Matrālia, a festival at Rome, in honour of Matuta or Ino. Only matrons and freeborn women were admitted. They made offerings of flowers, and carried their relations’ children in their arms, recommending them to the care and patronage of the goddess whom they worshipped. Varro, de Lingua Latina, bk. 5, ch. 22.—Ovid, Fasti, bk. 6, li. 47.—Plutarch, Camillus.
Matrōna, a river of Gaul, now called the Marne, falling into the Seine. Ausonius, Mosella, li. 462.——One of the surnames of Juno, because she presided over marriage and over child-birth.
Matronālia, festivals at Rome in honour of Mars, celebrated by married women, in commemoration of the rape of the Sabines, and of the peace which their intreaties had obtained between their fathers and husbands. Flowers were then offered in the temples of Juno. Ovid, Fasti, bk. 3, li. 229.—Plutarch, Romulus.
Mattiăci, a nation of Germany, now Marpurg, in Hesse. The Mattiacæ aquæ was a small town, now Wisbaden, opposite Mentz. Tacitus, Germania, ch. 29; Annals, bk. 1, ch. 56.
Mātūta, a deity among the Romans, the same as the Leucothoe of the Greeks. She was originally Ino, who was changed into a sea deity [See: [Ino] and [Leucothoe]], and she was worshipped by sailors as such, at Corinth, in a temple sacred to Neptune. Only married women and freeborn matrons were permitted to enter her temples at Rome, where they generally brought the children of their relations in their arms. Livy, bk. 5, &c.—Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 3, li. 19.
Mavors, a name of Mars. See: [Mars].
Mavortia, an epithet applied to every country whose inhabitants were warlike, but especially to Rome, founded by the reputed son of Mavors. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1, li. 280, and to Thrace, Æneid, bk. 3, li. 13.
Mauri, the inhabitants of Mauritania. This name is derived from their black complexion (μαυροι). Everything among them grew in greater abundance and greater perfection than in other countries. Strabo, bk. 17.—Martial, bk. 5, ltr. 29; bk. 12, ltr. 67.—Silius Italicus, bk. 4, li. 569; bk. 10, li. 402.—Mela, bk. 1, ch. 5; bk. 3, ch. 10.—Justin, bk. 19, ch. 2.—Sallust, Jugurthine War.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 4, li. 206.
Mauritānia, a country on the western part of Africa, which forms the modern kingdom of Fez and Morocco. It was bounded on the west by the Atlantic, south by Gætulia, and north by the Mediterranean, and is sometimes called Maurusia. It became a Roman province in the reign of the emperor Claudius. See: [Mauri].
Maurus, a man who flourished in the reign of Trajan, or, according to others, of the Antonini. He was governor of Syene, in Upper Egypt. He wrote a Latin poem upon the rules of poetry and versification.