MINERVA

The Latin godde corresponding to, and confounded with, the Grecian Pallas (IlaXXaj), or Athena (AOnvyi)- She was fabled to have sprung in full armour from the forehead of her father Jupiter. Minerva ■was worshipped as the godde of wisdom, and the patrone of industry and the arts. Athens, the city to which she gave name, was her favourite spot; and there her worship was celebrated with great splendour, and the magnificent temple the Par the non erected to her honour. But she was also worshipped at Rome with peculiar veneration. There she had three temples: one on the Capitol, which she shared with Jupiter and Juno; a second on the Aventine; and a third on the Caelian mount, in which she was worshipped as Minerva Capta, an epithet said to have been applied when her statue was transported from Falerii, after the capture of that city by Camillus. At Rome there were also two great festivals celebrated annually in her honour; the one called Quinquatrus or Quinquatria, the other Quinquatria Minora. (See these words.) The origin of the name of Minerva has long puzzled etymologists, Cicero says she is called " Minerva, qui a minuit or minatur;" but it has been also fancied that the word is a shortened form of Meminerva (from memini, I remember), she being the godde of memory. It is po ibly from the same joot as the Lat. mens, mind, which is expre ed so clearly in many languages wholly unallicd, of which the Germ, mann (whence the English man), and the Hindostan men a, may serve as examples. But the Tuscan name of the godde is Menrfa, which seems the immediate source. She was represented as a young woman, with a grave and noble countenance, clothed in armour. See Pallas. [s. 765]