Novensiles

Last updated

In ancient Roman religion, the dii (also di) Novensiles or Novensides are collective deities of obscure significance found in inscriptions, prayer formulary, and both ancient and early-Christian literary texts.

Contents

In antiquity, the initial element of the word novensiles was thought to derive from either "new" (novus) or "nine" (novem). [1] The form novensides has been explained as "new settlers," from novus and insidere, "to settle". [2] The enduringly influential 19th-century scholar Georg Wissowa thought that the novensiles or novensides were deities the Romans regarded as imported, that is, not indigenous like the di Indigetes . [3]

Although Wissowa treated the categories of indigetes and novensiles as a fundamental way to classify Roman gods, the distinction is hard to maintain; many scholars reject it. [4] Arnaldo Momigliano pointed out that no ancient text poses novensiles and indigetes as a dichotomy, and that the etymology of novensides is far from settled. [5] In his treatise on orthography, the 4th-century philosopher Marius Victorinus regarded the spellings novensiles and novensides as a simple phonetic alteration of l and d, characteristic of the Sabine language. [6] Some ancient sources say the novensiles are nine in number, leading to both ancient and modern identifications with other divine collectives numbering nine, such as the nine Etruscan deities empowered to wield thunder [7] or with the Muses. [8] The name is thus sometimes spelled Novemsiles or Novemsides.

It may be that only the cults of deities considered indigenous were first established within the sacred boundary of Rome ( pomerium ), with "new" gods on the Aventine Hill or in the Campus Martius, but it is uncertain whether the terms indigetes and novensiles correspond to this topography. [9] William Warde Fowler observed [10] that at any rate a distinction between "indigenous" and "imported" begins to vanish during the Hannibalic War, when immigrant [11] deities are regularly invoked for the protection of the state.

The invocation of Decius Mus

The novensiles are invoked in a list of deities in a prayer formula preserved by the Augustan historian Livy. The prayer is uttered by Decius Mus (consul 340 BC) during the Samnite Wars as part of his vow ( devotio ) to offer himself as a sacrifice to the infernal gods when a battle between the Romans and the Latins has become desperate. Although Livy was writing at a time when Augustus cloaked religious innovation under appeals to old-fashioned piety and traditionalism, archaic aspects of the prayer suggest that it represents a traditional formulary as might be preserved in the official pontifical books. The other deities invoked — among them the Archaic Triad of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, as well as the Lares and Manes — belong to the earliest religious traditions of Rome. Livy even explains that he will record the archaic ritual of devotio at length because "the memory of every human and religious custom has withered from a preference for everything novel and foreign." [12] That the novensiles would appear in such a list at all, and before the indigetes, is surprising if they are "new." [13]

Both the Lares and the Manes are "native" gods often regarded in ancient sources as the deified dead. Servius says that the novensiles are "old gods" who earned numinous status (dignitatem numinis) through their virtus , their quality of character. [14] The early Christian apologist Arnobius notes other authorities who also regarded them as mortals who became gods. In this light, the novensiles, like the Lares and Manes, may be "concerned with the subterranean world where ancestors were sleeping." [15]

Sabine origin

According to Arnobius, a Piso, most likely the Calpurnius Piso Frugi who was an annalist and consul in 133 BC, [16] said that the novensiles were nine gods whose cult had been established in Sabine country at Trebia. The location has been identified variously as the river Trebbia, Trevi nel Lazio, or one of the places called Trebula in antiquity, two of which — Trebula Mutusca and Trebula Suffenas — are in Sabine territory. [17] Gary Forsythe has conjectured that Piso's family came from the middle Tiber Valley  [ it ], on the border of Etruria and Sabine country, and that he was drawing on personal knowledge. The father of this Piso is probably the L. Calpurnius who dedicated a shrine to Feronia at Lucus Feroniae near Capena. [18]

