Talk:Novensiles

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The novensiles are as ancient as the indigetes. Aeneas too is considered to be an indiges (Jupiter Indiges of Lanuvium). Some (Pliny, Seneca) think they are the 9 gods that in etruscan religion can wield thunder and lightning. Also they might be the Consentes or Complices, ie those without whose consent Jupiter was not entitled to use the third most destructive kind of lightning.Aldrasto11 (talk) 06:06, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I got distracted from completing this article. I have a draft of a section that will explain the above. I'll try to prioritize that. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:24, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I got it wrong here above: it is the Superiores or Involuti (who can be identified with Martianus's Favores Opertanei) who are supposed to hold this power on Jupiter, the Consentes being only concerned with the second kind of lightning. However in Martianus's classification the Favores are in the first region and the Novensiles in the second. It is true that many other gods have multiple locations though. Every work is based on Thulin's and Weinstock's who analyse Pliny and Seneca. They are both dependent on Caecina's work.

However the Superiores-Novensiles as Involuti seem naturally to have had no name, while there is confusion on the Consentes. It seems the identification with the main gods of the Roman pantheon is late, it could have been caused by the fact that these gods were thought to have the power to wield lightning albeit only in Etruscan religion.Aldrasto11 (talk) 10:40, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Granius Flaccus and Aelius (Stilo or Gallus?) say they are the Muses. Who were these in reality? Of course mythology is not the true answer.Aldrasto11 (talk) 05:26, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for staying on this. I still plan to get back to it, as there's a chunk missing by any definition. I have a number of articles going at once that keep leading me to missing topics, and it's hard to get them all to a certain level of usefulness so they can complement each other. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:10, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems certain that these are the nine gods that form one, perhaps the highest, of the two councils of Iupiter. Arnobius's quotations and Marius Victorinus are clear enough. Grenier cites two inscriptions from Pesaro and from Marsica which bear their name: Esos Novesede Pesco Pacre (Masters N. sacrificium paciferum). On the Piacenza liver should be Thuflthas as Cilensl is Consentes/Complices i.e. Penates/Indigetes. In the Pesaro inscription they are written as two separate words: Nove Sede.Aldrasto11 (talk) 03:25, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Latte quotes an inscription from Ardea "neven deiuo" in Vetter 364b but comments: auch erhaelt nie ein neueningefuehrer Gott dieses Beiwort...? So it is certain they are nine gods.Aldrasto11 (talk) 06:00, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Please wikify
''The following material needs to be wikified (see WP:WIKIFY). Some of it already appears in the article. It's hard to read and follow, and lacks organization. It needs to be incorporated under the appropriate headings, and it needs to be treated in a manner appropriate to a generalist encyclopedia. It's currently treated "in-universe" as intra-scholarly discourse. The phrase "Scholarly results on the Novensiles" suggests that it's simply a collection of notes. It should be pointed out that bracketed notes were footnotes in the original text.'' Cynwolfe (talk) 18:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Scholarly results on the Novensiles
A. Grenier has made some contributions to the interpretation of the nature of the Novensiles in accord with C. Koch's conclusions. [NOTE: A.Grenier "Indigetes et Novensiles" in Boletim de filologia Bd. 11 (1950) Suppl. p. 192-205; C. Koch Gestirnverehrung iin alten Italien Frankfurt am Mein 1933 p. 86 ff.]

He cites the ancient sources who point to the meaning of nine gods: Arnob. Adv. Nat. III 38, 44: "Novensiles Piso deos credit novem in Sabinis apud Trebiam constitutos...Novenarium numerum tradit Varro...Deos novem Manilius..." Marius Victorinus (Grammatici Latini ed. Keil  1874) VI p.26: "novensiles, sive per l sive per d scribendum... novensiles autem, quos Graeci synennea, post novendii a considendo, id est eadem sede praediti", 'Piso thinks the Novensiles are the nine gods established by the Sabins on the Trebia...Varro hands it down they were nine in number...Manilius speaks of nine gods'. Marius Victorinus: 'novensilies it may be written with the l or d ...novensiles thence they who the Greeks name synennea for their sitting together, i. e. having the same seat'.

