Rediculus

This divinity is probably one of Rome's lares, a protector-god of the city. He is said to have appeared to Hannibal as he was camped outside Rome in 211 B.C., urging him to return (redire) to Carthage.{{Cite web|url=http://www.mythindex.com/roman-mythology/R/Rediculus.html|title=Rediculus|work=Myth Index|year=2008|accessdate=May 21, 2011}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zGY1Sqjwf8kC&pg=PA301|page=301|title=Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome|first=Lesley|last=Adkins|author2=Roy A. Adkins |year=2004|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=9780816074822}} Festus' account of the incident reports that Hannibal, nearing the city, saw apparitions in the air, filling him with dread and causing him to turn back immediately:{{cite book|title=An Universal History|volume=XII|location=London|publisher=T. Osborne|year=1747|pages=299–300|last=Sale|first=George|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PBBMLxM1pIwC&pg=PA300|display-authors=etal}}

Rediculi fanum extra portam Capenam fuit, quia accedens ad Urbem Hannibal ex eo loco redierit quibusdam perterritus visis.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/romanelegiacpoe01harrgoog|title=The Roman Elegiac Poets|first=Karl Pomeroy|last=Harrington|page=[https://archive.org/details/romanelegiacpoe01harrgoog/page/n284 278]|publisher=Anthem Classics|year=2002}}

The [temple] of Rediculus was [outside] the Porta Capena; it was so called because Hannibal, when on the march from Capua, turned back at that spot, being alarmed at certain portentous visions.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sDwZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA525|page=525|title=The Natural History of Pliny|first=Bostock|last=John|author-link=John Bostock (physician)|author2=Henry Thomas Riley|author2-link=Henry Thomas Riley|volume=2|year=1855|publisher=Henry G. Bohn|location=London|isbn=9780598910769}}

One account has the god's entreaty taking the form of a shower of hail.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ta5o_ZQPocC&pg=PA387|page=387|title=Rome in the Nineteenth Century|last=Eaton|first=Charlotte|author-link=Charlotte Anne Eaton|volume=I|location=London|publisher=George Bell & Sons|year=1892}} After Hannibal's retreat, the Romans erected an altar at the site to "Rediculus Tutanus", the god "who turned back and protected".{{cite book|title=The History of Rome|volume=II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zZoWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA202|page=202|first=Theodor|last=Mommsen|year=1873|editor=William P. Dickson|publisher=Scribner, Armstrong, & Co}}

Others{{Who|date=January 2021}} derive the name of the god from the word ridiculus, signifying a thing to be laughed at. Hannibal's failure to enter Rome made him an object of scorn for the Romans, and in order to perpetuate his shame, they erected a temple to the god of laughter. Varro gives the god the epithet Tutanus (protector), having him speak in his Saturae Menippeae (Hercules tuam fidem, XXXIX):

Noctu Hannibalis cum fugavi exercitum,
Tutanus hoc, Tutanus Romae nuncupor.
Hoc propter omnes, qui laborant, invocant.

When in the night great Hannibal I beat,
And forc'd his troops from Latium to retreat,
From my defense, Tutanus was my name:
By this the wretched my protection claim.

Other authors, such as Robert Burn, say that this legend is "altogether unworthy of credit".{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/romecampagna00burn|page=[https://archive.org/details/romecampagna00burn/page/432 432]|last=Burn|first=Robert|title=Rome and the Campagna|location=Cambridge|publisher=Deighton, Bell and Co|year=1871}} Travelers leaving the city would pray at the temple before embarking on the Appian Way.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UsUJS9g6qHgC&pg=PA156|page=156|title=The Murder of Regilla|last=Pomeroy|first=Sarah|author-link=Sarah B. Pomeroy |publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2007|isbn=9780674042209}}

The Tomb of Herodes and Regilla, near the Church of Domine Quo Vadis, has been confused with the Temple of Rediculus; the temple, however, is described by Pliny as having been on the opposite side of the Appian Way.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/walksinromeincl00haregoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/walksinromeincl00haregoog/page/n313 291]|title=Walks in Rome|first=Augustus|last=Hare|edition=17|location=London|publisher=Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co|year=1905}} The temple was dedicated in about A.D. 65.

There was a tomb in the campus Rediculi ({{langx|en|field of Rediculus}}) dedicated to a talking crow. Pliny the Elder gives the story in his Natural History (Book X, chapter 60): A cobbler had a stall in the Roman Forum and possessed a tame crow who, being a favorite among the younger Romans, eventually became a sort of public character. When it was killed by a rival of the cobbler, they executed the rival and gave the bird a public funeral, carrying it on a bier to its burial place in the field of Rediculus.

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.flickr.com/photos/amalric/2268130893/ Flickr photo of the Temple of Rediculus]

Category:Roman gods

Category:Second Punic War