INDIGITAMENTA. — From the Latin *agio*, *aio* “I say, I implore, I invoke,” these are lists of animistic deities invoked (*indigitated*) with an epithet signifying the action they can perform for the benefit of those who invoke them.
About 150 are listed, mostly relating to individual acts or needs of human life, agriculture, and the household. Thus, with reference to human life, *Levana* protects the act of lifting the newborn from the ground after it has been placed there immediately after birth; *Cunina* protects the infant in the cradle, *Rumina* nursing, *Fabulinus* the first babblings, *Stabilinus* the first steps. In the various operations of agriculture, *Sterculinus* safeguards manuring, *Redarator* plowing, *Sarritor* hoeing, *Messor* harvesting. And in the house, *Cardea* has charge of the door hinges, *Forculus* the leaves, *Limentinus* the threshold, *Arculus* the kneading trough.
The deities of the *indigitamenta* were not invoked in public cult; yet although belonging especially to private worship, the College of Pontiffs had compiled their list, which Varro included in II.14, 15, 16 of the *Antiquitates divinae* now lost, placing these gods in the category of *certi* deities, since their names indicate when they are to be invoked. Varro’s work was summarized by St. Augustine in Book VII of *The City of God*.