Some inscriptions also testify to the correctness of this interpretation. Grenier cites two, one from Pesaro (CIL I 2nd, n. 375, p.406) in which the words Nove and Sede are separate and one from the territory of the Marsi (CIL IX n.349) reading: "Esos Novesede Pesco Pacre (sacrificium paciferum)", 'To the Masters Novesede peace bringing sacrifice'. To these one can add the inscription from Ardea "neven deivo" discussed by Vetter (Vetter 364b) quoted by Latte. [NOTE: K. Latte  Roemische Religionsgeschichte Muenchen 1960 p. 45 n.1]

Grenier remarks that these gods are mentioned by Martianus Capella as dwellers of the second region of Heaven.[NOTE: Martianus Capella De nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae I 45] On the basis of Arnobius Adv. Nat. III 38 and 39 he advances the hypothesis that, along with the Penates or Consentes or Complices to be found in region one, they are one of the two councils of Iuppiter that have a bearing on his power of wielding lightning. Precisely they would be the council that must give its approval for the deliverance of the third and most destructive kind of lightning, the one which destroy cities. Seneca in his Quaestiones Naturales {NOTE: Seneca ''Quaest. Nat. II 32-50] deals at length with lightning and calls these gods who have such power superiores et involuti, 'upper and veiled'. On the Etruscan theory of lightning compare also Pliny ''Nat. Hist.'' II 137-146.

G. Dumezil too has discussed the theory of lightning in Etruscan religion.{NOTE: G. Dumezil La religion romaine archaique Paris 1974 Appendix; It. tr. Milano 1977 p. 547] According to his exposition Seneca in his work Quaestiones naturales II 41, 1-2 and 39 states lightnings (manubiae) fall into three categories: the first category is beneficial (fulmen consiliarium advisory lightning) as Iuppiter makes use of them to persuade or dissuade. The second and third are on the opposite always harmful, either partially or totally.

The second kind of manubiae are sent by Iuppiter only after convocating the gods named Consentes (or Complices or simply Consensiones) {NOTE: Arnobius, who cites Varro as his authority and who strives to find contradicitions from his viewpoint of Christian apologist, they were six male and six female gods, rising and settiing together. Arnobius ''Adv. Nat. '' III 40 (cf. region one of Heaven in Martianus Capella's exposition {NOTE: Here one reads only: I 41: "senatores deorum qui Penates ferebantur Tonantis ipsius quorumque nomina, quoniam publicari secretum celeste non pertulit, ex eo quod omnia pariter repromittunt, nomen eis consensione perfecit". I 45: "Di Consentes Penates, salus ac Lares...": Martianus Capella I 41; 45]). This kind of lightning can bring some benefit, though never without causing some harm.

Finally the third kind is delivered only after consulting the gods named superiores et involuti. These always bring about devastation and chage in the state of things either private or public, "since fire never leaves anything to go on exisiting".

There are mistakes in the English however the meaning is clear.

I do not think I need do major alterations. I find it astonishing that people who edit here can find it difficult to understand what I write. Please be more specific on what is unclear and I will try to help. Simply put the Novensiles are one of the 2 councils of Iuppiter whose permission he must have in order to be allowed to throw the harmful kinds of lightning, in Grenier's view the council that holds decisive power on throwing the most destructive one.Aldrasto11 (talk) 15:22, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * the Novensiles are one of the 2 councils of Iuppiter whose permission he must have in order to be allowed to throw the harmful kinds of lightning We don't know that; Dumezil knew a lot of things which are no longer consensus - although entirely possible. Therefore such claims should be attributed, lest we state a party position as universally agreed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:26, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comment, however here Dumezil is not concerned at all. Who said this is A. Grenier, former head of the French School at Rome and prominent etruscologist. And my original edit states clearly this is a contribution of Grenier's. Dumezil was cited only as a sourcebook providing some relevant pieces of information that may support Grenier's view.Aldrasto11 (talk) 12:39, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Nancy T. de Grummond says the same thing that Grenier in his collective book of 2006 on Etruscan religion, with almost identical words. Presumably she read Grenier or other French scholars who draw from him as he drew partially from Thulin for this topic.Aldrasto11 (talk) 11:30, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Pliny talks of 9 gods who can wield lightningbolts and Arnobius of the 12 Consentes 6 male and 6 female that always agree etc. I think one should be careful not make the confusion many were making by the times of these authors. The Novensiles and Consentes are the two councils of Iuppiter and as Arnobius says their name and identity is by definition unknown to men. Thus clearly they cannot be confused with the 9 gods who wield Lightning (Iuppiter, Iuno, Minerva, Mars, Pluton or Summanus, Saturn, Vulcan, Heracles etc. ) and the 12 Olympians whose name and identity were well known. BTW these last two groups overlap to a great extent so clearly this interpretation would end up in absurdity.Aldrasto11 (talk) 04:05, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Quite so. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:56, 23 October 2010

