Cicero suggests that the name Moneta was derived from the Latin verb monere (to warn) because during an earthquake, a voice from the temple had demanded the expiatory sacrifice of a pregnant sow.

[4][2] The same derivation is implied by the story of the sacred geese of Juno, who warned the Roman commander Marcus Manlius of the approach of the Gauls during a night attack on the Capitoline in 390 BC.

As the Roman historian Livy tells the story: Choosing a night when there was a faint glimmer of light, the Gauls sent an unarmed man in advance to try the road; then handing one another their arms where the path was difficult, and supporting each other or dragging each other up as the ground required, they finally reached the summit.

This proved the safety of the garrison, for their clamour and the noise of their wings aroused Marcus Manlius, the distinguished soldier, who had been consul three years before.

By this time others had joined him, and they began to dislodge the enemy with volleys of stones and javelins till the whole body fell helplessly down to the bottom.

[2] According to Livy, in 345 BC, at the beginning of hostilities with the Aurunci, the dictator Lucius Furius Camillus decided to summon the aid of the gods by vowing to build a temple to Juno Moneta.

When he returned victorious to Rome, the senate appointed two commissioners to construct the temple on the Arx, on the site of the house of Marcus Manlius, who had repelled the attack of the Gauls a generation earlier.