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Vagitanus
In ancient Roman religion, Vagitanus or Vaticanus was one of a number of childbirth deities who influenced or guided some aspect of parturition, in this instance the newborn's crying.[1] Some sources relate it to the Latin noun vagitus, "crying, squalling, wailing," particularly by a baby or an animal, and the verb vagio, vagire.[2] Vagitanus has thus been described as the god "who presided over the beginning of human speech,"[3] but a distinction should be made between the first cry and the first instance of articulate speech, in regard to which Fabulinus (fari, "to speak"; cf. fabula) was the deity to invoke.[4] Vagitanus has been connected to a remark by Pliny that only a human being is thrown naked onto the naked earth on his day of birth for immediate wails (vagitus) and weeping.[5]
- ^ Beryl Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy (Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 136–137 online.
- ^ Emilio Lorìa, Salute e magia attraverso i secoli (Padua: Piccin Nuova, 1994), p. 41 online.
- ^ George C. Simmons, Education and Western Civilization: Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages (College Readings, 1972), p. 93.
- ^ Kathryn Hinds, Life in the Roman Empire: Religion (Marshall Cavendish, 2005), p. 52 online; Antonio Verone, Rediscovering Pompeii: Exhibition by IBM-ITALIA, New York City («L'Erma» di Bretschneider, 1990), p. 135 online.
- ^ Pliny, Natural History 7.1 (in English): hominem tantum nudum et in nuda humo natali die abicit ad vagitus statim et ploratum; see Morell's notes online.
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