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In ancient Roman religion, the dii (also di) Novensiles or Novensides are collective deities of obscure significance found in epigraphy, prayer formularies, and both ancient and Early Christian literary texts.
In antiquity, the initial element of the word novensiles was thought to etymology from either "new" ( novus) or "nine" ( novem).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. The form novensides has been explained as "new settlers," from novus and insidere, "to settle".Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland, Ancient Rome: From the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar (Routledge, 2005), p. 114. 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. De dis Romanorum indigetibus et novensidibus disputatio (1892), full text (in Latin) online.
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.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". 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.Arnaldo Momigliano, "From Bachofen to Cumont," in A.D. Momigliano: Studies on Modern Scholarship (University of California Press, 1994), p. 319. 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.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. 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 thunderMarcus Manilius, as noted by Arnobius, Adversus gentes 38–39; mentioned also, though not labeled as novensiles, by Pliny, Natural History 2.52. or with the Muses.Granius Flaccus and Aelius Stilo, as cited by Arnobius, Adversus gentes 38. 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.Schilling, Historia Religionum, p. 450, and "Roman Gods," p. 70. William Warde Fowler observedFowler, Religious Experience, pp. 157 and 319. that at any rate a distinction between "indigenous" and "imported" begins to vanish during the Hannibalic War, when immigrantJ.S. Wacher, The Roman World (Routledge, 1987, 2002), p. 751. deities are regularly invoked for the protection of the Roman State.
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 numen status ( dignitatem numinis) through their virtus, their quality of character.Servius, note to Aeneid 8.187: sane quidam veteres deos novensiles dicunt, quibus merita virtutis dederint numinis dignitatem. 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."Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome: Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to Imperial Times (Routledge, 1998, 2001), p. 97.
Varro, who was himself Sabine, placed the Novensides in his much-noted catalogue of Sabine deities.Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.74. Inscriptions in Sabine country mention the novensiles or novensides, for instance, dieu. nove. sede at Pisaurum. CIL 1.178; for full inscription as transcribed in Engelbert Joseph Schneider, Dialecti latinae priscae et faliscae exempla selecta (Leipzig, 1886), p. 7 online. A inscription also names the novensiles without the indigetes. CIL 12.375. Esos Novesede pesco pacre: "to the Lords Novesede peace bringing sacrifice". The 19th-century scholar Edward Greswell sought to connect the nine novensiles of the Sabines to the Nundinae, the eight-day "week" of the Roman calendar that Roman inclusive counting reckoned as nine days.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.
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,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. and took their name as meaning "nine." He locates the Novensiles in the second region of the heavens, with Jove, Mars Quirinus, the "Military Lares," Juno, Fontus ("Fountain" or "Source"), and the (fresh-water goddesses). 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.
Several scholarsC.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. 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 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.Thulin, "Die Goetter des Martianus Capella," pp. 34–40 et passim online. The Novensiles would thus correspond to the di superiores et involutiNamed 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. and possibly the Favores Opertanei ("Secret Gods of Favor") referred to by Martianus Capella. Martianus, however, locates the FavoresMartanus 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 Erinyes) in contrast to their destructive power; Iiro Kajanto, "Fortuna," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II. 17.1 (1981), p. 507, note 18. 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".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.
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