Feronia (mythology)

As the goddess who granted freedom to slaves or civil rights to the most humble part of society, she was especially honored among plebeians and freedmen.

The root fer has cognate words in every Indo-European language (e.g. Greek θήρ, θήριον, English feral.)

[11](p 82) She may have been introduced into Roman religious practice when Manius Curius Dentatus conquered Sabinum in the early 3rd century BCE.

[14] Pliny states that all attempts at building towers in times of war between Terracina and the sanctuary of Feronia have been abandoned because all are without exception destroyed by lightning.

"[23] Her lucus at Capena was a place where everybody was allowed to come for worship and trade, attracting people from different nations, Sabines, Latins, Etruscans, and others from even farther away.

[b] The place, in the territory of Capena in southwestern Etruria, was plundered of its gold and silver by Hannibal's retreating troops in 211 BCE, when he turned aside from the Via Salaria to visit the sanctuary;[29] later it became an Augustan colonia.

Its status as a colony is recorded in a single inscription, copied in a manuscript of the rule of the Farfa Abbey[30] as colonia Iulia Felix Lucoferonensis.

[c] Another important site was near Anxur (Terracina, southern Latium), in a wood three Roman miles from the town, where Servius recorded a joint cult of "the boy Jupiter" (puer Iuppiter) under the name of Anxyrus and "Juno the Virgin" (Iuno virgo), whom he identifies as Feronia.

[12][8]: 7.799  According to another tradition, slaves who had just been freed might go to the shrine at Terracina and receive upon their shaved heads the pileus, a hat that symbolized their liberty.

Her temple in the Campus Martius, in what is now Largo di Torre Argentina, was probably also located in a grove, according to an inscription found on the site.