Hondus
Umbrian · deity · Iguvine Umbrian religion; 3rd 1st c. BCE · deity
Hondus is the god of the Hondia, the Iguvine festival that takes its name from him and at which a dog is killed in his honour — a victim rare enough in Italic practice to be the single most discussed detail of his cult. He appears with two cult-titles: Hondus Jovius, read by many as a chthonic Jupiter, and Hondus Serfius, worshipped at the Grove of Coredius. The two titles are kept on one record here, following the census's decision not to turn the god's cult affiliations into separate persons. The reading of him as an underworld god of agricultural plenty rests on the dog offering and on the festival's position at the close of the Cerealia, not on any statement in the tablets themselves.
Domains
- underworld
- agriculture
Powers
- to receive the dog sacrificed at the Hondia, at the full moon between the moons of the Cerealia
Epithets
- Iuvie
- Cerfi
Sources
- Iguvine Tablets, Tabula Ib 4-7; IIa 15-43; VIb 45-47.
- Encyclopedic summary of the Iguvine Tablets on the Hondia, the dog sacrifice, the Grove of Coredius and the chthonic-fertility reading (with Prosdocimi's intermestruae cereales).
- J. W. Poultney, The Bronze Tables of Iguvium (American Philological Association, 1959) — the English translation from which these tablet references were recorded; see data-sources/audits/lane-1/umbrian-census.tsv.