Lympha

The Lympha (plural Lymphae) is an ancient Roman deity of fresh water.Floyd G. Ballentine, "Some Phases of the Cult of the Nymphs," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 15 (1904), p. 90. She is one of twelve agricultural deities listed by Varro as "leaders" (duces) of Roman farmers, because "without water all agriculture is dry and poor."Varro, De re rustica 1.1.4–7; Peter F. Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion (Brill, 1992), p. 136. The Lymphae are often connected to Fons, meaning "Source" or "Font," a god of fountains and wellheads. Lympha represents a "functional focus" of fresh water, according to Michael Lipka's conceptual approach to Roman deity,Michael Lipka, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach (Brill, 2009), p. 67. or more generally moisture.Patricia A. Johnston, "The Mystery Cults and Vergil's Georgics," in Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia (University of Texas Press, 2009), p. 268; Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland, Ancient Rome: from the early Republic to the assassination of Julius Caesar (Routledge, 2005), p. 137.

Vitruvius preserves some of her associations in the section of his work On Architecture in which he describes how the design of a temple building (aedes) should reflect the nature of the deity to be housed therein:

The character of the Corinthian order seems more appropriate to Venus, Flora, Proserpina, and the Nymphs [Lymphae] of the Fountains; because its slenderness, elegance and richness, and its ornamental leaves surmounted by volutes, seem to bear an analogy to their dispositions.Vitruvius, De architectura 1.1.5, Bill Thayer's edition at LacusCurtius of the translation by Joseph Gwilt, The Architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (London, 1826). The Latin text at LacusCurtius is that of Valentin Rose's 1899 Teubner edition: Veneri Florae Proserpinae Fonti Lumphis corinthio genere constitutae aptas videbuntur habere proprietates, quod his diis propter teneritatem graciliora et florida foliisque et volutis ornata opera facta augere videbuntur iustum decorem. A textual crux occurs at the relevant phrase: Gwilt translates Fontium Lumphis ("for the Lymphae of the Fountains"), but some editions give Fonti Lumphis ("for Fons, for the Lymphae").

The name Lympha is equivalent to, but not entirely interchangeable with nympha, "nymph." One dedication for restoring the water supply was made nymphis lymphisque augustis, "for the nymphs and august lymphae," distinguishing the twoCIL 5.3106; Ballentine, "Some Phases," p. 95; Theodor Bergk, "Kritische bemerkungen zu den römische tragikern," Philologus 33 (1874), p. 269. as does a passage from Augustine of Hippo.Augustine of Hippo, De civitate Dei 4.34: the ancient Jews, he says, "did not worship Nymphs and Lymphs when the rock was smitten and poured forth water for the thirsty" (nec quando sitientibus aquam percussa petra profudit, Nymphas Lymphasque coluerunt, English translation by R.W. Dyson). In poetic usage, lymphae as a common noun, plural or less often singular, can mean a source of fresh water, or simply "water"; compare her frequent companion Fons, whose name is a word for "fountain," but who is also invoked as a deity.

When she appears in a list of proper names for deities, Lympha is seen as an object of religious reverence embodying the divine aspect of water. Like several other nature deities who appear in both the singular and the plural (such as Faunus/fauni), she has both a unified and a multiple aspect.Lipka, Roman Gods, p. 67; Joshua Whatmough, The Foundations of Roman Italy (1937), p. 159. The simultaneous oneness and multiplicity of these deities is an example of monotheistic tendencies in ancient religion: "Lower gods were executors or manifestations of the divine will rather than independent principles of reality. Whether they are called gods, demons, angels, or numina, these immortal beings are emanations of the One": Michele Renee Salzman, "Religious koine in Private Cult and Ritual: Shared Religious Traditions in Roman Religion in the First Half of the Fourth Century CE," in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 113. The nymphs, with whom the lymphae are identified, are among the beings who inhabit forests, woodlands, and groves (silvas, nemora, lucos) and ponds, water sources and streams (lacus, fontes ac fluvios), according to Martianus Capella (2.167), who lists these beings as pans, fauns, fontes, satyrs, silvani, nymphs, fatui and fatuae (or fautuae), and the mysterious Fanae, from which the fanum (sacred precinct or shrine) is supposed to get its name. She was the appropriate deity to pray to for maintaining the water supply, in the way that Liber provided wine or Ceres bread.Ballentine, "Some Phases," p. 91, citing Augustine, De civitate Dei 4.22, 34; 6.1.

Name and functions The origin of the word lympha is obscure. It may originally have been lumpa or limpa, related to the adjective limpidus meaning "clear, transparent" especially applied to liquids.Entries on limpidus and lympha, Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 1985 reprinting), pp. 1031 and 1055; Arthur Sidgwick, P.vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber VII (Cambridge University Press Archive, n.d.), p. 61, note 377; Fernando Navarro Antolín, Lygdamus. Corpus Tibullianum III. 1–6: Lygdami elegiarum liber (Brill, 1996), pp. 418–419. In his Etymologies (20.3.4), Isidore of Seville says that "limpid (limpidus) wine, that is, clear, is so called from its resemblance to water, as if it were lymphidum, because lympha is water"; translation by Stephen A. Barney et al., The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 398. An intermediate form lumpha is also found.CIL 1.1238, as cited by Bergk, "Kritische bemerkungen zu den römische tragikern," p. 269. Bergk demonstrated that lympha was in origin Italic, and not a borrowed Greek term, despite the spelling. The spelling seems to have been influenced by the Greek word νύμφα nympha, as the upsilon (Υ,υ) and phi (Φ,φ) are normally transcribed into Latin as u or y and ph or f.Bergk, "Kritische bemerkungen zu den römische tragikern," pp. 264–269.