Varro, who was himself Sabine, placed the Novensides in his much-noted catalogue of Sabine deities. [19] Inscriptions in Sabine country mention the novensiles or novensides, for instance, dieu. nove. sede at Pisaurum. [20] A Marsian inscription also names the novensiles without the indigetes. [21] The 19th-century scholar Edward Greswell sought to connect the nine novensiles of the Sabines to the nundinal cycle, the eight-day "week" of the Roman calendar that Roman inclusive counting reckoned as nine days. [22]

Nine deities

A 4th- or 3rd-century BC inscription from Ardea reading neven deivo has been taken to refer to the Novensiles as nine deities. [23] Granius Flaccus and Aelius Stilo, Arnobius says, identify the Novensiles with the Muses, implying that they are nine in number. In the Roman tradition, the Muses became identified with the Camenae, the Latin goddesses of fresh-water sources and prophetic inspiration. The two best-known of the Camenae were Carmentis (or Carmenta), who had her own flamen and in whose honor the Carmentalia was held, and Egeria, the divine consort of Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome considered the founder of Roman law and religion. Numa had established a bronze shrine at the fountain in their grove, the site of his divine union with Egeria. [24] The fountain of the Camenae was a source of water for the Vestals. [25]

The 5th-century scholar Martianus Capella placed the Dii Novensiles within his Etruscan-influenced celestial schema in his work On the Marriage of Mercury and Philology, [26] and took their name as meaning "nine." He locates the Novensiles in the second region of the heavens, with Jove, Mars Quirinus, the "Military Lar," Juno, Fons ("Fountain" or "Source"), and the Lymphae (fresh-water goddesses). [27]

Council on lightning

Pliny [28] mentions nine gods of the Etruscans who had the power of wielding thunderbolts, pointing toward Martianus's Novensiles as gods pertaining to the use of thunder and lightning (fulgura) as signs. Books on how to read lightning were one of the three main branches of the disciplina Etrusca , the body of Etruscan religious and divinatory teachings. Within the Etruscan discipline, Jupiter has the power to wield three types of admonitory lightning (manubiae) sent from three different celestial regions. [29] The first of these, mild or "perforating" [30] lightning, is a beneficial form meant to persuade or dissuade. [31] The other two types are harmful or "crushing" lightning, for which Jupiter requires the approval of the Di Consentes, and completely destructive or "burning" lighting, which requires the approval of the di superiores et involuti (hidden gods of the "higher" sphere). [32]

Several scholars [33] have identified the Novensiles with the council of gods who decide on the use of the third, most destructive type of lightning. Carl Thulin proposed that two theonyms from the Piacenza Liver — a bronze model of a sheep's liver covered with Etruscan inscriptions pertaining to haruspicy — ought to be identified with the two councils, Cilens(l) with the Novensiles and Thufltha(s) with the Consentes Penates . [34] The Novensiles would thus correspond to the di superiores et involuti [35] and possibly the Favores Opertanei ("Secret Gods of Favor") referred to by Martianus Capella. Martianus, however, locates the Favores [36] in the first region of the sky, with the Di Consentes and Penates, and the Novensiles in the second; the Favores are perhaps the Fata, "Fates". [37]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jupiter (god)</span> Chief deity of Roman state religion

Jupiter, also known as Jove, is the god of the sky and thunder, and king of the gods in ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering, or sacrifice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fontus</span>

Fontus or Fons was a god of wells and springs in ancient Roman religion. A religious festival called the Fontinalia was held on October 13 in his honor. Throughout the city, fountains and wellheads were adorned with garlands.

In ancient Roman religion, Sancus was a god of trust, honesty, and oaths. His cult, one of the most ancient amongst the Romans, probably derived from Umbrian influences. Cato and Silius Italicus wrote that Sancus was a Sabine god and father of the eponymous Sabine hero Sabus. He is thus sometimes considered a founder-deity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Summanus</span> Roman god of nocturnal thunder

Summanus was the god of nocturnal thunder in ancient Roman religion, as counterposed to Jupiter, the god of diurnal (daylight) thunder. His precise nature was unclear even to Ovid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etruscan religion</span> Stories, beliefs, and religious practices of the Etruscans

Etruscan religion comprises a set of stories, beliefs, and religious practices of the Etruscan civilization, heavily influenced by the mythology of ancient Greece, and sharing similarities with concurrent Roman mythology and religion. As the Etruscan civilization was gradually assimilated into the Roman Republic from the 4th century BC, the Etruscan religion and mythology were partially incorporated into ancient Roman culture, following the Roman tendency to absorb some of the local gods and customs of conquered lands. The first attestations of an Etruscan religion can be traced back to the Villanovan culture.

