In
ancient Roman religion, the indigitamenta were
lists of deities kept by the
College of Pontiffs to assure that the correct divine names were invoked for public prayers. These lists or books probably described the nature of the various deities who might be called on under particular circumstances, with specifics about the sequence of
invocation. The earliest indigitamenta, like many other aspects of Roman religion, were attributed to
Numa Pompilius, second
king of Rome.[1]
Sources
The
books of the Pontiffs are known only through scattered passages preserved throughout
Latin literature.
Varro is assumed to have drawn on direct knowledge of the lists in writing his now-fragmentary theological books, which were used as a reference by the
Church Fathers[2] for their mocking catalogues of minor deities.[3] As
William Warde Fowler noted,
the good Fathers tumbled the whole collection about sadly in their search for material for their mockery, having no historical or scientific object in view; with the result that it now resembles the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, and can no longer be re-arranged on the original Varronian plan.[4]
Georg Wissowa, however, asserted that Varro's lists were not indigitamenta, but di certi, gods whose function could still be identified with certainty, since by the
late Republic some of the most archaic deities of the Roman pantheon were not widely cultivated and understood.[5] Another likely source for the
patristic catalogues is the lost work De indigitamentis of
Granius Flaccus, Varro's contemporary.[6]
W.H. Roscher collated the standard modern list of indigitamenta,[7] though other scholars may differ with him on some points.
Form
It is unclear whether the written indigitamenta contained complete prayer formularies, or simply an index of names.[8] If formulas of
invocation, the indigitamenta were probably precationumcarmina, chants or hymns of address.[9]Paulus defines them as incantamenta, incantations, and indicia, signs or intimations.[10]
A further point of uncertainty is whether these names represent distinct minor entities, or
epithets pertaining to an aspect of a major deity's sphere of influence, that is, an
indigitation, or name intended to "fix" or focalize the action of the god so invoked.[11] If the former, the indigitamenta might be described as indexing "significant names which bespoke a specialized divine function," for which the German term Sondergötter is sometimes used;[12] for instance,
Vagitanus gives the newborn its first cry (vagitus).[13] If the indigitamenta record invocational epithets, however, an otherwise obscure deity such as
Robigus, the red god of
wheat rust, should perhaps be understood as an indigitation of
Mars, red god of war and agriculture;[14]Maia, "a deity known apparently only to the priests and the learned," would be according to
Macrobius[15] an indigitation of the
Bona Dea.[16]Roscher, however, does not consider Robigus and Maia to have been part of the indigitamenta.
Roscher's list of indigitamenta
Many of the indigitamenta are involved in the cycle of conception, birth, and child development (marked BCh); see
List of Roman birth and childhood deities. Several appear in a list of twelve helper gods of
Ceres as an agricultural goddess[17] or are named elsewhere as having specialized agricultural functions (Ag). Gods not appearing on either of those lists are described briefly here, or are more fully described in their own articles as linked.
^Michael Lipka, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach (Brill, 2009), pp. 69–71, with reference to
Arnobius, Adversus Nationes 2.73.
^In particular, Book 14 of the non-extant Antiquitates
rerum divinarum; see Lipka, Roman Gods, pp. 69–70.
^W.R. Johnson, "The Return of
Tutunus", Arethusa (1992) 173–179;
William Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People (London, 1922), p. 163.
^Georg Wissowa, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (unknown edition), vol. 13, p. 218
online. See also
Kurt Latte, Roemische Religionsgeschichte (Munich, 1960), pp. 44-45.
^Lactantius, Div. inst. 1.6.7;
Censorinus 3.2;
Arnaldo Momigliano, "The Theological Efforts of the Roman Upper Classes in the First Century B.C.", Classical Philology 79 (1984), p. 210.
^W.H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (Leipzig: Teubner, 1890–94), vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 187–233.
^Matthias Klinghardt, "Prayer Formularies for Public Recitation: Their Use and Function in Ancient Religion." Numen 46 (1999), p. 44.
^D.C. Feeney, Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 85.
^Fowler, Roman Festivals, pp. 89–91 (on the
Robigalia); Eli Edward Burriss, "The Place of the Dog in Superstition as Revealed in Latin Literature", Classical Philology 30 (1935), pp. 34–35.
^Augustine of Hippo, De Civitate Dei 4.21, 28: "For likewise they put their case before Aescolanus, the father of Argentinus, because copper (or bronze) money entered into use first, with silver later" (nam ideo patrem Argentini Aescolanum posuerunt, quia prius aerea pecunia in usu esse coepit, post argentea).
^Festus, De significatione verborum, entry on arculus, p. 15 in the edition of Lindsay (Arculus putabatur esse deus, qui tutelam gereret arcarum); Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon, p. 193.
^Tertullian, Ad nationes 2.15; compare Scansus, the god named ab ascensibus, from his relation to slopes.