Roberto Labanti wrote:

thanks - really useful
wondering though what that the academic
definition of a silly effort at revival?

"Chapter six considers the possible survival of the /matronae/ in later 
Christian legend,
for which the evidence is quite thin, and some neo-pagan efforts at 
revival that are merely silly."

: )

Mogg
> FWD, Maybe of interest by some.
>
> Best,
> Roberto
>
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> Date: Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 10:05 PM
> Subject: BMCR 2009.10.37: Teeter on Garman, The Cult of the Matronae 
> in the Roman Rhineland: An Historical Evaluation of the Archaeological 
> Evidence
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> Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.10.37
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>       Alex G. Garman, /The Cult of the Matronae in the Roman
>       Rhineland: An Historical Evaluation of the Archaeological
>       Evidence/.   Lewiston, NY:  Edwin Mellen Press, 2008.  Pp. iii,
>       174.  ISBN 9780773452244.  $99.95.  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Reviewed by Timothy M. Teeter, Georgia Southern University 
> ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>)*
> Word count: 1395 words
>
> A classicist visiting the German Rhineland has ample opportunity to 
> inspect Roman remains, from the /limes Germanicus/ (now a UNESCO World 
> Heritage Site) to popular sites such as Xanten or Trier. If he goes to 
> any of the many excellent local museums such as the Rheinisches 
> LandesMuseum in Bonn or the Römisch-Germanisches Museum in Köln 
> (Cologne) and investigates the sections devoted to religion, he will 
> find all of the usual suspects, from Jupiter to Isis. However, he will 
> likely also see inscriptions and altars dedicated to a cult of three 
> women known as the /matronae/ or "matrons." When depicted, they are 
> seated, relatively young, holding cornucopiae or plants or fruits, and 
> two of them often have large bonnets that look at first glance like 
> enormous beehive hairstyles. The visitor should not be surprised, 
> however, if he has never heard of them, since they have left not so 
> much as a trace in the literary record, despite over a thousand 
> inscriptions and altars dedicated to them at several sites in northern 
> Italy and particularly the Rhineland. Evidence for this cult in the 
> Roman province of /Germania inferior/ (the lower Rhine, including 
> Nordrhein-Westfalen) has been collected and analyzed in this short and 
> interesting book by Alex Garman.
>
> The area just west of the Rhine, from Köln to Aachen, and from Neuss 
> south to the Ahr, was inhabited during the empire by the Germanic 
> Ubii. Loyal to Rome since Caesar, they came originally from the east 
> bank of the Rhine, but were settled in the depopulated Celtic lands 
> west of the Rhine by Agrippa in the 30s BCE. Evidence for the cult of 
> the /matronae/ here--altars and dedications with a bewildering variety 
> of names and epithets--coincides with the Ubian presence and the Roman 
> occupation of the region, from the second to the fifth centuries CE, 
> with a peak in the second and third centuries. However, since 
> dedications to the /matronae/ also appear in Gallic territories in 
> northern Italy somewhat earlier, the connection of the cult with any 
> particular area or identifiable tribe such as the Ubii is unclear, as 
> is its identification with the /matres/, another widely attested cult 
> of three female figures found mostly in southern Gaul. In fact, most 
> scholars have concluded that the /matres/ and /matronae/ are the same 
> and are Celtic in origin, as suggested by the Celtic interest in 
> triplism.
>
> It is certain that we would know nothing of the /matronae/ or /matres/ 
> but for inscriptions in Latin and images influenced by Roman tastes 
> and precedents. It is the Roman interest that has brought this cult or 
> cults to light. This might be considered a clear case of the 
> /interpretatio Romana/ (the phrase itself comes from Tacitus, 
> /Germania/ 43, where he equates German and Roman gods), except that 
> there is little to suggest an actual identification of these women 
> with any particular Roman goddess or cult. Caesar states that the 
> Gauls worshipped Minerva (BG 6.17). Tacitus equates one German goddess 
> with Isis and another with /terra mater/ (/Germania/ 9, 41), but there 
> is no apparent connection to the /matronae/, and Tacitus assumes a 
> general equivalence between Germanic and Roman deities in any case. 
> However, with thousands of Roman troops (including the /legiones I 
> Minervia/ and /XXX Ulpia Victrix/) encamped or guarding the limes; the 
> transformation of the Ubian capital, birthplace of Agrippina the 
> younger, into /Colonia Agrippinensis/; the choice of Trier for the 
> Gallic prefecture in the fourth century; and the spread of the Roman 
> villa economy to the valleys of the Rhine and Mosel, the region became 
> a cultural crossroads of Romans, Celts, and Germans. As such, 
> determining the origins or meaning of such a cult, however widespread, 
> on the basis of repetitive but laconic inscriptions and an imagery of 
