List of Roman birth and childhood deities

In ancient Roman religion, birth and childhood deities were thought to care for every aspect of conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and child development.

Her infant died a few days later, severing the family ties between her father and husband and hastening the civil war that ended the Roman Republic.

[5] Some ritual practices may be characterized as anxious superstitions, but the religious aura surrounding childbirth reflects the high value Romans placed on family, tradition (mos maiorum), and compatibility of the sexes.

[8] Only those who died after the age of 10 were given full funeral and commemorative rites, which in ancient Rome were observed by families several days during the year (see Parentalia).

The lack of ritual observances pertains to the legal status of the individual in society, not the emotional response of families to the loss.

Nona and Decima determine the right time for birth, assuring the completion of the nine-month term (ten in Roman inclusive counting).

[45] At the very moment of birth, or immediately after, Parca establishes that the new life will have a limit, and therefore she is also a goddess of death called Morta (English "mortal").

[48] Soranus advised women about to give birth to unbind their hair and loosen clothing to promote relaxation, not for any magical effect.

The functions of "chthonic" deities such as Dis (or Pluto) and his consort Proserpina are not confined to death; they are often concerned with agricultural fertility and the giving of nourishment for life, since plants for food grow from seeds hidden in the ground.

[71] Three deities—Intercidona, Pilumnus, and Deverra—were invoked to drive away Silvanus, the wild woodland god of trees:[72] three men secured the household every night by striking the threshold (limen; see liminality) with an axe and then a pestle, followed by sweeping it.

[74] Etruscan religion, however, emphasized the role that Juno (as Uni) played in endowing Hercle with his divine nature through the drinking of her breast milk.

[85] Children wore the toga praetexta, with a purple band that marked them as sacred and inviolable, and an amulet (bulla) to ward off malevolence.

In the "Oxen of the Sun" episode of Ulysses, he combines an allusion to Horace (nunc est bibendum) with an invocation of Partula and Pertunda (per deam Partulam et Pertundam) in anticipation of the birth of Purefoy.

Relief from a child's sarcophagus depicting a nursing mother with the father looking on ( c. 150 AD)
Child's sarcophagus (150-160 AD) depicting the festivities attending the birth of Dionysus ; the basin at far left represents the baby's first bath
Relief of a midwife assisting in a birth
Swaddled infant ( Gallo-Roman terracotta votive )
A goddess suckling a toddler and seated in the wicker chair characteristic of Gallo-Roman goddesses (2nd or 3rd century, Bordeaux)
Tomb relief from Ostia showing mother and child (ca. 50 AD)
Drawing of a scene from an Etruscan mirror, in which Uni (Juno) suckles the adult Hercle (Hercules) before he ascends to immortality
Head of a child from the Antonine era
Roman boy wrapped in his cloak (1st century AD)