Menrva (also spelled Menerva) was an Etruscan goddess of war, art, wisdom, and medicine. She contributed much of her character to the Roman Minerva. She was the child of Uni and

Tinia In Etruscan religion and mythology, Tinia (also Tin, Tinh, Tins or ''Tina'') was the god of the sky and the highest god in Etruscan mythology, equivalent to the Roman Jupiter and the Greek Zeus. However, a primary source from the Roman Varr ...

. Although Menrva was seen by Hellenized Etruscans as their counterpart to

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded ...

, Menrva has some unique traits that make it clear that she was not an import from Greece. Etruscan artists under the influence of Greek culture, however, liked to portray Menrva with

Gorgoneion In Ancient Greece, the Gorgoneion ( Greek: Γοργόνειον) was a special apotropaic amulet showing the Gorgon head, used by the Olympian deities Athena and Zeus: both are said to have worn the gorgoneion as a protective pendant,. and o ...

, helmet, spear, and shield, and, on one mirrorback, as bursting from the head of her father, Tinia. Also, she commonly is seen as the protector of

Hercle In Etruscan religion, Hercle (also ''Heracle'' or ''Hercl''), the son of Tinia and Uni, was a version of the Greek Heracles, depicted as a muscular figure often carrying a club and wearing a lionskin. He is a popular subject in Etruscan art, part ...

(Heracles) and ''Pherse'' ( Perseus). On a bronze mirror found at Praeneste, she attends Perseus, who consults two Graeae, and, on another, holds high the head of

Medusa In Greek mythology, Medusa (; Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα "guardian, protectress"), also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those ...

, while she and seated Perseus and

Hermes Hermes (; grc-gre, wikt:Ἑρμῆς, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travelle ...

all gaze safely at its reflection in a pool at their feet. These images are more likely to reflect literary sources than any cult practice. On a bronze mirror from Bolsena, c. 300 BCE, she is portrayed attending a scene of Prometheus Unbound with Esplace (Asclepius), who bandages Prometheus' chest. Often, Menrva is depicted in a more essentially Etruscan style, as a lightning thrower.

Martianus Martianus Minneus Felix Capella (fl. c. 410–420) was a jurist, polymath and Latin prose writer of late antiquity, one of the earliest developers of the system of the seven liberal arts that structured early medieval education. He was a nati ...

mentions her as one of nine Etruscan lightning deities. Depiction with a thunderbolt may be seen on later Roman coins of Minerva as well. Menrva seems to have been associated with weather phenomena. The Greeks never attributed an association with weather to Athena, making this another important difference between the two religious cults that demonstrates their separate characteristics. Menrva's name is indigenous to Italy and might even be of Etruscan origin, stemming from an Italic moon goddess, ''*Meneswā'' 'She who measures'. It is thought that the Etruscans adopted the inherited Old Latin name, ''*Menerwā'', thereby calling her Menrva. However, this has been disputed. Carl Becker suggests that her name appears to contain the PIE root ''*men-'', which he notes was linked in Greek primarily to memory words (cf. Greek "mnestis"/μνῆστις 'memory, remembrance, recollection'), but which more generally referred to 'mind' in most Indo-European languages.Becker, ''A Modern Theory of Language Evolution'' 2004, p. 190: mentions *MN preserved in Greek as "

Mnemosyne In Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion, Mnemosyne (; grc, Μνημοσύνη, ) is the goddess of memory and the mother of the nine Muses by her nephew Zeus. In the Greek tradition, Mnemosyne is one of the Titans, the twelve divine chil ...

"/μνημοσύνη, and Minerva. Menrva often was depicted in the

Judgement of Paris Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct uses. Aristotle ...

, called Elcsntre (Alexander, his alternative name in Greek) in Etruscan, one of the most popular Greek myths in Etruria. Menrva was part of a

triple deity A triple deity is a deity with three apparent forms that function as a singular whole. Such deities may sometimes be referred to as threefold, tripled, triplicate, tripartite, triune, triadic, or as a trinity. The number three has a long history ...

with Uni and Tinia, later reflected in the Roman Capitoline Triad of Juno,

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

, and Minerva.

References

External links

* {{authority control Arts goddesses Etruscan goddesses Etruscan religion Health goddesses War goddesses Wisdom goddesses Thunder goddesses Minerva