That Lympha is an Italic conceptJacqueline Champeaux, "Sorts et divination inspirée. Pour une préhistoire des oracles italiques," Mélanges de l'École française de Rome 102.2 (1990), p. 827. is indicated by the Oscan cognate diumpā- (recorded in the dative plural, diumpaís, "for the lymphae"), with a characteristic alternation of d for l.Whatmough, Foundations of Roman Italy, p. 383; R.S. Conway, The Italic Dialects (Cambridge University Press, 1897), p. 676; Johnston, Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia, p. 268; Bergk, "Kritische bemerkungen," p. 265. These goddesses appear on the Tabula Agnonensis as one of 17 Samnite deities, who include the equivalents of Flora, Proserpina, and possibly Venus (all categorized with the Lymphae by Vitruvius), as well as several of the gods on Varro's list of the 12 agricultural deities. On the Oscan tablet, they appear in a group of deities who provide moisture for crops.Johnston, Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia, pp. 268–269. In the Etruscan-based cosmological schema of Martianus Capella, the Lymphae are placed in the second of 16 celestial regions, with Jupiter, Quirinus, Mars (these three constituting the Archaic Triad), the Military Lar, Juno, Fons, and the obscure Italo-Etruscan Novensiles.Martianus Capella, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury 1.46 online. A 1st-century A.D. dedication was made to the Lymphae jointly with Diana.CIL 9.4644 = ILS 3857.

The Italic lymphae were connected with healing cults. Juturna, who is usually called a "nymph," is identified by Varro as Lympha: "Juturna is the Lympha who aids: therefore many ailing people on account of her name customarily seek out this water", with a play on the name Iu-turna and the verb iuvare, "to help, aid."Varro, De lingua latina 5.71: (Lympha Iuturna quae iuvaret: itaque multi aegroti propter id nomen hanc aquam petere solent). See also Frontinus, On Aqueducts 1.4, where Juturna is in company with the Camenae and Apollo. C. Bennett Pascal, The Cults of Cisalpine Gaul (Latomus, 1964), p. 93, reads an inscription as linking the Celtic god Belenus (usually identified with Apollo) and the Lymphae, but Dessau reads Nymphae (ILS 4867). Servius, note to Aeneid 12.139, has Juturna as a fons, and Propertius 4.21.26, as the lympha salubris who restored a horse of Pollux (some editions emend to nympha; see note to the line at Sexti Aurelii Propertii Elegiarum Libri Quattuor, edited by N. Lemaire (1840), p. 448 online). Juturna's water shrine was a spring-fed lacus in the forum which attracted cure-seekers, and Propertius connected its potency to Lake Albano and Lake Nemi, where the famous sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis was located.Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), pp. 74, 105, 152, 228, 230–231. Juturna's cult, which Servius identifies as a fons, was maintained to ensure the water supply, and she was the mother of the deity Fons.Servius, note to Aeneid 12.139: "Juturna is a fountain (fons) in Italy. … It was customary to offer sacrifices to this fountain in respect to a scarcity of water," as cited and discussed by Ballentine, "Some Phases," pp. 91–93. The temple was vowed by G. Lutatius Catulus as the result of a naval battle during the First Punic War. Arnobius, Adversus Nationes 3.29, identifies her as the mother of Fons.

In Cisalpine Gaul, an inscription links the Lymphae to the Vires, "(Physical) Powers, Vigor", personified as a set of masculine divinities,CIL 5.5648; Joseph Clyde Murley, The Cults of Cisalpine Gaul as Seen in the Inscriptions (Banta, 1922), pp. 32–33. a connection that in his monumental work Zeus Arthur Bernard Cook located in the flowing or liquid aspect of the Lymphae as it relates to the production of seminal fluid.Arthur Bernard Cook, Zeus (Cambridge University Press Archive), p. 306. As a complement to the Vires, the Lymphae and the nymphs with whom they became so closely identified embody the urge to procreate, and thus these kinds of water deities are also associated with marriage and childbirth.R.B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate (Cambridge University Press, 1951), p. 220; Ballentine, "Some Phases of the Cult of the Nymphs," p. 97ff; on marriage (mainly in regard to nymphs, but see note 216), Salvatore Settis, "'Esedra' e 'ninfeo' nella terminologia architettonica del mondo romano," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (1973), pp. 685–688. When Propertius alludes to the story of how Tiresias spied the virgin goddess Pallas Athena bathing, he plays on the sexual properties of lympha in advising against theophanies obtained against the will of the gods: "May the gods grant you other fountains (fontes): this liquid (lympha) flows for girls only, this pathless trickle of a secret threshold."Propertius, Elegies 4.9.59–60, as cited and discussed by Tara S. Welch, "Masculinity and Monuments in Propertius 4.9," American Journal of Philology 125 (2004), p. 81.