So why do not you make this clear in the article? Readers could be misled or remain baffled if the difference between the 3 groups (Consentes=Penates of Iuppiter; Novensiles=Council of the 9 gods who decide on the destruction of cities through lightning fire; 9 Olympians who too can wield lightning bolts) is stated clearly. Aldrasto11 (talk) 06:08, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't have the time to devote to this topic at the moment. In order to provide the material in an encyclopedic manner (that is, to make it clear, succinct, balanced in terms of POV, and accessible to general readers), it would take a great deal of time to read as much secondary material as I could find, reflecting the full range of legitimate scholarship, and then to digest it into good prose. If you're willing to do all that work, then I encourage you to have a go at it. However, I must disagree with you when you assert that "readers could be misled or remain baffled if the difference … is stated clearly," and hope there's a missing negative in the conditional clause. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:05, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm having trouble understanding the following. The long sentence suggests that there's some disentangling to work on: Capdeville has been the first to propose the identity of the Di Novensiles with the Favores Opertanei, Hidden Favours, who are located in the first region of the sky by Martianus, thus reconciling the apparent contradiction inherent in their position in the second region of the sky with the obvious order that would be expected when supposing the third region corresponds to the most innocuous lightningbolts (fulmen consiliarium, manubia qui monet et placata est) thrown by Iupiter Secundanus and their relative distance from the North, the direction from which should come most destructive lightningbolts according to the Etruscan theory.

I don't see a very strong statement from Capdeville or anyone else who can explain why, if the Novensiles = Favores, the former is placed in the second region and the Favores in the third. Capdeville says: Pour notre part, nous avons essayé de montrer dans une précédente étude que ce second conseil devait être analogue aux Fata qui, dans certaines transcriptions latines apparaissent précisément comme encadrant les décisions de Iupiter. Comme il est impossible de savoir quel était le nom étrusque, et bien que les Fata apparaissent ici dans la treizième région - et Fauor lui-même, au singulier, dans les régions 4, 6 et 1 1 -, on peut se demander si, finalement, les Fauores opertanei ne seraient pas un doublet des di Nouensiles, placé cette fois dans la région qui correspond à la foudre la plus néfaste.

Oui, on peut se demander, but does one get a definitive answer? It makes sense to identify the Favores with the Fata, but it seems to me we're rather eliding the problem of the respective placement in regions, with Consentes in 1, Novensiles in 2, and Favores in 3. Anyway, I couldn't beat this into any kind of sense. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:51, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the interest and the question. I see you have already edited the last part.

I shall try to disentagle: Capdeville is making the reasonable assumption, and he says he is, that since Iupiter is represented by Martianus as residing in (and presumably particularly presiding on) the first 3 regions of the sky, it is a logically admissible inference that the most destructive of the 3 kinds of manubiae comes from the North. i.e. 1st region (the most dangerous direction), while the second region should be the source of the mixed ones and the third of the mildest (f. consiliarium). This assumption is supported by the appellative of Secondanus given to Iupiter in the third region. As a consequence the Novensiles that reside in the 2nd region make it for a difficulty as it is certain that they must be in charge of the most destructive kind of manubiae on the basis of the 3 literary sources (Arnobius, Festus etc.) that attribue the mixed kind to the Di Consentes Penates.

Therefore Capdeville thinks that identifying the Novensiles with the Favores Opertanei would solve such an incoherence, as these last ones are located in the 1st region by Martianus as one would expect. He also remarks that Martianus is duplicating or multiplying locations of the same gods in many instances, particularly the Favores, (and Genius, Pales etc).Aldrasto11 (talk) 12:24, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, yes, when I skimmed the article I got these three points: Jupiter is in each of the first three regions; it is logical for the most dangerous lightning to come from the north, which should be region 1; the Jupiter called Secondanus belongs in region 3 because the mildest lightning comes from there. But where I come to an obstacle is that C. (who expresses himself in a rather dodgy way on the point, by framing it by that 'on peut se demander' followed by a deliberative clause in the negative) just seems to wish away as inconvenient the fact that the Novensiles appear in region 2. If we say that Jupiter appears with one of the lightning-advising councils in each of the three regions, and that the Favores are the Fates (who in every tradition I can think of do have the power to tell Jupiter what's what), we still have the problem that the Novensiles and Consentes are not the same body, though each is a lightning-advisory 'committee', and thus in this schema the Novensiles would need to go in 1 and the Consentes in 2. But they don't. So I don't see how C. resolves this. Either the placement of these three group entities within the three regions is a counter-argument to the Novensiles wielding the most destructive lightning, or it's simply not evidence pertaining to the manubiae (that is, the placement depends on something else). Or maybe it's necessary to say that since the three groups are all lightning-advisory councils, Martianus saw them as interchangeable, and thus took no care to place each in the region it belonged — which is not a very strong argument to make, to say that Martianus is evidence when you want him to be, but that he must be in error when he doesn't fit with the schema a scholar proposes. So there's something I'm still not getting here. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree there are difficulties in interpreting the position of the N. in region 2. This is what Capdeville tried to cope with.


