DEA DIA. - A very ancient Roman divinity, as can be deduced from certain elements of her cult, such as the absolute prohibition against using iron tools in the ceremonies (the pruning of plants in the grove sacred to the goddess, as well as the engraving on marble of the ritual acts, etc., had to be purified with a double piaculum), the practice of venerating ancient pots (a practice which, from other authors, is known to belong to the archaic age, cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II, 23); furthermore, her link with the very ancient sodality of the Fratres Arvales, whose Acta (belonging, however, only to the imperial age) are the only sources that transmit information about her.

Since the divinity was venerated by this sodality, which had an essentially agrarian character, it was easy to recognize in D. D. a rural divinity (like Ceres, Tellus, etc.), of which she would be a specification, inasmuch as hers is not a proper name but a surname. The offerings made to her as well — wine, dried fruit, incense, sows (the latter particularly sacred to Ceres), etc. — confirm her rural character. The festivals of D. D. were established annually by the magister of the Arvales through the ceremony of the iudicium (between January 7 and 12), and fell in the month of May (27, 29, 30). They began in the city, continued in the grove and in the city, and ended on the third day in the city. The grove was the locus Deae Diae (on a hill of the via Campana about 5 miles from Rome), in which the temple of the goddess was located; at the foot of the hill were the ara and the foculus, for the sacrifices, and other sacred buildings; in the immediate vicinity a circus in which, once the ceremonies in honor of the goddess were finished, races were held.

Recently an attempt has also been made to connect D. D. (from a form *Divia) with Diana, and to see in her a lunar goddess.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: G. Henzen, Acta fratrum Arvalium, Berlin 1874; G. Gatti, Arvales, in E. De Ruggiero, Dizionario epigrafico, I, pp. 690-702; on more recent discoveries of the Acta of the Arvales, with details on the ceremonies of the goddess, v. G. Mancini and O. Marucchi, in Not. d. scavi, 1914, p. 464 ff., and N. Turchi, La nuova nov. arvalica, in Riv. di scienza d. relig., 1916, p. 1 ff.; M. Marconi, Riflessi mediterranei nella più antica relig. laziale, Messina 1939, p. 344. On the new theory concerning D. D., Fr. Altheim, Terra mater, Giessen 1931, pp. 129-32; id., A hist. of rom. relig., London 1938, p. 169.

Cesare D'Onofrio

@incollection{ec4_dea_dia, author = {D'Onofrio, Cesare}, title = {Dea Dia}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {1249--1250}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/dea-dia} }

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