Quaestiones Romanae

Why do they that are reputed to be of distinguished lineage wear crescents on their shoes?[*](Cf. Isidore, Origines, xix. 34; Juvenal, vii. 192.)

Is this, as Castor says,[*](Jacoby, Frag. der griech. Hist. 250, Frag. 16.) an emblem of the fabled residence in the moon, and an indication that after death their souls will again have the moon beneath their feet[*](Cf.Moralia, 943 a ff.); or was this the special privilege of the most ancient families? These were Arcadians of Evander’s following, the so-called Pre-Lunar[*](Cf. Aristotle, Frag. 591 (ed. V. Rose); Apollonius Rhodius, iv. 264; scholium on Aristophanes, Clouds, 398.) people.

Or does this also, like many another custom, remind the exalted and proud of the mutability, for better or worse, in the affairs of men, and that they should take the moon as an illustration[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 315, Sophocles, Frag. 787; or Pearson, no. 871: the full quotation may be found in Life of Demetrius, xlv. (911 c). Cf. the variants there and in Moralia, 517 d.):

1. When out of darkness first she comes anew
2. Her face she shows increasing fair and full;
3. And when she reaches once her brightest sheen,
4. Again she wastes away and comes to naught?

Or was it a lesson in obedience to authority, teaching them not to be disaffected under the government of kings, but to be even as the moon, who is willing to give heed to her superior and to be a second to him,

Ever gazing in awe at the rays of the bright-gleaming Sun-god,

as Parmenides[*](Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 162, Parmenides, no. b 15.) puts it; and were they thus to be content with their second placeo living under their ruler, and enjoying the power and honour derived from him?

Why do they believe that the year belongs to Jupiter, but the months to Juno?

Is it because Jupiter and Juno rule the invisible, conceptual deities, but the sun and moon the visible deities? Now the sun makes the year and the moon the months: but one must not believe that the sun and moon are merely images of Jupiter and Juno, but that the sun is really Jupiter himself in his material form and in the same way the moon is Juno. This is the reason why the Romans apply the name Juno to our Hera, for the name means young or junior, so named from the moon. And they also call her Lucina, that is brilliant or light-giving: and they believe that she aids women in the pangs of childbirth, even as the moon[*](Timotheus, Frag. 28 (ed. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff); Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, iii. p. 331; better Diels, Anthologia Lyrica Graeca, ii. p. 152. Cf.Moralia, 659 a; Macrobius, Saturnalia, vii. 16. 28; see also Roscher, Lexikon der gr.und.röm. Mythologie, vol. i. coll. 571-572.):

1. On through the dark-blue vault of the stars,
2. Through the moon that brings birth quickly;

for women are thought to have easiest travail at the time of the full moon.