Editing Mefitis

{{Short description|Samnite goddess of the foul-smelling gases of the earth}}
{{More citations needed|date=September 2013}}
[[File:Face mefitis.jpg|thumb|Face of the goddess Mefitis, bronze fragment stored in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale della Basilicata (National Archaeological Museum of Basilicata), Potenza.]]
[[File:A clay-baked arm. Roman votive offering Wellcome L0035967.jpg|thumb|Ancient Roman [[votive offering]] such as would have been offered to the  goddess]]
In [[Roman mythology]], '''Mefitis''' (or '''Mephitis'''; '''Mefite''' in Italian) was a minor goddess of the poisonous gases emitted from the ground in swamps and volcanic vapors.

==Overview==
'''Mefitis''' was the [[Samnites|Samnite]] and [[Osci]]an goddess of the foul-smelling gases of the earth,  worshipped in central and southern Italy since before Roman times, with her main shrine at the volcano [[Ampsanctus]] in [[Samnium]]. 

There were temples dedicated to her in [[Cremona]] and on the [[Esquiline Hill]] in Rome. It is theorized that Mefitis was originally a goddess of underground sources, such as natural springs— the fact that many of these springs were sulfurous led to her association with noxious gases. She is almost always identified with volcanoes, having been worshipped at [[Pompeii]]. Her name, which likely means "one who smokes in the middle", is sometimes spelled Mephitis. The connection with subterranean spaces also links her with [[Chthonic]] deities.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Battiloro |first=Ilaria |title=The Archaeology of Lucanian Cult Places |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2017 |isbn=9781317103110 |language=English}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Krötzl & Kuuliala & Mustakallio |title=Infirmity in Antiquity and the Middle Ages |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2016 |isbn=9781317116950 |pages=198}}</ref>

Foul-smelling geological fissures connected to the divinity (see below) are located in Italy along the [[Via Appia]] between Rome and [[Brindisi]].  There, the ancient Romans would rest on their travels and pay homage to the goddess by performing animal sacrifices using the fissure's deadly gases.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Szylińczuk |first=Agata |date=2022 |title=The cult of the goddess Mefitis in light of literary and epigraphic sources |url=https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/_flysystem/fedora/pdf/145033.pdf |access-date=2023-11-11 |website=digilib.phil.muni.cz}}</ref> Many clay votive statuettes and other objects found in the Ansanto valley depict wild boars, perhaps indicating that these animals were particularly sacred to the goddess.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Onorato |first=Giovanni Oscar |title=La ricerca archeologica in Irpinia, Avellino |year=1960 |pages=32}}</ref> It has been proposed that Mefitis' shrines were associated with healing through adjacent sulphuric springs.<ref name=":2" />

Today, it lies near the village of [[Rocca San Felice]] in the [[province of Avellino]] (Campania region).<ref>Michele Sisto ''et al.'', [https://www.academia.edu/23762845/Geocartographic_history_of_a_natural_monument_of_Southern_Apennines_the_Geosite_of_Mephite_in_Ansanto_Valley Geocartographic history of a natural monument of Southern Apennines: the Geosite of Mephite in Ansanto Valley] (in Italian), ''academia.edu'', link retrieved on July 1st, 2020.</ref>

Virgil describes this sanctuary in the ''Aeneid'':
{{blockquote|In midst of Italy, well known to fame, 
There lies a lake (Amsanctus is the name) 
Below the lofty mounts: on either side 
Thick forests the forbidden entrance hide. 
Full in the center of the sacred wood 
An arm arises of the Stygian flood, 
Which, breaking from beneath with bellowing sound, 
Whirls the black waves and rattling stones around. 
Here Pluto pants for breath from out his cell, 
And opens wide the grinning jaws of hell.|Book VII, lines 563–570}}

[[Varro]] mentions a Grove of Mefitis on the Esquiline,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Varro |translator-last1=Kent |translator-first1=Roland G. |title=De Lingua Latina V.49 |publisher=Loeb |page=46 |url=https://archive.org/details/L333VarroOnTheLatinLanguageI57/page/n101/mode/2up?q=mefitis}}</ref> where the women-only festival of [[Mater Matuta#Matralia|Matralia]] was celebrated on 1 March.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dyson |first=Stephen L. |title=Rome - A Living Portrait of an Ancient City |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2010 |isbn=9781421401010 |pages=63}}</ref> Nearby altars to Mala Fortuna, the aspect of the goddess Fortuna associated with misfortune, and [[Febris]], the goddess of fevers, seem to indicate that the air in this part of Rome was considered unwholesome.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wardlaw |first=William |title=A manual of Roman antiquities |year=1863 |pages=37}}</ref>

At [[Vaglio Basilicata|Rossano di Vaglio]] there was a sanctuary dedicated to the goddess.<ref name=":0" /> Reconstructions of the settlement and the sanctuary are in the Museo delle Antiche Genti. Finds from this site link Mefitis with Mamers,<ref name=":0" /> a fertility god worshipped by the [[Osci]] since pre-Roman times and thought to be a variant of [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]]. Mirabella Eclano (Irpinia) was the site of another sanctuary. An inscription on the wall of the House of the Great Fountain in Pompeii mentions a festival celebrating Mefitis, organized by the ''gens Mamia''.<ref name=":0" />

Mefitis was, like [[Cloacina]], sometimes seen as an aspect of [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]]. Other deities associated with sulfur springs, and hence with Mefitis, were [[Tiburtine Sibyl|Albunea]] and the Greek goddess [[Leucothea]].

==Etymology and derivatives==
The etymology of the name ''Mefitis'' is controversial, but according to the Italian linguist Alberto Manco, the system of the epithets that identified the goddess from place to place would prove her relationship with a water-based dimension.<ref>Alberto Manco, "Mefītis: gli epiteti", AION Linguistica 31/2009, 301-312.</ref> Many hypotheses have been put forward concerning the etymology of the name of the goddess. Poccetti suggested the derivation from the words "medhio-dhuīhtis" means “that which burns within”<ref name=":1" />

"Mephitic", derived from ''Mefitis'', is now an adjective in the English language meaning "offensive in odour"; "noxious"; and "poisonous". In Italian, a mefite is also a ''solfatara'' or [[fumarole]] (i.e., a gaseous fissure).

The name of the family of animals [[Mephitidae]] (mephitids, or skunks and their kin) and of the genus ''[[Mephitis (genus)|Mephitis]]'' (skunks of North and Central America) are both related to ''mephitic'', so named for the noxious secretions of their scent glands.

==See also==
*[[Avernus]]
*[[Mefite of Rocca San Felice]]
*[[Cloacina]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{Refbegin}}
* {{Cite web|url=http://www.sanniti.info/mefite.html|title=MEFITIS La divinità della transizione|website=Sanniti Archeologia dell'Antico Sannio|language=Italian}}
{{Refend}}

==Further reading==
* Lucernoni, Maria Federica Petraccia. "Mefitis: "dea salutifera"?" In: ''Gerión'' Vol. 32, Nº 32, 2014, págs. 181-198. {{ISSN|0213-0181}}. 
* Szylińczuk, Agata. "[http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/145033 The cult of the goddess Mefitis in light of literary and epigraphic sources]". In: ''Graeco-Latina Brunensia''. 2022, vol. 27, iss. 1, pp.&nbsp;107–117. {{ISSN|1803-7402}}; {{ISSN|2336-4424}}; DOI: 10.5817/GLB2022-1-8

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[[Category:Roman goddesses]]
[[Category:Personifications in Roman mythology]]
[[Category:Earth goddesses]]
[[Category:Sabine goddesses]]
[[Category:Chthonic beings]]