Juno Moneta: The Goddess, The Geese, and The Origin of Money
- Axel Kamne
- Dec 21, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 22, 2025
I’ve been getting a few questions about the title of my novel, The Treasure of Juno Moneta. Mostly from people who struggle to pronounce it and are wondering why I gave the book such a strange name.
Alright then.
Some people at least know Juno. In Roman mythology, she is the Queen of the Gods and the wife of Jupiter. But Moneta?
When I wrote the very early drafts of this heist story – long before it had the title – it wasn’t even set in ancient Rome. It was just a generic, ancient-inspired fantasy setting.
(Sure, it had gladiators, but they weren’t fighting at the Circus Maximus, and there certainly wasn’t a gladiator named Flamma, like the real-life Syrian legend from Hadrian’s time. The monsters in that draft were just generic creatures like dragons, not the historically accurate creatures like sciapods and panotti that the novel features today.)
But then, I stumbled upon something.
I was writing a scene where two thieves were discussing what they had previously stolen, and I went researching for inspiration. That is when I discovered the history of Juno Moneta.
The whole story had to be reworked. It was no longer just an ancient-inspired fantasy, it was set in the real ancient Rome. I had a part of the title already there – Juno Moneta – and all it cost was scrapping all the world building and reworking the entire novel.
Worth it? Yes, totally. This goddess was just too cool to pass up.
For one thing, she is the reason we have money today. (Literally, the word “money” comes from her name.)
But the story of how that happened is even better. It involves a barbarian invasion, a starving army, and most importantly, heroic geese.
Juno Moneta: The Warner
First, the name. In Latin, Moneta comes from the verb monere, which means "to warn" or "to advise." So she wasn’t just Juno the Queen; she was Juno the Warner. She was the divine intuition that told you when things were about to go south.
And in 390 BC, things did.
The Geese on the Hill
This is my favorite part of the story.
The Gauls had sacked the city, leaving the last Roman defenders trapped on the Capitoline Hill, cut off from supplies and starving. Living right alongside them was a flock of Juno’s sacred geese. Under normal circumstances, a goose makes for a great meal. But these were divine property, and even facing starvation, the Romans knew better than to steal from the Queen of the Gods.
One night, the Gauls found a secret path up the cliff. They climbed up silently. The dogs didn't bark. The guards were asleep. But when the Gauls reached the top, they startled the geese.
The birds honked. The noise woke up the Roman commander just in time to shove the first attacker off the cliff. Rome was saved by geese.
From Geese to Money
So, how did we get from geese to money?
After the Gaulish invasion, the Romans loved Juno Moneta and her geese. They built her a temple on the site of the battle.
Later, when Rome needed a secure place to make their coins, they decided the safest place in the city was right there in the temple of the Warner.
Because the coins were made in the Temple of Juno Moneta, the coins eventually became known as moneta.
A few examples of etymology (from Latin Moneta):
English: Money (and mint)
French: Monnaie
Spanish: Moneda
Portuguese: Moeda
Italian: Moneta
Romanian: Monedă
German: Münze
Dutch: Munt
Swedish/Norwegian: Mynt
Danish: Mønt
Czech: Mince
Polish/Russian/Lithuanian: Moneta
Latvian: Monēta
Albanian: Monedhë
Every time you say any of these words, you are referencing a goddess and her geese!
From History to Heist
I won’t spoil the plot of The Treasure of Juno Moneta, but let's just say what is hiding in the Temple of Juno Moneta plays a pretty big role.
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P.S. You can grab the book here. And don’t worry, neither geese nor coins (only Gauls!) were harmed in the writing of the novel.
