Libitina
Roman · deity · regal · Recorded classification
Libitina is the funeral trade with a goddess at the head of it. Her grove on the Esquiline was where Rome's undertakers were based, where biers and equipment were hired, and where a coin was paid in for every death — which made the grove, incidentally, the city's register of mortality, the only figure a Roman historian could quote for how many died in a plague year. The word libitina came to mean the whole business of burial. She was confused in antiquity with Venus Libentina, which the record notes rather than resolves.
Domains
- death
Sources
- Libitina is the ancient Roman goddess of funerals and burial, whose grove on the Esquiline housed the undertakers of Rome and served as the registry of the city's deaths.: Reference treatment of Libitina, her sphere and her grove on the Esquiline. (secondary)