VI ID. SEXT. (AUG. 9). F. (ALLIP.) NP. (AMIT. MAFF. ETC.)
SOLI INDIGITI IN COLLE QUIRINALE. (AMIT. ALLIF.)
SOL[IS] INDIGITIS IN COLLE QUIRINALE SACRIFICIUM PUBLICUM. (VALL.)
There was an ancient worship of Sol on the Quirinal, which was believed to be of Sabine origin. A _Solis pulvinar_ close to the temple of Quirinus is mentioned, and the Gens Aurelia was said to have had charge of the cult[800].
But the Sol of August 9 is called in the calendars _Sol Indiges_. What are we to understand by this word, which appears in the names Di Indigetes, Jupiter Indiges, or Indigetes simply? The Roman scholars themselves were not agreed on the point; the general opinion was that it meant ‘of or belonging to a certain place,’ i. e. fixed there by origin and protecting it[801]. This view has also been generally adopted, on etymological or other grounds, by modern writers, including Preller[802]. Recently a somewhat different explanation has been put forward in the _Mythological Lexicon_, suggested by Reifferscheid in his lectures at Breslau. According to this view, _Indiges_ (from _indu_ and root _ag_ in _agere_) was a deity working in a particular act, business, place, &c., of men’s activity, and in no other; it is of pontifical origin, like its cognate _indigitamenta_, and is therefore not a survival from the oldest religious forms[803].
The second of these explanations does not seem to help us to understand what was meant by Sol Indiges; and its exponent in the _Lexicon_, in order to explain this, falls back on an ingenious suggestion made long ago by Preller. In dealing with Sol Indiges, Preller explained Indiges as = _index_, and conjectured that the name was not given to Sol until after the eclipse which foretold the death of Caesar, comparing the lines of Virgil (_Georg._ 1. 463 foll.):
Sol tibi signa dabit. Solem quis dicere falsum Audeat? ille etiam caecos instare tumultus Saepe monet, fraudemque et operta tumescere bella. Ille etiam exstincto miseratus Caesare Romam: Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit, Impiaque aeternam timuerunt saecula noctem.
Preller may be right; and if he were, we should have no further trouble in this case. In the pre-Julian calendar, on this hypothesis, the word Indiges was absent. This is also the opinion of the last scholar who, so far as I know, has touched the question; but Wissowa[804], with reason as I think, reverts to the first explanation given above of the word Indiges (‘of or belonging to a certain place’), and believes that the word, when added to Sol in the Julian calendar, was simply meant to distinguish the real indigenous Sun-god from foreign solar deities.