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Maia

Μαῖα). The daughter of Atlas and Pleioné, one of the Pleiades (q.v.), and mother of Hermes by Zeus. The Romans identified her with an old Italian goddess of spring, Maia Maiestas (also called Fauna, Bona Dea, Ops), who was held to be the wife of Vulcan, and to whom the flamen of that god sacrificed a pregnant sow on the first of May.

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