Mephitis

A Roman divinity who had a grove and temple in the Esquiliae, on a spot which it was thought fatal to enter.1 Who this Mephitis was is very obscure, though it is probable that she was invoked against the influence of the mephitic exhalations of the earth in the grove of Albunea. She was perhaps one of the Italian sibyls.

Servius2 mentions that Mephitis as a male divinity was connected with Leucothea in the same manner as Adonis with Aphrodite, and that others identified her with Juno.3

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References

Notes

  1. Pliny the Elder. Naturalis Historia ii, 93, s. 95; Varro. On the Latin Language v, 49.
  2. Servius on Virgil's Aeneid vii, 84.
  3. Comp. Tacitus. Annales iii, 33.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.