Note 712 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 7)

Livy xxxii. 9, cp. 28. In connection with these prodigia it may be worth noting that in xxxii. 30 we are told that a consul vowed a temple to Juno Sospita, who had in her famous seat at Lanuvium been a constant centre of marvel-mongering. Livy xxxiv. 53 places the building of this temple in foro olitorio three years later, if we may read there Sospitae instead of the Matutae of the MSS. with Sigonius: (cp. Aust, de Aedibus, p. 21, and Wissowa, R.K. 117). This interesting deity had been taken into the Roman worship in 338 B.C., but not moved from Lanuvium, which had peculiar religious relations with Rome. See Myth. Lex. vol. ii. p. 608, where the attributes of this Juno in art are described by Vogel. The date of the temple at Rome was 194. Whether the object of it was to diminish the portents at Lanuvium it is impossible to say, but judging from the records of prodigia in Julius Obsequens it had that effect. I find only four prodigia reported from Lanuvium after this date.