Hondus

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

• IuvieIguvine Tablets, Tabula IIa 15-43 (Hunte Iuvie, dative). (primary)
• CerfiIguvine Tablets, Tabula Ib 4-7; VIb 45-47 (Hunte Cerfi, dative) — the Cerfian cult-title, shared with Cerfus Martius and the Cerfian goddesses. (primary)

Sources

• Hondus (Umbrian Hunte), bearing the cult-titles Jovius and Serfius/Cerfius, is the divine recipient of the Hondia at Iguvium, the festival at which a dog is sacrificed to him at the full moon; the dog offering underlies the widely held reading of him as a chthonic power of agricultural plenty.: Iguvine Tablets, Tabula Ib 4-7; IIa 15-43; VIb 45-47. (primary); 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). (secondary); 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. (secondary)