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.