Segetia



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Segetia


Segetia,
or Segesta, so called from segetes; was supposed to preside over wheat and other corn when they appeared aboveground.—Cum veṛ jam super terram essent, says St. Augustin (De Civit. Dei), et segetem facerent Deam Segitiam praeposerunt. We are informed by Millin (in his Dictionnaire de la Fable) that this female deity was invoked for the fields at seed time, and that she was not called Segetia until the plant had grown up.
The virtuous and benficient, though in a religious sense benighted and ignorant, Salonina, wife of Gallienus, paid peculiar worship to this goddess, as is attested by those coins of hers inscribed DEAE SEGETIAE. It was that exemplary princess who took upon herself, in a time of great public calamity, the care of procuring a plentiful supply of provisions for the population of Rome, and it was her real sentiment of piety, however mistaken and ill-directed, which caused her to build in that city a temple to the rural divinity, who, under the above name, was supposed to yield her special protection to the crops of corn and other grain at the time of harvest.—See Deae Segetiae.

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