Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
52.
_What is the cause that the_ Romans _sacrifice a dogge unto the goddesse called_ Genita-Mana, _and withall make one praier unto her, that none borne in the house might ever come to good_? IS it for that this _Genita-Mana_ is counted a _Dæmon_ or goddesse that hath the procuration and charge both of the generation and also of the birth of things corruptible? for surely the word implieth as much, as a certeine fluxion and generation, or rather a generation fluent or fluxible: and like as the Greeks sacrificed unto _Proserpina_, a dog, so do the Romans unto that _Genita_, for those who are borne in the house. _Socrates_ also saith, that the Argives sacrificed a dogge unto _Ilithya_, for the more easie and safe deliverance of child-birth. Furthermore, as touching that Praier, that nothing borne within the house might ever proove good, it is not haply meant of any persons, man or woman, but of dogges rather which were whelped there; which ought to be, not kinde and gentle, but curst and terrible. Or peradventure, for that they [142]that die (after an elegant maner of speech) be named Good or quiet: under these words they covertly pray, that none borne in the house might die. And this need not to seeme a strange kinde of speech; for _Aristotle_ writeth, that in a certeine treatie of peace betweene the Arcadians & Lacedemonians, this article was comprised in the capitulations: That they should make none [143]of the Tegeates, Good, for the aid they sent, or favour that they bare unto the Lacedæmonians; by which was meant, that they should put none of them to death.
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