In ancient Roman religion, Sancus (also known as Sangus or Semo Sancus) was a god of trust (), honesty, and oaths. His cult, one of the most ancient amongst the Romans, probably derived from Umbrian influences. CatoIn a fragment preserved by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 2.49.2. and Silius ItalicusSilius Italicus Punica VIII 421. wrote that Sancus was a Sabine god and father of the eponymous Sabine hero Sabus. He is thus sometimes considered a founder-deity.
His oaths were said to protect marriage, hospitality, law, commerce, and particularly formal contracts. Some of the oaths said at the moment of signing a contract (or other important civil promissory acts) named Sancus as guarantor, and called on him to protect and guard over the honour and integrity of the signatories' pledges.
Etymology The place-name is related to the theonym, through the proper name .
Sancus derives from a Latin/Umbrian/Sabine source (compare Umbrian sacra/ sakra "sacred", and the Umbrian theonym Sansi/Saçi), and is connected to Latin ('to hallow') and hence sanctus ('hallowed') and English saint, sacred, sanctuary, sanctity and sanction.
Outside Italic, Hittite has a number of words such as saklai "rites" and sankunnis "priest" that seem to be clear cognates, suggesting an Indo-European root *sank-/*sak- "to sanctify". It is possible, however, that the former was a loan from Akkadian sakku (m) 'cultic rites,' and the latter may be a loan word from Sumerian sanga "administrative priest".ids online hittite dictionary https://ids.clld.org/units/208-911/
Woodard has interpreted Sancus as the Roman equivalent of Vedic god Indra (whose name is likely related to Sanskrit indu "rain drop"), who has to rely on the help of the Maruts, in his view corresponding to the twelfth Roman of the carmen Arvale, in his task of killing the dragon Vrtra thus freeing the waters and averting drought. He traces the etymology of Semo to PIE stem root * bearing the meanings of 'to pour', 'ladle', 'flow', 'drop' related to rain and sowing. (See more below at "Mars and Semo")
Worship The temple dedicated to Sancus stood on the Quirinal Hill, under the name .
Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes that the worship of Semo Sancus was imported into Rome at a very early time by the Sabines who occupied the Quirinal Hill. According to tradition his cult was said to have been introduced by the Sabines and perhaps king Titus Tatius dedicated a small shrine. Properce IV 9, 74; The actual construction of the temple is generally ascribed to Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, although it was dedicated by Spurius Postumius on 5June 466BCE.
Sancus was considered the son of Jupiter, an opinion recorded by Varro and attributed to his teacher Aelius Stilo. He was the god of heavenly light, the avenger of dishonesty, the upholder of truth and good faith, the sanctifier of agreements. Hence his identification with Hercules, who was likewise the guardian of the sanctity of oaths. His festival day occurred on the of June (5June).
Shrine on Quirinal The shrine on the Quirinal was described by 19thcentury archeologist R.A. Lanciani. It was located near the of the Servian walls, not far from the modern church of San Silvestro al Quirinale, precisely on the . It was described by classical writers as having no roof so as oaths could be taken under the sky.
It had a chapel containing relics of the regal period: A bronze statue of Tanaquil or Gaia Caecilia, her belt containing remedies that people came to collect, her distaff, spindle, and slippers, and after the capture of Privernum in 329BCE, brass medallions or bronze wheels (discs) made of the money confiscated from Vitruvius Vaccus.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus records that the treaty between Rome and Gabii was preserved in this temple. This treaty was perhaps the first international treaty to be recorded and preserved in written form in ancient Rome. It was written on the skin of the ox sacrificed to the god upon its agreement and fixed onto a wooden frame or a shield.
According to Lanciani the foundations of the temple were discovered in March1881, under what was formerly the convent of San Silvestro al Quirinale (or ), later the headquarters of the (former) Royal Engineers. Lanciani relates the monument was a parallelogram in shape, thirty-five feet long by nineteen wide, with walls of travertine and decorations in white marble. It was surrounded by votive altars and the pedestal of statues. In Latin literature it is sometimes called aedes, sometimes sacellum, this last appellation probably connected to the fact it was a sacred space in the open air. Platner & Ashby (1929) though write that its foundations had already been detected in the 16thcentury.
Lanciani supposes the statue depicted in this article might have been found on the site of the shrine on the Quirinal as it appeared in the antiquarian market of Rome at the time of the excavations at San Silvestro.
Statue and shrine on Tiber Island and others Semo Sancus had a large sanctuary at Velitrae, now Velletri, in Volscian territory.
There was possibly another shrine or altar () dedicated to Semo Sancus on the Isle of the Tiber, near the temple of . This altar bears the inscription seen and misread by Justin ( read as ) and was discovered on the island in July1574. It is preserved in the of the Vatican Museum, first compartment ( gallery). Lanciani advances the hypothesis that while the shrine on the Quirinal was of Sabine origin that on the Tiber island was Latin. Claridge (1998) reports that the statue of Sancus (inscribed ) was found on the Tiber Island.
The statue is life-sized and is of the archaic Apollo (kouros) type. The expression of the face and the modeling of the body however are realistic. Both hands are missing, so that it is impossible to say what were the attributes of the god, one being perhaps the club of Hercules and/or the ossifrage, the augural bird proper to the god (), hypotheses made by archaeologist Visconti and reported by Lanciani. Other scholars think he should have held lightning bolts in his left hand.
