Si deus si dea
{{Short description|Phrase in Roman religion}}
{{title language|la}}
{{lang|la|Si deus si dea}} is an Archaic Latin phrase meaning "whether god or goddess". It was used to address a deity of unknown gender. It was also written {{lang|la|sive deus sive dea}}, {{lang|la|sei deus sei dea}}, or {{lang|la|sive mas sive femina}} ("whether male or female").
The phrase can be found on several ancient monuments. Archaic Roman inscriptions such as this may have been written to protect the identity of the god if Rome were captured by an enemy.Description of the Altar to the Unknown Divinity, found at the Palatine Hill Museum. The construction was often used when invoking the god of a place (e.g., "Be you god or goddess who reigns over Carthage, grant us...").{{citation needed|date=January 2011}} The classical scholar Edward Courtney claimed it was "intended to cover all bases as an acknowledgement of the limitations of human knowledge about divine powers".[http://societasviaromana.net/Collegium_Religionis/numinism.php De Numinibus], essay by Mauk Haemers
Monuments
=Altar to the Unknown God=
{{see also|Unknown God}}
In 1820, an altar was discovered on the Palatine Hill with an Old Latin inscription:{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924029785759/page/n118 89]|title=Latin epigraphy: an introduction to the study of Latin inscriptions|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924029785759|first=Sir John Edwin |last=Sandys|year=1919|location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press}}
{{poemquote|{{lang|la|SEI·DEO·SEI·DEIVAE·SAC
C·SEXTIVS·C·F·CALVINVS·PR
DE·SENATI·SENTENTIA
RESTITVIT|italics=no}}}}
which can be transliterated into the modern form as:[http://www.laits.utexas.edu/dase/index.php?action=view_search_item&item_id=13728 Description of the altar] at University of Texas at Austin' Digital Archive Services
{{poemquote|{{lang|la|Sei deo sei deivae sac(rum)
C(aius) Sextius C(ai) f(ilius) Calvinus pr(aetor)
de senati sententia
restituit}}}}
{{poemquote|Whether sacred to god or to goddess,
Gaius Sextius Calvinus, son of Gaius, praetor,
on a vote of the senate,
restored this.}}
The altar is regarded as a late Roman Republic restoration of an archaic original. In the nineteenth century it was misidentified as a famous altar to Aius Locutius.Rodolfo Lanciani, [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/Lanciani/LANPAC/2*.html#image72 Pagan and Christian Rome], 1892. The real identity of the divinity cannot be known, as it does not specify whether it is a god or a goddess. The praetor Gaius Sextius C. f. Calvinus may have restored an earlier altar reading {{lang|la|"sei deo sei deivae"}}, or he may have been restoring an altar that had been left to decay, after the god or goddess to whom it had originally been dedicated was forgotten.
={{lang|la|Fertor Resius}}=
Close to the site, four inscribed columns were found dating to the Julio-Claudian period. Column A (now missing) read {{lang|la|"Marspiter"}}, or "Father Mars", in Archaic Latin. Column B reads {{lang|la|"Remureine"}}, which possibly means "In Memory of Remus." Column C reads {{lang|la|"anabestas"}}, possibly referring to a goddess named Anabesta,[https://archive.org/details/MN40045ucmf_3 Internet Archive: Details: Thesaurus linguae latinae epigraphicae (microform); a dictionary of the Latin inscriptions]. or else to the Greek {{transl|grc|anabasio}} ("to go up"), interpreted as a reference to Remus' scaling of the Roman walls. Column D, the longest inscription, reads:
{{poemquote|{{lang|la|Fertor Resius
rex Aequeicolus
is preimus
ius fetiale paravit
inde p(opulus) R(omanus) discipleinam excepit.}}
Fertor Resius,
Aequian king,
he first
introduced the {{lang|la|ius fetiale}},
from him the Roman people
learned the discipline [of making treaties].}}
Livy ascribed the institution of the fetiales to Ancus Marcius, and claimed that the {{lang|la|ius fetiale}} came to Rome from the Aequicoli.Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, i. 32.
See also
References
{{reflist|30em}}
Further reading
- Alvar, Jaime, 1988: "Materiaux pour l'etude de la formule sive deus, sive dea" Numen 32,2, 236-273.
{{Authority control}}
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Category:Latin religious words and phrases