Tursa Çerfia, Goddess of Rout

Tursa Çerfia is an Umbrian goddess of fear and rout, one of the Çerfian deities of Çerfus Martius. Her name comes from a root meaning 'to frighten, put to flight', echoed in her cult-verb tursitu 'let her rout', and she functions as a deity of the city's boundary: in the Iguvine ritual she appears as a paired figure with Tursa Iovia, the former invoked outside the augural limit (pomerium) and the latter within it, recalling the Roman boundary-god Terminus. Together with Prestota Çerfia she is summoned in the great imprecation that the enemies of Iguvium be seized with terror and driven in flight. She receives heifer-calves in sacrifice.

Domains

• fear and rout
• boundary

Powers

• to strike fear into the enemies of Iguvium and put them to flight

Epithets

• Çerfer Martier

Relations

• subordinate to: Çerfus Martius
• companion: Prestota Çerfia, the Protectress
• twin sibling: Tursa Iovia, Boundary-Goddess of Jupiter

Sources

• James W. Poultney, The Bronze Tables of Iguvium (American Philological Association / Oxford University Press, 1959).
• Michael Weiss, Language and Ritual in Sabellic Italy: The Ritual Complex of the Third and Fourth Tabulae Iguvinae (Brill, 2010).