154 



NATURE 



[February 2, 1922 



papers were confined to the mornings, but the section 

 was also occupied in the afternoons. Prof. Barger 

 gave a demonstration in the University of methods 

 for the micro-analysis of com.p'mnds containing 

 carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, whilst other after- 

 noons were devoted to excursions. Much interest was 

 taken by members in the inspection of the new Uni- 

 versity chemical laboratories at Liberton, which are 

 arranged as single-story buildings with a central store. 



I the arrangement being convenient and economical, 

 i whilst allowing the greatest possible freedom when 

 I alterations have to be made. Other visits included 

 the Heriot-Watt College, Messrs. Younger's brewery, 

 the North-British Rubber Co.'s mills, Pumpherstone 

 Oil Works, and the pharmaceutical works of Messrs. 

 Duncan, Flockhart and Co. The rubber works and 

 the shale oil works proved to be specially attractive 

 to members. 



Rehtia, the Venetic Goddess of Healing. 



A' 



T a meeting of the Royal Anthropological Institute 

 held on January ii Mr. J. VVhatmough read a 

 paper on "Rehtia, the Venetic Goddess of Healing." 

 The Venetic goddess Rehtia (or, as her name might 

 have appeared in Latin, Kectia), tor whom an apt 

 Greek parallel in name and functions, as well as in 

 characteristic votive offerings, has been found in the 

 Spartan Artemis Orthia, was worshipped not far from 

 the modern town of Este (15 miles south-west of 

 Padua). Her cult, known perhaps to a handful of 

 scholars all told, bears, according to Mr. What- 

 mough's new explanation of an important group of 

 her offerings, a close likeness to that of the Italic 

 Juno as the protecting goddess of women, with whom 

 Rehtia should be compared rather than, as previously, 

 with the Etruscan Nortia. The group of inscribed 

 votive offerings in question — the so-called "nails" 

 and "wedges" — now better regarded as pins with 

 pendant axe-shaped talismans of a well-known Hall- 

 statt type, was made all but exclusively by women, as 

 the dedicatory inscriptions show. From the shrine of 

 Orthia at Sparta come large numbers of bronze pins, 

 comparable with the Venetic pins which, it is sug- 

 gested, were given, originally at all events, by women 

 as votive offerings before (or just after) childbirth. 



Just as Orthia is expressly described as "The 

 Restorer," or as a healing deity who "restored women 

 to health after childbirth and preserved their infants " 

 (and as such was associated at Epidaurus with 

 Asclepius Orthios), so Rehtia is called Sanatis, " the 

 Healer," and the word akeo which appears on 

 another class of her votive offerings seems also to 

 refer to her healing functions (compare Greek 

 aicfofiai). Women paying their vows to Juno Lucina 

 at Rome had to loosen all knots and fastenings about 

 their clothing and take down their hair ; it would 

 then be appropriate for them to offer their dress- and 

 hair-pins (or votive objects copied from these) to the 

 goddess. The miniature talismanic axes would imply 

 a magical^ purpose, the safeguarding of mother ani 

 child during gestation and after delivery. With 

 Sanatis and akeo we can compare such epithets of 

 Juno as Lucina, Februa (Sanatis especially in this 

 connection), Fluonia, and Sospes. It would be a 

 simple step in the development of the goddess (as of 



Juno) for her to become the saving goddess of both 

 sexes and all classes. The chief duty, however, within 

 her purview would be to maintain or to restore physical 

 health — the soundness, fitness, tightness oi the body. 



Livy, describing events which occurred in 302 B.C. 

 (nearly a century before the beginning of the 

 romanisation of Transpadane Gaul), refers to a temple 

 in the country of the Veneti not far from Padua 

 which he ascribes to Juno ; Strabo calls it a temple 

 of the Argive Hera. Most probably the ancient Veneti 

 worshipped a great goddess Rehtia whose functions 

 were similar to those of the Italic Juno and the 

 Argive Hera, so that later observers like Livy and 

 Strabo, familiar with both the more famous Roman 

 and Greek cults, noted the similarities between these 

 and the Venetic cult, and regarded them as essen- 

 tially the same, if, indeed, we are not further to 

 conclude that with the extension of Greek and Roman 

 religions and civilisations an actual identification had 

 taken place. 



Mr. Peake, in discussing Mr. Whatmough's theory, 

 agreed that the bronze objects were not "nails " and 

 "wedges," but pins, though possibly cloak-pins rather 

 than hair-pins, and "axes." The use of the long 

 cloak-pin in the Iron age, when for practical pur- 

 poses the pin had developed into the fibula^, was 

 possibly to be explained by religious conservatism. 

 He also suggested that possibly the wedge-shaped 

 "axe" talisman had developed from the anthropo- 

 morphic form of talisman rather than the latter from 

 the former. A third possibility was that they were 

 merely ornaments made to jingle, similar to those 

 common among all horse-loving peoples such as were 

 the invaders of Italy from the north in the Late 

 Bronze and Early Iron ages. While Rehtia could 

 doubtless be equated with Orthia and with Juno, 

 question arose whether the cult was Mediterranean. 

 The Argive Hera is markedly Mediterranean, but 

 Orthia belongs definitely to the northern peoples, as 

 probably did Rehtia. No doubt there had been amal- 

 gamation, but the more distinctive features were 

 northern. In their culture some things point to the 

 Veneti being northerners, and probably they were one 

 of the waves of immigration, evidence of the earliest 

 of which was found at Bologna. 



British Mycology. 



'T*HE Transactions for 1920 of the British Myco- 

 ■'- logical Society published in July last are evidence 

 of the increasing activities of the group of botanists 

 whose work is amongst the fungi. The presidential 

 address by Mr. Petch deals with fungi parasitic on 

 scale-insects, and includes an historical account of the 

 growth of knowledge since the first record of a fungus 

 growing parasitically on a scale-insect was made bv 

 Desmazieres in 1848 at Caen, in Normandy. The list 

 is now a long one, and will doubtless be further ex- 

 tended ; and though the majority of scale-insect fungi 



NO. 2727, VOL. 109] 



are tropical, there is some work to be done on them 

 in the British Isles. In the tropics enormous destruc- 

 tion of scale-insects is effected by these fungi, and, as 

 some of the scale-insects are serious pests of economic 

 plants, the suggestion naturally arose that the pests 

 might be controlled by means of the entomogenous 

 fungi. A special investigation was undertaken by the 

 United States Bureau of Entomology in Florida, but 

 the results agree with those of other experiments, 

 and Mr. Petch affirms that after thirty years' trial 

 there is no instance of the successful control of any 



