Kal. Ian. (Jan. 1). F.
[AESCU]LAPIO, VEDIOVI IN INSULA. (PRAEN.)
This temple of Vediovis was vowed by the praetor L. Furius Purpureo in 200 B.C., and dedicated six years later[[1223]]. For this obscure deity see on May 21. The connexion between him and Aesculapius (if there were any) is unexplained. The latter was a much older inhabitant of the Tiber island (291 B.C.), and became in time the special deity of that spot[[1224]], which is called by Dionys. (5. 13) νῆσος εὐμεγέθης Ἀσκληπιοῦ ἱερά. Is it possible that an identification of Vediovis with Apollo[[1225]]—so often a god of pestilence—brought the former to the island seat of the healing deity? The connexion between Apollo and Aesculapius is well known.
Another invasion of the island took place almost at the same time. In 194 B.C. a temple of Faunus was dedicated there which had been vowed two years earlier[[1226]]; and it may be worth noting that Faunus also had power to avert pestilence and unfruitfulness, as is seen in the story of Numa and the Faunus-oracle. (Ovid, Fasti, 4. 641 foll.)
On Jan. 1, under the later Republic, i. e. after the year 153 B.C., in and after which the consuls began their year of office on this day, it was the custom to give New Year presents by way of good omen, called strenae[[1227]]; a word which survives in the French étrennes. It is likely enough that the custom was much older than 153 B.C.: the word was said to be derived from a Sabine goddess Strenia, whose sacellum at the head of the Via Sacra is mentioned by Varro (L. L. v. 47[[1228]]), and from whose grove certain sacred twigs were carried to the arx (in procession along the Sacred Way?) at the beginning of each year[[1229]]. But we are not told whether this latter rite always took place on Jan. 1, or was transferred to that day from some other in 153 B.C.