> limited variety is highly problematic.
>
> This is not a long book. Excluding an appendix of inscriptions and the 
> back matter (bibliography, index, etc.), the entire text is eighty-six 
> pages. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that, but given the 
> complexity of some of the issues Garman raises, their coverage seems 
> at times a bit short. In his first chapter, Garman gives a brief 
> history of the Rhineland under Roman rule. He then turns in his second 
> chapter to the literary and material remains of the cult of the 
> /matronae/--altars, sites, inscriptions, and figurines--and the work 
> of those who have previously studied them. After the briefest of 
> reviews, he concludes the chapter with a few pages considering the 
> very concept of Romanization. In chapter three he asks "who were the 
> /matronae/?" and attempts to decode the iconography associated with 
> the cult. The imagery of the /matres/ of Gaul is more clearly 
> reproductive than the /matronae/ of the Rhineland, and of the 
> thousand-plus inscriptions in the Rhineland only a handful suggest any 
> identification. In addition, there is a group of votive axe heads from 
> /Germania superior/ that treat the /matres/ and /matronae/ separately. 
> On this basis, Garman concludes that the /matres/ and the /matronae/ 
> were distinct. Given their obvious similarities, the case seems pretty 
> thin, but who can say with certainty? And in any case, distinct to 
> whom? Romans? Celts? Germans? Were they discrete in their origins or 
> in their local development? Garman argues that, since the /matronae/ 
> are dressed in Ubian fashion, they likely originated with the Ubii, 
> but the evidence he cites does not compel such a conclusion. It seems 
> to me more likely that a Romanized Ubii adapted a Celtic cult from the 
> territory they came to inhabit, particularly since dedications to the 
> /matronae/ are also found in Celtic lands of northern Italy.
>
> The locations of /matronae/ altars in Germany and their implications 
> are considered in chapter four. The great majority of dedications are 
> found at seven sanctuary sites, with some three hundred at Pesch 
> alone, all within Ubian territory. Garman saves his full analysis of 
> the inscriptions for chapter five, however. He notes that most of the 
> identifiable dedicators were from the Roman military, but with a good 
> sprinkling of civil officials and local office holders. Their names 
> can be variously identified as Germanic or Celtic in origin but 
> clearly Romanized, which suggests that ethnic identity was fluid. The 
> /matronae/ themselves almost always receive an epithet, such as the 
> /matronae veteranehae,/ the meaning of which is clear. Others, such as 
> /matronae aufaniae/ at Bonn or /matronae vacillinehae/ at Pesch, are 
> more obscure, but many are Germanic, and Garman lists possible 
> meanings for several, including particular tribes or places (/Suebae, 
> Treverae/) and a number of powers ("goddesses of ecstasy," "goddesses 
> of healing," "goddesses of the sheep") which if accurate suggest quite 
> a wide range of functions.
>
> Interestingly, dedications to the /matronae/ in cisalpine Gaul, which 
> precede those of the Rhineland by over a century, have no epithets and 
> the dedicants are mostly civil rather than military. Garman argues 
> that this cisalpine cult of the /matronae/ was of "Celto/Germanic 
> origin" and denies the obvious conclusion that a Celtic cult of 
> northern Italy (and perhaps southern Gaul) was carried north by Roman 
> expansion and locally adopted. Instead, he contends that the 
> /matronae/ had previously come into Italy "with the invading peoples 
> of the North" (unidentified by Garman), while subsequently legions 
> stationed on the Rhine that included soldiers from cisalpine Gaul 
> "helped" the natives of /Germania inferior/ adapt their pre-existing 
> (presumably Ubian) cult. Perhaps so, but this seems a needless 
> multiplication of hypotheses.
>
> Chapter six considers the possible survival of the /matronae/ in later 
> Christian legend, for which the evidence is quite thin, and some 
> neo-pagan efforts at revival that are merely silly. Chapter seven, a 
> two-page summing up, shows by its very brevity that, however 
> worthwhile the effort, any real understanding of this cult remains 
> elusive, and Garman's hope that the conflation of the /matres/ and 
> /matronae/ "is a practice that should be brought to an end" is 
> unlikely to be realized. Garman finishes with an appendix listing all 
> known inscriptions to the /matronae/ in the Rhineland, but its utility 
> is limited since, as he notes, another catalog that includes a number 
> of previously unpublished inscriptions is presently under production 
> in Germany.
>
> The book is marred by occasional stylistic infelicities that a more 
> careful editing would have avoided. However, I myself have learned 
> from bitter experience to dread the words "camera ready copy" and this 
> should not be allowed to detract too much from a serious effort at 
> understanding a complex and mysterious phenomenon.
>
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