AGON. (MAFF. PRAEN.) A mutilated note in Praen. gives the word Agonium.
It may be doubted whether the Roman scholars themselves knew for certain what was meant by AGON, and whether the explanations they give are anything better than guesses based on analogy[[1241]]. Ovid calls the day ‘dies agonalis’:
Ianus agonali luce piandus erit (Fasti, 1. 318).
Nomen agonalem credit habere diem (Ibid. 1. 324).
and gives a number of amusing derivations which prove his entire ignorance. Festus[[1242]] gives Agonium as the name of the day (which agrees with Verrius in Fast. Praen.), and says that agonia was an old word for hostia. Varro calls the day ‘agonalis’[[1243]]; Ovid in another place Agonalia[[1244]]. A god Agonius mentioned by St. Augustine[[1245]] is probably only an invention of the pontifices. The fact is that the Romans knew neither what the real form of the word was, nor what it meant. The attempt to explain it by the apparitor’s word at a sacrifice, agone? (shall I slay?) is still approved by some, but is quite uncertain[[1246]].
The original meaning of the word, if it ever were in common use, must have vanished long before Latin was a written language. The only traces of it, besides its appearance in the calendars, are in the traditional name for the Quirinal hill, Collis Agonus, in its gate, ‘porta agonensis,’ and its college of Salii agonenses[[1247]]. It would seem thus to have had some special connexion with the Colline city.
The same word appears in the calendars for three other days, March 17 (Liberalia), May 21 (Agon. Vediovi), Dec. 11 (Septimontium); but it is impossible to make out any connexion between these and Jan. 9. Nor can we be sure that the sacrifice (if such it was), indicated by Agon, had any relation to the other ceremonies of the days thus marked[[1248]]. On Jan. 9 Ovid does indeed say that Janus was ‘agonali luce piandus,’ and on May 21 the Fasti Venusini add a note ‘Vediovi’ to the letters AGON; but there is no distinct proof that the agonium was a sacrifice to Janus or to Vediovis. We are utterly in the dark[[1249]].
On this day the Rex sacrorum offered a ram (to Janus?) in the Regia. Ovid says[[1250]] that though the meaning of Agon is doubtful,
ita rex placare sacrorum
Numina lanigerae coniuge debet ovis.