- Vacuna
In
Roman mythology , Vacuna was an ancientSabine goddess, identified by Ancient Roman sources and later scholars with numerous other goddesses, including Ceres, Diana, Nike,Minerva , Bellona, Venus and Victoria. She was mainly worshiped at a sanctuary inTibur nearHorace 's villa, in sacred woods atReate , and at Rome.The protection she was asked to provide remains obscure.
Pomponius Porphyrion calls her "incerta specie" (of an uncertain kind) in his commentaries onHorace . Renaissance authors [Petrus Crinitus , "De honesta disciplina", 1504, vol. 25, chap. 12;Lilius Gregorius Gyraldus , "Historiae Deorum Gentilium", Syntagma 10, Basel, 1548, who may depend on Crinitus.] andLeonhard Schmitz [In Smith, citing Schol. ad Horat. Epist. i. 10. 49 ; Ov. Fast. vi. 307 ; Plin. H. N. iii. 17.] state that she was a divinity to whom the country people offered sacrifices when the labours of the field were over, that is, when they were at leisure, "vacui".The etymology of her name is linked to lack and
privation , and Horace appears to call upon her in favour of a friend to whom one of his epistles is addressed. From this, it has been conjectured that she was prayed to in favour of absent people, family members or friends. [G. Dumézil, "La religion romaine archaïque", 2nd ed., p. 369, n. 3; id., "Mélanges Geo Widengren", 1972, p. 307-311.]Period sources
Literary sources:
*Horace , "Epistles", l. 1, ep. 10, v. 49-50 (commented byPomponius Porphyrion ,Helenius Acron and the scholiast ofCruquius );
*Ovid , "Fasti", 6, v. 305 to 308;
*Pliny the Elder , "Natural History", l. 3 (ch. 12), par. 109;
*Auson , Epistle 4, v. 101.Epigraphical sources:
* Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, IX, 4636, 4751, 4752.References
* Edmond Courbaud, "Horace : sa vie et sa pensée à l’époque des Épîtres", Paris, 1914, ch. 2, § 7, note 16. [http://www.espace-horace.org/etud/courbaud/courbaud_2_07.htm Online on espace-horace]
* A. W. van Buren, « Vacuna », The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 6, 1916 (1916), pp. 202-204.
* Elizabeth Cornelia Evans, « Horace's Sabine Goddess Vacuna », Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 65, 1934 (1934).
*SmithDGRBM|author=Leonhard Schmitz |article=Vacuna|volume=3|page=1202Footnotes
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