Nortia is the Latinized name of the Etruscan goddess Nurtia, whose sphere of influence was time, fate, destiny, and chance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tinia</span> Etruscan sky god

Tinia was the sky god and the highest deity in Etruscan religion, equivalent to the Roman Jupiter and the Greek Zeus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neptune (mythology)</span> Roman god of freshwater and the sea

Neptune is the Roman god of freshwater and the sea in Roman religion. He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-inspired tradition, he is a brother of Jupiter and Pluto; the brothers preside over the realms of heaven, the earthly world, and the seas. Salacia is his wife.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juno (mythology)</span> Ancient Roman goddess of marriage and childbirth

Juno was an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counsellor of the state. She was equated to Hera, queen of the gods in Greek mythology and a goddess of love and marriage. A daughter of Saturn and Ops, she was the sister and wife of Jupiter and the mother of Mars, Vulcan, Bellona, Lucina and Juventas. Like Hera, her sacred animal was the peacock. Her Etruscan counterpart was Uni, and she was said to also watch over the women of Rome. As the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, Juno was called Regina ("Queen") and was a member of the Capitoline Triad, centered on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and also including Jupiter, and Minerva, goddess of wisdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feronia (mythology)</span> Italic goddess of wilderness and liberty

In Etruscan and Sabine religion, Feronia was a goddess associated with wildlife, fertility, health, and abundance, also venerated by the Faliscans and later adopted into ancient Roman religion. As the goddess who granted freedom to slaves or civil rights to the most humble part of society, she was especially honored among plebeians and freedmen. Her festival, the Feroniae, was November 13 during the Ludi Plebeii, in conjunction with Fortuna Primigenia; both were goddesses of Praeneste.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liver of Piacenza</span> Etruscan artifact

The Liver of Piacenza is an Etruscan artifact found in a field on September 26, 1877, near Gossolengo, in the province of Piacenza, Italy, now kept in the Municipal Museum of Piacenza, in the Palazzo Farnese.

<i>Dii Consentes</i> List of twelve major deities in the pantheon of Ancient Rome

The Dii Consentes, also known as Di or Dei Consentes, or The Harmonious Gods, is an ancient list of twelve major deities, six gods and six goddesses, in the pantheon of Ancient Rome. Their gilt statues stood in the Roman Forum, and later apparently in the Porticus Deorum Consentium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mars (mythology)</span> Roman god of war, guardian of agriculture

In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Mars is the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He is the son of Jupiter and Juno, and was pre-eminent among the Roman army's military gods. Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him, and in October, the months which traditionally began and ended the season for both military campaigning and farming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman mythology</span> Traditional stories pertaining to ancient Romes legendary origins and religious system

Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, Roman mythology may also refer to the modern study of these representations, and to the subject matter as represented in the literature and art of other cultures in any period. Roman mythology draws from the mythology of the Italic peoples and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European mythology.

Cornelius Labeo was an ancient Roman theologian and antiquarian who wrote on such topics as the Roman calendar and the teachings of Etruscan religion (Etrusca disciplina). His works survive only in fragments and testimonia. He has been dated "plausibly but not provably" to the 3rd century AD. Labeo has been called "the most important Roman theologian" after Varro, whose work seems to have influenced him strongly. He is usually considered a Neoplatonist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catha (mythology)</span> Etruscan goddess

Catha is a female Etruscan lunar or solar deity, who may also be connected to childbirth, and has a connection to the underworld. Catha is also the goddess of the south sanctuary at Pyrgi, Italy.

