Editing Iguvine Tablets (section)

====Çerfos Martios, Praesta(o)ta Çerfia, Tursa Çerfia, Tursa Iovia====

These deities are invoked and receive sacrifices aimed at obtaining their favour for the protection of the ''arx'' itself, of the community and of the fields in connexion to the lustration rites of the Iguvian citadel at different locations of augural relevance.

The rites concerning the ''Praestota'' and the two ''Tursae'' involve a complex of libations aimed at obtaining a twofold action: the safety for the Iguvine community and the offsetting and expulsion of its traditional enemies.

The debated points are few as far as the ''Praestota'' and ''Tursa'' are concerned. The two theonyms correspond to the Latin ''Iuppiter Praestes'', ''Iuppiter Praestitus'', ''Iuppiter Praestabilis'' and the ''[[Lares]] Praestites''. ''Tursa'' corresponds to god ''[[Terminus (god)|Terminus]]'', being the deity that represents the boundaries of the city at different locations of augural relevance: these are without and within the city for ''Tursa Çerfia'' and ''Tursa Iovia'' respectively (TI I b; VII a). Such a meaning is connected to the Umbrian word for border, ''tuder'': ''Tursa'' is written ''Tuda'' in the Etruscan tablets, the intervocalic ''d'' being pronounced as a weak ''rs'' (i.e.: ḍ). Dumézil on the other hand, on the grounds of the function of ''Tursa'', a deity whose action is to scare, inspire terror into the enemies, opines the theonym derives from a verbal root equivalent to Latin ''terreo'', I scare (interpreting accordingly ''tursitu, tremitu'' in VIb 60).<ref>G. Dumézil ''La religione romana arcaica'' Milan 1977 p. 222-223.</ref>

There is no agreement among scholars on the meaning of the epithet ''Çerfios'' and as to whether this is also a theonym, i. e. ''Çerfos Martios'' is a god different from [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]] or not. An inscription from [[Corfinium]] reads: ''Çerfom sacaracicer Semunes sua[d'', "priest of the Çerfi and the Semones", placing side by side the two categories of entities, the ''çerfi'' and the ''semunes''. ''Çerfos'' is most times associated to IE root *ker(s) and Latin theonyms ''Ceres'' and ''Cerus''. This view though might create interpretative problems concerning the theology of Mars and of the two deities who in Rome are associated with the sphere of law and defence, i. e. gods [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]] and Semo [[Sancus]] Dius Fidius. [[Georg Wissowa]] and [[Dumézil]] both underline that the derivation from root *ker(s) is not certain: Umbrian group -''rf'' could have a different origin than -''rs''.<ref>G. Wissowa ''Religion und Kultus der Römer'' Munich 1912 p. 192 n. 9; Dumézil ''Archaic Roman Religion'' It. tr. Milan 1977 p. 222-223. Derivation from IE root *kerr (horn) would seem to suit the functions of these gods.</ref>