Murcia, Murtea
or MU'RTIA, a surname of Venus at Rome, where she had a chapel in the circus, with a statue. (Fest. p. 143, ed. Müller; Apul. Met. 6.395; Tertull. De Spect. 8; Varro, De Ling. Lat. 5.154; August. De Civ. Dei, 4.16; Liv. 1.33; Serv. ad Aen. 8.636.) He This surname, which is said to be the same as Myrtea (from myrtus, a myrtle), was believed to indicate the fondness of the goddess for the myrtle tree, and in ancient times there is said to havebeen a myrtle grove in the front of her chapel at the foot of the Aventine. (Plin. Nat. 15.36; Serv. ad Aen. 1.724; Plut. Quaest. Rom. 20.) Some of the ecclesiastical writers preferred the derivation from murcus, i. e. stupid or awkward. (August. De Civ. Dei, 4.16; Arnob. ad v. Gent. 4.9.) Others again derived the name from the Syracusan word μυκρός, tender. (Salmas. ad Solin. p. 637.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.