In Etruscan religion, the dii involuti were a group of gods, or possibly a principle, superior to the ordinary pantheon of gods. In contrast to the ordinary Etruscan gods, including the Dii Consentes, the dii involuti were not the object of direct worship and were never depicted. Their specific attributes and number are unknown; Jean-René Jannot suggests that they may represent either an archaic principle of divinity or "the very fate that dominates individualized gods".

Śuri, later latinized as Soranus, was an ancient Etruscan deity, also venerated by other populations of central Italy and later adopted into ancient Roman religion.

References

  1. ↑ Robert Schilling, "The Roman Religion," in Historia Religionum: Religions of the Past (Brill, 1969), vol. 1, p. 450; and "Roman Gods" in Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1981, 1992), p. 71.
  2. ↑ Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland, Ancient Rome: From the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar (Routledge, 2005), p. 114.
  3. ↑ De dis Romanorum indigetibus et novensidibus disputatio (1892), full text (in Latin) online.
  4. ↑ Franz Altheim, A History of Roman Religion, as translated by Harold Mattingly (London, 1938), pp. 110–112: "I pass deliberately over several other objections that may be raised against Wissowa's interpretation, because they would demand a long excursus".
  5. ↑ Arnaldo Momigliano, "From Bachofen to Cumont," in A.D. Momigliano: Studies on Modern Scholarship (University of California Press, 1994), p. 319.
  6. ↑ Marius Victorinus, the section De orthographia from Ars grammatica liber primus de orthographia et de metrica ratione, in the Teubner edition of Heinrich Keil, (Leipzig, 1874), p. 26 online.
  7. ↑ Manilius, as noted by Arnobius, Adversus gentes 38–39; mentioned also, though not labeled as novensiles, by Pliny, Natural History 2.52.
  8. ↑ Granius Flaccus and Aelius Stilo, as cited by Arnobius, Adversus gentes 38.
  9. ↑ Schilling, Historia Religionum, p. 450, and "Roman Gods," p. 70.
  10. ↑ Fowler, Religious Experience, pp. 157 and 319.
  11. ↑ J.S. Wacher, The Roman World (Routledge, 1987, 2002), p. 751.
  12. ↑ Livy, 8.11.1: omnis divini humanique moris memoria abolevit nova peregrinaque omnia praeferendo; Andrew Feldherr, Spectacle and Society in Livy's History, (University of California Press, 1998), p. 41, note 125.
  13. ↑ Schilling, "Roman Gods," p. 70–71; Beard, Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook, p. 158; Roger D. Woodard, Indo-European Sacred Space: Vedic and Roman Cult (University of Illinois Press, 2006), pp. 7–8; William Francis Allen, "The Religion of the Ancient Romans," in Essays and Monographs (Boston, 1890), p. 68.
  14. ↑ Servius, note to Aeneid 8.187: sane quidam veteres deos novensiles dicunt, quibus merita virtutis dederint numinis dignitatem.
  15. ↑ Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome: Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to Imperial Times (Routledge, 1998, 2001), p. 97.
  16. ↑ M. Burghard, Arnobius of Sicca: The Case Against the Pagans (Paulist Press, 1975), p. 368, note 224 (where he errs in giving the year of Piso's consulship as 233 rather than 133 BC); possible identifications discussed in Berichte über die Verhandlungen der königlich sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig (1848), vol. 1, pp. 429–430.
  17. ↑ Gary Forsythe, "The Tribal Membership of the Calpurnii Pisones," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 83 (1990), p. 297; A Handbook of Rome and Its Environs (London, 1864, 7th ed.), p. 370 online.
  18. ↑ Forsythe, "The Tribal Membership of the Calpurnii Pisones," p. 297.
  19. ↑ Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.74.