The inscription on the pedestal mentions a . Lanciani makes reference to a glossa of Sextus Pompeius Festus s.v. which states these were small shrines of lesser divinities, to whom , i.e. lambs two years old, were sacrificed. Fowler (1899) says these priests should have been concerned with lightning bolts, being both the technical term for the , the hole (resembling a well) left by strikes onto the ground and for the victims used to placate the god and purify the site.
– priests of Semo Sancus For this reason the priests of Semo Sancus were called . They were organised, like a lay corporation, in a under the presidency of a .
Their residence at the shrine on the Quirinal was located adjoining the chapel: it was ample and commodious, provided with a supply of water by means of a lead pipe. The pipes have been removed to the Capitoline Museum. They bear the same inscription found on the base of the statue. The statue is now housed in the of the Vatican Palace. The foundations of the shrine on the Quirinal were destroyed.
Simon Magus Justin Martyr records that Simon Magus, a Samaritan religious figure, performed such miracles by magic acts during the reign of Claudius that he was regarded as a god and honored with a statue on the island in the Tiber which the two bridges cross, with the inscription , 'to Simon the Holy God'. However, in 1574, the Semo Sancus statue was unearthed on the island in question, leading most scholars to believe that Justin confused with Simon Magus.
Origins and significance
Even in the ancient world, confusion surrounded this deity, as evidenced by the multiple and unstable forms of his name. Aelius StiloPreserved in identified him with Hercules, and explained also that because the god was called by the Romans "Dius Fidius", he was a son of Jove by interpreting the expression Dius Fidius as Diovis Filius (son of Jove); and in order to further clarify the notion of Semo Sancus as a son of Jupiter, he explained the meaning of the expression "Diovis Filius" meaning "son of Jove" by comparing it as an example to the Greek word "Dioskouros" applied to Castor; and claimed that just as the Greeks call for example Castor a "Dioskouros" i.e. a "young boy" or "son" (kouros) of Zeus (Dios); the same way the Romans called Sancus a "Diovis Filius" - a "son of Jove". In late antiquity, Martianus Capella places Sancus in region12 of his cosmological system, which draws on Etruscan tradition in associating gods with specific parts of the sky.Martianus is likely to have derived his system from Varro, and through an intermediate source, from Nigidius Figulus. On the Piacenza Liver the corresponding case bears the theonym Tluscv. The complexity of the theonym and the multiple relationships of the god with other divine figures shall be better examined in a systematic wise here below.
Sancus as The first part of the theonym defines the god as belonging to the category of the or , divine entities of the ancient Romans and Italics.Martianus Capella, II 156Fulgentius De Sermone Antiquorum 11 In a fragment from Cato, quoted in Dionysius of Halicarnassus (II 49 1–2), Sancus is referred to as and not .Marcus Porcius Cato, cited in
In Rome this theonym is attested in the carmen Arvale (semunis alternei advocapit conctos repeated thrice) and in two fragmentary inscriptions: CIL V 567 Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio ... decur (ia) bidentalis donum dedit and CIL V 568 Sanco Sancto Semoni Deo Fidio sacrum decuria sacerdotum bidentalium The reconstruction is uncertain.
Outside Rome in Sabine, Umbrian and Pelignan territory: An inscription from Corfinium in Umbrian reads: , 'priest of the Çerfi and the Semones', placing side by side the two entities and . The are mentioned in the Iguvine Tables in association with Mars e.g. in expressions as . Their interpretation remains obscure: an etymological and semantic relation to PIE root , meaning 'growth', is possible though problematic and debated, since that root also means "horn, head" which would suggest a horned deity.
Also in Umbrian, in the Iguvine Tables, the b side of tablet II begins "seminies tekuries" which is interpreted to be a "decurial [festival] to Semo..." where a pig and goat sacrifice were performed, though the opening lines of this tablet are difficult to translate with certainty.
According to ancient Latin sources, the meaning of the term would denote (also explained as , men separated from ordinary ones, who have left their human condition: the prefix both in Latin and Greek may denote segregation), or the , i.e. gods of the second rank, or semigods,Festus s.v. medioxumi. entities that belong to the intermediate sphere between gods and men.Scheiffele in Pauly Real Encyclopaedie der Altertumwissenschaften s.v. Semones citing Priscianus p. 683.Fulgentius De Sermone Antiquorum 11; Festus s.v. hemona; Varro (unreferenced) from semideus; Hartung I. 41: from serere and Sabine Semones half-self, more like genii; also Gdywend Mythologie bei der Romer par. 261: in Sabine, godly people, maybe Lares. Besides all the dii medioxumi belong to this category. The relationship of these entities to is comparable to that of the to : as among the there is a , thus similarly among the there is a . The would then be a class of semigods, i.e. people who did not share the destiny of ordinary mortals even though they were not admitted to Heaven, such as Faunus, Priapus, Picus, the Silvani.cf. Ovid Metamorphoses I 193-195. However, some scholars opine such a definition is wrong and the are spirits of nature, representing the generative power hidden in seeds (Latin semina).Dahrenberg & Saglio Dictionnaire des Antiquites Grecques et Romaines s.v. Semo Sancus. In ancient times only offers of milk were allowed to the .