But the Sol of August 9 is called in the calendars _Sol Indiges_. What
are we to understand by this word, which appears in the names Di
Indigetes, Jupiter Indiges, or Indigetes simply? The Roman scholars
themselves were not agreed on the point; the general opinion was that it
meant ‘of or belonging to a certain place,’ i. e. fixed there by origin
and protecting it[801]. This view has also been generally adopted, on
etymological or other grounds, by modern writers, including
Preller[802]. Recently a somewhat different explanation has been put
forward in the _Mythological Lexicon_, suggested by Reifferscheid in his
lectures at Breslau. According to this view, _Indiges_ (from _indu_ and
root _ag_ in _agere_) was a deity working in a particular act, business,
place, &c., of men’s activity, and in no other; it is of pontifical
origin, like its cognate _indigitamenta_, and is therefore not a
survival from the oldest religious forms[803].
The second of these explanations does not seem to help us to understand
what was meant by Sol Indiges; and its exponent in the _Lexicon_, in
order to explain this, falls back on an ingenious suggestion made long
ago by Preller. In dealing with Sol Indiges, Preller explained Indiges
as = _index_, and conjectured that the name was not given to Sol until
after the eclipse which foretold the death of Caesar, comparing the
lines of Virgil (_Georg._ 1. 463 foll.):
Sol tibi signa dabit. Solem quis dicere falsum
Audeat? ille etiam caecos instare tumultus
Saepe monet, fraudemque et operta tumescere bella.
Ille etiam exstincto miseratus Caesare Romam:
Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit,
Impiaque aeternam timuerunt saecula noctem.
Preller may be right; and if he were, we should have no further trouble
in this case. In the pre-Julian calendar, on this hypothesis, the word
Indiges was absent. This is also the opinion of the last scholar who, so
far as I know, has touched the question; but Wissowa[804], with reason
as I think, reverts to the first explanation given above of the word
Indiges (‘of or belonging to a certain place’), and believes that the
word, when added to Sol in the Julian calendar, was simply meant to
distinguish the real indigenous Sun-god from foreign solar deities.
PRID. ID. SEXT. (AUG. 12). C.
HERCULI INVICTO AD CIRCUM MAXIM[UM]. (ALLIF. AMIT.)
[HERCULI MAGNO CUSTODI IN CIRCO FLAMIN[IO] (VALL.) is generally taken as
a confusion with June 4[805].]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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