Egeria

Egeria is the source of Rome's religion in the most literal sense available: a spring nymph who met King Numa by night in the grove outside the Porta Capena and dictated to him the rites, calendars and priesthoods the city then kept for a thousand years. Whether Numa believed it or found it a useful thing for people to believe is a question Livy raises himself. The Vestals drew their water from her spring, and the story has her melting into it from grief when Numa died. Her name survives in English for a woman who is someone's trusted adviser.

Domains

• prophecy
• springs

Relations

• ally: Carmenta
• ally: Antevorta
• ally: Postvorta

Sources

• Reference treatment of Egeria as nymph of childbirth and giver of wisdom and prophecy, and one of the Camenae.