  20. ↑ CIL 1.178; for full inscription as transcribed in Engelbert Joseph Schneider, Dialecti latinae priscae et faliscae exempla selecta (Leipzig, 1886), p. 7 online.
  21. ↑ CIL 12.375. Esos Novesede pesco pacre: "to the Lords Novesede peace bringing sacrifice".
  22. ↑ Edward Greswell, Origines Kalendariae Italicae, Nundinal Calendars of Ancient Italy, Nundinal Calendar of Romulus, Calendar of Numa Pompilius, Calendar of the Decemvirs, Irregular Roman Calendar, and Julian Correction. Tables of the Roman Calendar, from U.C. 4 of Varro B.C. 750 to U.C. 1108 A.D. 355 (Oxford University Press, 1884), vol. 2, pp. 394–397.
  23. ↑ CIL I2.455; Vittore Pisani, (1943) p.253 as quoted by G. C. L. Bakkum The Latin Dialect of the Ager Faliscus Amsterdam 2009 p. 62 ; Emil Vetter, "Di Novensiles Di Indigetes" in Indogermanische Forschungen LXII (1956) p.1.
  24. ↑ Richard J. King, Desiring Rome: Male Subjectivity and Reading Ovid's Fast (The Ohio State University Press, 2006), p. 30.
  25. ↑ Sarolta A. Takács, Vestal Virgins, Sibyls, and Matrons: Women in Roman Religion (University of Texas Press, 2008), p. 30.
  26. ↑ For a diagram combining the heavenly sphere of Martianus Capella and that of the Piacenza liver, see Nancy Thomson De Grummond, Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2006), p. 50 online.
  27. ↑ In secunda itidem mansitabant praeter domum Iovis, quae ibi quoque sublimis est, ut est in omnibus praediatus, Quirinus Mars, Lars Militaris; Juno etiam ibi domicilium possidebat, Fons etiam, Lymphae diique Novensiles: De Grummond, Etruscan Myth, pp. 45 and 151.
  28. ↑ Pliny, Natural History 2.52.
  29. ↑ Massimo Pallottino, "The Doctrine and Sacred Books of the Disciplina Etrusca," Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 43–44; Stefan Weinstock, "Libri fulgurales," Papers of the British School at Rome 19 (1951), p. 125. The word may be either a Latinized word from Etruscan or less likely a formation from manus, "hand," and habere, "to have, hold." It is not apparently related to the more common Latin word manubiae meaning "booty (taken by a general in war)."
  30. ↑ The description of the three types of lightning as "perforating," "crushing," and "burning" is Weinstock's, Libri fulgurales, p. 127.
  31. ↑ Georges Dumézil, La religion romaine archaïque (Paris 1974), pp. 630 and 633 (note 3), drawing on Seneca, Naturales Questiones 2.41.1–2 and 39.
  32. ↑ Weinstock, p. 127.
  33. ↑ C.O. Thulin, "Die Goetter des Martianus Capella und der Bronzenleber von Piacenza," in Religiongeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten (1906) pp. 34-40; A. Grenier, "Indigetes et Novensiles," in Boletim de Philologia supplem. 1951, pp. 203-4; Gérard Capdeville, "Les dieux de Martianus Capella," Revue de l'histoire des religions 213 (1996), pp. 269-274.
  34. ↑ Thulin, "Die Goetter des Martianus Capella," pp. 34–40 et passim online.
  35. ↑ Named as such by Seneca, Naturales Questiones 2.41.1–2; Festus p. 219M = 114 edition of Lindsay; entry on peremptalia fulgura, p. 236 in the 1997 Teubner edition; and Martianus Capella; see also Arnobius, Adversus Nationes 3.38.
  36. ↑ Martanus Capella, 1.45. For the passage in translation, see de Grummond, Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend, pp. 45–46. The name Favores, "favoring" gods, is a euphemism (compare Eumenides) in contrast to their destructive power; Iiro Kajanto, "Fortuna," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II. 17.1 (1981), p. 507, note 18.
  37. ↑ Gérard Capdeville, "Les dieux de Martianus Capella," Revue de l'histoire des religions 213 (1996), pp. 260–262 and 273–274; see also Nancy Thomson de Grummond, The Religion of the Etruscans (University of Texas Press, 2006), pp. 41–42.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.