the immune system, distributed widely throughout the body including the armpit and stomach/gut and linked by lymphatic vessels. Lymph nodes are garrisons of B, T, and other immune cells. Lymph nodes are found all through the body, and act as...
s and the lymphatic systemLymphatic systemThe lymphoid system is the part of the immune system comprising a network of conduits called lymphatic vessels that carry a clear fluid called lymph unidirectionally toward the heart. Lymphoid tissue is found in many organs, particularly the lymph nodes, and in the lymphoid follicles associated...
derive from the word lympha