 * I wish to attract your attention to the following points which might help in making things clearer:
 * 1) The councils of Iupiter are 2, not 3. Consentes Penates consensiones(1) and involuti, superiores or Novensiles, Favores O.(2). Sources are clear about this. Arnobius III 38, 39 (44), 40; Martianus I 41 and 45; Festus sv. Manubiae; Seneca NQ II 41 etc. Iupiter has no advisory council in region 3 as he need not one: he may throw the mildest fulmen consiliarium of his own accord. Secundanus means precisely that he is here in his most favourable attitude. I do not see why you talk of 3 groups (the Favores Opertanei being considered equal to the superiores involuti Novensiles by C.).
 * Yes, sorry, I may have sounded muddled there: I was referring to the three groups of Consentes, Novensiles, and Favores as regards the three regions as Martianus plots them — but although Jup. Sec. can cast the mildest manubia seemingly at will, I took one of Capdeville's points to be that throughout the literature of Greece and Rome, the point is made that even Zeus/Jupiter is subject to fate (here represented by Favores) and hence while he doesn't need to act in accordance with a formal pronouncement from one of the two councils in wielding the mildest manubia, he can't in theory act contrary to fate. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:02, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * 2) I have a personal hypothesis concerning the inversion of positions of Consentes and Novensiles. Namely the Consentes are the Penates Iovis so they must reside in his own domus: as you know the Penates are the gods who make anybody exist: the Etruscans knew 4 kinds: Iovis (heavenly god's), Neptuni (earthly god's), Plutonis (underworld's god) and man's. So it is necessary for them to reside in region 1. The Novensiles on the contrary are in region 2 since this is the place praeter domum Iovis, quod etiam sublimis est i.e. Martianus wants to make it explicit they are located outside the house of Iupiter. Varro says somewhere the number 9 is the most powerful and belongs to the highest heavenly position. Thus they are both outside as N. and inside the house of Iupiter as Favores O.
 * That is a very attractive hypothesis. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:02, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Lastly I wish to remark that C. is not a correct scholar. He omits to acknowledge Dumezil already suggested the identification of the 2 councils concerned with lightningbolts with the Consentes Penates and Favores Opertanei (the last for the most destructive manubiae) in ARR appendix. Moreover he does not cite A. Grenier's identification of the same most powerful council with the Novensiles in the famous article I used. Please cf. my former contribution above.Aldrasto11 (talk) 13:50, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * On the basis of WP:FRINGE, a scholar's view on a particular point can be excluded if it's clearly out of line with major scholarly views. Don't know whether that's applicable to any aspect of Capdeville's argument that's causing us trouble here, but is there something you would like to see changed within the rewrite I did for this section? Cynwolfe (talk)

I read again Arnobius, Festus, Dumezil, Grenier: I think primary sources do not allow any conclusion about the identification of the Novensiles with the upper council of the superiores involuti. While this may be a possible interpretation, even an attractive one, Arnobius clearly states the Novensiles had been established by Iupiter, as god empowered with throwing lightningbolts. Thence it is problematic to identify them with the coucil which held authority on Iupiter himself. The only thing that seems certain looks to be they were thereby concerned with destroying cities.

I do not see any fringe opinions here though: Capdeville and Thomas De Grummond repeat what Dumezil hypothesised about the aequation second council Favores Opertanei (and perhaps he too was repeating a view of Thulin's and Weinstock's). On the other hand Grenier had already identified them with the Novensiles and Capdeville follows suit. So this last view may well be wrong but it is not fringe at all.

As it stands the article looks fine: it could be made explicit that the identification Novensiles superiores involuti is doubtful while that superiores Favores Opertanei looks probable.

A few minor points:

1) Why not reinstating the quotations of the Marsian and Ardean inscriptions? Emil Vetter devoted an article to the Indigetes and Novensiles the first page of which is readable online free: there he describes the find and reproduces the inscription, a bicker with graffiti novem deivo (Indogermanische Forschungen 1956).

2) Cilens and Thuflthas. Cilens has been convincingly identified with Noctornus (same name as in case 16 and region 16 of Martianus) I think by Maggiani. Thufltas appears on 3 votive inscriptions (TLE 652 and 654 plus another one quoted by McIntosh Turfa in De Grummond ed. 2006) and possibly on Tabula Capuana 31 at the kalendae of Ermie, August. It seems the name is a feminine proper name and she appears to be represented as an adolescent. Thence its identification with the Novensiles looks impossible. She might be Fons instead (cf. the Neptunalia on 23 July).Aldrasto11 (talk) 13:12, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Describing gods as Sabine
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome which relates to recent edits here and in other articles. NebY (talk) 18:26, 29 June 2023 (UTC)