Because the states of madness, possession, and illness were not always strictly distinguished in antiquity, "nympholepsy" became a morbid or undesirable condition. Isidore compares Greek hydrophobia, which literally means "fear of water," and says that "lymphaticus is the word for one who contracts a disease from water, making him run about hither and thither, or from the disease gotten from a flow of water." In poetic usage, he adds, the lymphatici are madmen.
Floyd G. Ballentine, "Some Phases of the Cult of the Nymphs," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 15 (1904), p. 90.
Varro, De re rustica 1.1.4–7; Peter F. Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion (Brill, 1992), p. 136. /wiki/Varro
Michael Lipka, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach (Brill, 2009), p. 67.
Patricia A. Johnston, "The Mystery Cults and Vergil's Georgics," in Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia (University of Texas Press, 2009), p. 268; Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland, Ancient Rome: from the early Republic to the assassination of Julius Caesar (Routledge, 2005), p. 137. /wiki/Lynda_Garland
Vitruvius, De architectura 1.1.5, Bill Thayer's edition at LacusCurtius of the translation by Joseph Gwilt, The Architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (London, 1826). The Latin text at LacusCurtius is that of Valentin Rose's 1899 Teubner edition: Veneri Florae Proserpinae Fonti Lumphis corinthio genere constitutae aptas videbuntur habere proprietates, quod his diis propter teneritatem graciliora et florida foliisque et volutis ornata opera facta augere videbuntur iustum decorem. A textual crux occurs at the relevant phrase: Gwilt translates Fontium Lumphis ("for the Lymphae of the Fountains"), but some editions give Fonti Lumphis ("for Fons, for the Lymphae"). /wiki/Vitruvius
CIL 5.3106; Ballentine, "Some Phases," p. 95; Theodor Bergk, "Kritische bemerkungen zu den römische tragikern," Philologus 33 (1874), p. 269. /wiki/Corpus_Inscriptionum_Latinarum
Augustine of Hippo, De civitate Dei 4.34: the ancient Jews, he says, "did not worship Nymphs and Lymphs when the rock was smitten and poured forth water for the thirsty" (nec quando sitientibus aquam percussa petra profudit, Nymphas Lymphasque coluerunt, English translation by R.W. Dyson). /wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo
Lipka, Roman Gods, p. 67; Joshua Whatmough, The Foundations of Roman Italy (1937), p. 159. The simultaneous oneness and multiplicity of these deities is an example of monotheistic tendencies in ancient religion: "Lower gods were executors or manifestations of the divine will rather than independent principles of reality. Whether they are called gods, demons, angels, or numina, these immortal beings are emanations of the One": Michele Renee Salzman, "Religious koine in Private Cult and Ritual: Shared Religious Traditions in Roman Religion in the First Half of the Fourth Century CE," in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 113. The nymphs, with whom the lymphae are identified, are among the beings who inhabit forests, woodlands, and groves (silvas, nemora, lucos) and ponds, water sources and streams (lacus, fontes ac fluvios), according to Martianus Capella (2.167), who lists these beings as pans, fauns, fontes, satyrs, silvani, nymphs, fatui and fatuae (or fautuae), and the mysterious Fanae, from which the fanum (sacred precinct or shrine) is supposed to get its name. /wiki/Joshua_Whatmough
Ballentine, "Some Phases," p. 91, citing Augustine, De civitate Dei 4.22, 34; 6.1. /wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo
Entries on limpidus and lympha, Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 1985 reprinting), pp. 1031 and 1055; Arthur Sidgwick, P.vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber VII (Cambridge University Press Archive, n.d.), p. 61, note 377; Fernando Navarro Antolín, Lygdamus. Corpus Tibullianum III. 1–6: Lygdami elegiarum liber (Brill, 1996), pp. 418–419. In his Etymologies (20.3.4), Isidore of Seville says that "limpid (limpidus) wine, that is, clear, is so called from its resemblance to water, as if it were lymphidum, because lympha is water"; translation by Stephen A. Barney et al., The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 398. /wiki/Oxford_Latin_Dictionary
CIL 1.1238, as cited by Bergk, "Kritische bemerkungen zu den römische tragikern," p. 269. Bergk demonstrated that lympha was in origin Italic, and not a borrowed Greek term, despite the spelling. /wiki/Corpus_Inscriptionum_Latinarum
Bergk, "Kritische bemerkungen zu den römische tragikern," pp. 264–269.
Jacqueline Champeaux, "Sorts et divination inspirée. Pour une préhistoire des oracles italiques," Mélanges de l'École française de Rome 102.2 (1990), p. 827. /wiki/M%C3%A9langes_de_l%27%C3%89cole_fran%C3%A7aise_de_Rome
Whatmough, Foundations of Roman Italy, p. 383; R.S. Conway, The Italic Dialects (Cambridge University Press, 1897), p. 676; Johnston, Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia, p. 268; Bergk, "Kritische bemerkungen," p. 265. /wiki/Robert_Seymour_Conway
Johnston, Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia, pp. 268–269.
Martianus Capella, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury 1.46 online. /wiki/Martianus_Capella
CIL 9.4644 = ILS 3857. /wiki/Corpus_Inscriptionum_Latinarum
Varro, De lingua latina 5.71: (Lympha Iuturna quae iuvaret: itaque multi aegroti propter id nomen hanc aquam petere solent). See also Frontinus, On Aqueducts 1.4, where Juturna is in company with the Camenae and Apollo. C. Bennett Pascal, The Cults of Cisalpine Gaul (Latomus, 1964), p. 93, reads an inscription as linking the Celtic god Belenus (usually identified with Apollo) and the Lymphae, but Dessau reads Nymphae (ILS 4867). Servius, note to Aeneid 12.139, has Juturna as a fons, and Propertius 4.21.26, as the lympha salubris who restored a horse of Pollux (some editions emend to nympha; see note to the line at Sexti Aurelii Propertii Elegiarum Libri Quattuor, edited by N. Lemaire (1840), p. 448 online). /wiki/Frontinus
Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), pp. 74, 105, 152, 228, 230–231.
