xii Kal. Iun. (May 21). NP.
AGON[IA][[476]]. (ESQ. CAER. VEN. MAFF.)
VEDIOVI. (VEN.)
The other days sacred to Vediovis were January 1 and the Nones of March, from which latter day we postponed the consideration of this mysterious deity, in hopes of future enlightenment. But Vediovis is wrapped still, and always will be, in at least as profound an obscurity for us as he was for Varro and Ovid.
We have but his name to go upon, and two or three indistinct traces of his cult. The name seems certainly to be Vediovis, i. e. apparently ‘the opposite of,’ or ‘separated from,’ Jupiter (= Diovis); or, as Preller has it[[477]], comparing, like Ovid, vegrandia farra (‘corn that has grown badly’), vescus, &c., Jupiter in a sinister sense. But this last explanation must, on the whole, be rejected. It is true that each deity has a sinister or threatening aspect as well as a smiling one; but in no other case was this separately personified, and the name, if its origin be rightly given as above (which is not indeed certain), might be explained by the well-known Roman habit of calling deities by their qualities and their business rather than by substantival names. In this case the name would be negatively deduced from that of one of the few gods who really had a name.
What we know of the cult is only this. First, it was peculiar, so far as we know, to Rome and Bovillae[[478]]; secondly, the temples in Rome were in the space between the arx and Capitolium, ‘inter duos lucos’[[479]], and another in the Tiber island[[480]]—two places outside the Servian wall, and of importance for the security of the city; thirdly, the god was represented as young, holding arrows, and having a goat standing beside him, on account of which characteristics he was usually, according to Gellius, identified with Apollo[[481]]; fourthly, the usual victim was a goat which was sacrificed humano ritu[[482]].
On such faint traces it will be obvious that no sound conclusion can be based. The connexion with Bovillae and the gens Julia points to a genuine Latin origin. The sites on the Capitol and the island do not lead to any definite conclusion; in the former the god seems to have been connected with the so-called Asylum, in the latter with Aesculapius; but both these connexions may be accidental or later developments. Preller conjectured cleverly that Vediovis was a god of criminals who might take refuge in Rome and there find purification; but the idea of an Asylum, on which this is based, is Greek, and of much later date than any age which could have given a definite meaning to such a deity. We must here, as occasionally elsewhere, give up the attempt to discover the original nature of this god.