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Dea Tacita

In Roman mythology, Dea Tacita ("the silent goddess") was a goddess of the dead. Ovid's Fasti includes a passage describing a rite propitiating Dea Tacita in order to "seal up hostile mouths / and unfriendly tongue" at Feralia on 21 February.[1] In later times, she was equated with the naiad Larunda. In this guise, Dea Tacita was worshipped at a festival called Larentalia on 23 December. Goddesses Mutae Tacitae were invoked to destroy a hated person: in an inscription from Cambodunum in Raetia, someone asks "ut mutus sit Quartus" and "erret fugiens ut mus".[2] These silent goddesses are the personification of terror of obscurity. Plutarch, who describes Tacita as a Muse, states that Numa Pompilius credited Tacita for his oracular insight and taught the Romans to worship her.[3]

References

  1. ^ Ovid, Fastus 2, v. 572.
  2. ^ AE 1958, 38
  3. ^ Plutarch, Parallel Lives (Numa Pompilius), v. 8.6. English translation on Lacus Curtius.
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