SACRUM HERCULI. (RUST.)
This temple also was near the Circus Flaminius[[542]]. It was a foundation of Sulla’s, 82 B.C., and the cult was Greek, answering to that of Ἡρακλῆς ἀλεξίκακος[[543]].
Non. Iun. (June 5). N.[[544]]
DIO FIDIO IN COLLE. (VEN.)
The temple on the Quirinal of which this was the dies natalis is said by Dionysius[[545]] to have been vowed by Tarquinius Superbus, and dedicated by Sp. Postumius in B.C. 466. But that there was a fanum or sacellum of this deity on or near the same site at a much earlier time is almost certain; such a sacellum ‘ad portam Sanqualem’ is mentioned, also by Dionysius[[546]], as ἱερὸν Διὸς Πιστίου, and we know that in many cases the final aedes or templum was a development from an uncovered altar or sacred place.
Dius Fidius, as the adjectival character of his name shows, was a genuine old Italian religious conception, but one that in historical times was buried almost out of sight. Among gods and heroes there has been a struggle for existence, as among animals and plants; with some peoples a struggle between indigenous and exotic deities, in which the latter usually win the day, and displace or modify the native species[[547]]. What laws, if any, govern this struggle for existence it is not possible to discern clearly; the result is doubtless the survival of the fittest, if by the fittest we understand those which flourish best under the existing conditions of society and thought; but it would hardly seem to be the survival of those which are most beneficial to the worshipping race. Among the Romans the fashionable exotic deities of the later Republic and Empire had no such ethical influence on the character of the people as those older ones of the type of Dius Fidius, who in historical times was known to the ordinary Roman only through the medium of an old-fashioned oath.
Ovid knows very little about Dius Fidius[[548]]:
Quaerebam Nonas Sanco Fidione referrem,
An tibi, Semo pater: cum mihi Sancus ait
‘Cuicunque ex illis dederis, ego munus habebo;