Servius, note to Aeneid 12.139: "Juturna is a fountain (fons) in Italy. … It was customary to offer sacrifices to this fountain in respect to a scarcity of water," as cited and discussed by Ballentine, "Some Phases," pp. 91–93. The temple was vowed by G. Lutatius Catulus as the result of a naval battle during the First Punic War. Arnobius, Adversus Nationes 3.29, identifies her as the mother of Fons. /wiki/Maurus_Servius_Honoratus
CIL 5.5648; Joseph Clyde Murley, The Cults of Cisalpine Gaul as Seen in the Inscriptions (Banta, 1922), pp. 32–33.
Arthur Bernard Cook, Zeus (Cambridge University Press Archive), p. 306. /wiki/Arthur_Bernard_Cook
R.B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate (Cambridge University Press, 1951), p. 220; Ballentine, "Some Phases of the Cult of the Nymphs," p. 97ff; on marriage (mainly in regard to nymphs, but see note 216), Salvatore Settis, "'Esedra' e 'ninfeo' nella terminologia architettonica del mondo romano," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (1973), pp. 685–688.
Propertius, Elegies 4.9.59–60, as cited and discussed by Tara S. Welch, "Masculinity and Monuments in Propertius 4.9," American Journal of Philology 125 (2004), p. 81. /wiki/Propertius
Ballentine, "Some Phases," p. 94.
Horace, Carmen 2.3.11–12 (laborat). /wiki/Horace
Carmen 3.13.13–16 (desiliunt) and Epode 16.47–48 (desilit). /wiki/Epodes_(Horace)
Epode 2.27 (obstrepunt).
Carmen 3.13.13–16(loquaces).
Sermo 1.5.96–103 (iratis).
Bergk, "Kritische bemerkungen zu den römische tragikern," pp. 268–269; Wilhelm Adolf Boguslaw Hertzberg, note to Propertius 3.16, Sex. Aurelii Propertii Elegiarum Libri Quattuor (1845), p. 340.
Ausonius, Ordo urbium nobilium 20.29–34, mentioning Divona; entry on "Spring deities" in Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, edited by John Koch (ABC-Clio, 2006), pp. 1623–1624. /wiki/Ausonius
Jennifer Lynn Larson, Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore (Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 13.
Larson, Greek Nymphs, pp. 13–14, 70.
Larson, Greek Nymphs, p. 14.
Gertrude Hirst, "An Attempt to Date the Composition of Aeneid VII," Classical Quarterly 10 (1916), p. 93.
Vergil, Aeneid 7.377, as noted by Sidgwick, p. 61, and R.D. Williams, The Aeneid of Vergil: Books 7–12 (St. Martins Press, 1973, 1977), pp. 195–196, who observes that it is "a very strong word." See also Debra Hershkowitz, The Madness of Epic: Reading Insanity from Homer to Statius (Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 50. /wiki/Vergil
As at Pacuvius. Trag. 422f.; Catullus 64.254, the Ariadne epyllion; and Lucan, Bellum Civile 1.496, as noted by Paul Roche, Lucan: De Bello Civili, Book 1 (Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 309. /wiki/Pacuvius
Pacuvius as quoted by Varro, De lingua latina 7.5. See also Johnston, Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia, p. 268. In 186 BC, during the lifetime of Pacuvius, the Roman senate placed severe legal restrictions on the Bacchanalia, the Dionysian rites celebrated in Italy. /wiki/Roman_senate
R.B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate (Cambridge University Press, 1951), pp. 34–35, 67.
Translation from Larson, Greek Nymphs, pp. 62–63. Festus states that the Lymphae are "called that after the nymphs," then explains: Vulgo autem memoriae proditum est, quicumque speciem quandam e fonte, id est effigiem nymphae, viderint, furendi non feciesse finem; quos Graeci νυμφολήπτους vocant. Latini lymphaticos appellant (p. 107, Teubner 1997 edition of Lindsay).
Larson, Greek Nymphs, p. 62.
Isidore, Etymologies 4.6.12 and 10.L.161, as translated by Barney et al., pp. 110, 223. See also Festus, entry on Lymphae, p. 107 in the edition of Lindsay. /wiki/Sextus_Pompeius_Festus
Larson, Greek Nymphs, p. 62.
Tertullian, "On Baptism" 2.5. translated by S. Thelwall: "Are there not other cases, too, in which, without any sacrament, unclean spirits brood on waters, in spurious imitation of that brooding of the Divine Spirit in the very beginning? Witness all shady founts (fontes), and all unfrequented brooks, and the ponds in the baths and the conduits in private houses, the cisterns and wells which are said to have the property of 'spiriting away' through the power, that is, of a hurtful spirit. Men whom waters have drowned or affected with madness or with fear, they call nymph-caught (nympholeptos), or 'lymphatic,' or 'hydrophobic' (an non et alias sine ullo sacramento immundi spiritus aquis incubant adfectantes illam in primordio divini spiritus gestationem? sciunt opaci quique fontes et avii quique rivi, et in balneis piscinae et euripi in domibus vel cisternae, et putei qui rapere dicuntur, scilicet per vim spiritus nocentis. nam et esetos et lymphaticos et hydrophobas vocant quos aquae necaverunt aut amentia vel formidine exercuerunt). /wiki/Tertullian