Visidianus
Umbrian · deity · Roman era Umbria; 1st 3rd c. CE · deity
Visidianus is the god of Narnia, modern Narni in southern Umbria, and like Valentia of Ocriculum he survives in one sentence of Tertullian's Apologeticum, written in 197 CE from a lost work of Varro. Tertullian's argument is that each Italian community had long kept gods of its own by municipal consecration, and he runs through the towns and their deities: Narnia's is Visidianus. No temple, festival, image, genealogy or healing power is attested for him, and the census disposition for this candidate was explicit that none should be supplied. The entry is correspondingly bare — a named local god of a named town, and nothing more.
Domains
- tutelary protection
Sources
- Tertullian, Apologeticum 24.8.
- Standard discussion of Apologeticum 24 as a list drawn from a lost work of Varro, used to argue that every community should be free to keep its own gods.