Vesticius Sancius

Vesticius Sancius is a minor but independently attested Iguvine god: he receives offering in the remedial sacrifice of Tabula II, and a street or avenue bearing his name is listed among the landmarks in the augural delimitation of the city boundary, which is what makes him a figure rather than a word in an offering formula. He shares the cult-title Sancius with Fisus Sancius. Poultney connected his name with the Umbrian vocabulary of libation and proposed a relationship with Latin Vesta; that proposal is recorded here as a proposal, and the Roman goddess is kept as a separate record. The evidence gives him no kin, no consort, no myth and no iconography, and the entry is deliberately left sparse.

Variant accounts

• Vesticius has been proposed as a relative of Latin Vesta.Poultney suggested a relationship between Latin Vesta and this Umbrian god, on the strength of the name-forms and of the Umbrian libation vocabulary uestisiar / uesticatu, comparing Oscan Veskeí. The registry keeps Roman Vesta as a separate figure and does not merge the two: the proposal is an etymological relationship argued in the literature, not an attested identification in any ancient source.J. W. Poultney, The Bronze Tables of Iguvium (1959), on Uestisier / Vestiçe and the libation vocabulary; reported in the standard reference discussion of Vesta's etymology. (secondary)

Domains

• boundary
• civic lustration

Powers

• to receive offering in the sacrifice performed to make good an unnoticed fault in the rite

Epithets

• SaçeIguvine Tablets, Tabula IIa 4 (vestiçe saçe, dative) — the Sancius cult-title, shared with Fisus Sancius. (primary)

Relations

• ally: SpectorCo-recipient with Spector in the remedial sacrifice of Tabula II; the two are named in consecutive lines of the same rite.Iguvine Tablets, Tabula IIa 4-5 — named in consecutive lines as recipients within the same remedial sacrifice. (primary)

Sources

• Vesticius Sancius (Umbrian vestiçe saçe, genitive Uestisier) is a named divine recipient in the remedial sacrifice of Tabula II of the Iguvine Tablets, and gives his name to an avenue listed among the boundary landmarks in the augural section of Tabula VI.: Iguvine Tablets, Tabula IIa 4; VIa 14. (primary); J. W. Poultney, The Bronze Tables of Iguvium (American Philological Association, 1959) — for the name-forms, the connection with the Umbrian libation vocabulary and the proposed relationship to Latin Vesta; the tablet references were recorded from his English translation, see data-sources/audits/lane-1/umbrian-census.tsv. (secondary)