Manth (), latinized as , is an epithet of the Etruscan chthonic fire god Śuri as god of the

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. ...

; this name was primarily used in the

Po Valley The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain (, , or ) is a major geographical feature of northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetian Plain, Venetic extension not actu ...

, as described by Servius, but a dedication to the god ''manθ'' from the Archaic period was found in a sanctuary in Pontecagnano, Southern Italy. His name is thought to be the origin of (), the birthplace of

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...

. Elsewhere in

Etruria Etruria ( ) was a region of Central Italy delimited by the rivers Arno and Tiber, an area that covered what is now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and north-western Umbria. It was inhabited by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization that f ...

, the god was called Śuri, latinized as Soranus, a cross-cultural deity associated with the underworld.

Consort

When paired with the epithet Mantus, his consort Catha () was also called

Mania Mania, also known as manic syndrome, is a Psychiatry, psychiatric Abnormality (behavior), behavioral syndrome defined as a state of Abnormality (behavior), abnormally elevated arousal, affect (psychology), affect, and energy level. During a mani ...

(); she was a goddess of the dead, spirits and chaos: she was said to be the mother of

ghosts In folklore, a ghost is the soul or Spirit (supernatural entity), spirit of a dead Human, person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from a ...

, the

undead The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if they were alive. A common example of an undead being is a cadaver, corpse reanimated by supernatural forces, by the application of either the deceased's o ...

, and other spirits of the night, as well as the

Lares Lares ( , ; archaic , singular ) were Tutelary deity#Ancient Rome, guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an ama ...

and the

Manes In ancient Roman religion, the ''Manes'' (, , ) or ''Di Manes'' are chthonic deities sometimes thought to represent souls of deceased loved ones. They were associated with the '' Lares'', '' Lemures'', '' Genii'', and '' Di Penates'' as deities ...

. She, along with Mantus, ruled the

. The epithets of this divine couple indicate that they were connected to the

, chthonic divinities or spirits of the dead in ancient Roman belief and called ''man(im)'' by the

Etruscans The Etruscan civilization ( ) was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in List of ancient peoples of Italy, ancient Italy, with a common language and culture, and formed a federation of city-states. Af ...

. Their names are also linked to Mana Genita and Manius,Roger D. Woodard, ''Indo-European Sacred Space: Vedic and Roman Cult'' (University of Illinois Press, 2006), pp. 116–117. as well as the Greek

(or Maniae), goddess of insanity and madness. Both the Greek and Latin ''Mania'' derive from PIE (Proto-Indo-European) *''men-'', "to think."

Cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

s include

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

, and

Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...

References

Bibliography

* * ** ** ** ** * * * * * ** ** Etruscan gods Underworld gods Epithets of Śuri {{deity-stub