Novensiles - Sabine Origin

Sabine Origin

According to Arnobius, a Piso, most likely the Calpurnius Piso Frugi who was an annalist and consul in 133 BC, said that the novensiles were nine gods whose cult had been established in Sabine country at Trebia. The location has been identified variously as the river Trebbia, Trevi nel Lazio, or one of the places called Trebula in antiquity, two of which — Trebula Mutusca and Trebula Suffenas — are in Sabine territory. Gary Forsythe has conjectured that Piso's family came from the middle Tiber valley, on the border of Etruria and Sabine country, and that he was drawing on personal knowledge. The father of this Piso is probably the L. Calpurnius who dedicated a shrine to Feronia at Lucus Feroniae near Capena.

Varro, who was himself Sabine, placed the Novensides in his much-noted catalogue of Sabine deities. Inscriptions in Sabine country mention the novensiles or novensides, for instance, dieu. nove. sede at Pisaurum. A Marsian inscription also names the novensiles without the indigetes. The 19th-century scholar Edward Greswell sought to connect the nine novensiles of the Sabines to the nundinal cycle, the eight-day "week" of the Roman calendar that Roman inclusive counting reckoned as nine days.