In Etruscan mythology, Voltumna or Veltha[1] was the chthonic (relating to or inhabiting the underworld)[2] deity, who became[3] the supreme god of the Etruscan pantheon, the deus Etruriae princeps, according to Varro.[4] Voltumna's cult was centered in Volsini (modern-day Orvieto), a city of the Etruscan civilization of central Italy. Voltumna is shown with contrasting characteristics, such as a maleficent monster, a chthonic vegetation god of uncertain sex, or a mighty war god.[5]
The bond of the twelve Etruscan populi was renewed annually at the sacred grove of Fanum Voltumnae, the sanctuary of Voltumnus sited near Volsinii (present day Bolsena), which was mentioned by Livy.[6] At the Fanum Voltumnae ludi were held, the precise nature of which, whether athletic or artistic, is unknown.
In the Roman Forum, near the Temple of Castor and Pollux stood a shrine dedicated to Voltumna in the Vicus Tuscus.[7]
He was the equivalent of the Roman Vertumnus.
^Pallottino, "The Religion of the Etruscans" Archived 2007-05-02 at the Wayback Machine
^Oxford Dictionary of English
^"A typical example of the process of the individualization and the transformation of a local earth spirit, pertaining to a territory of southern Etruria, into a superior divinity." (Pallottino).
^Varro, De lingua Latina V.46.
^“Androgynous Gods in Archaic Rome.” Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome, by Anthony Corbeill, Princeton University Press, Princeton; Oxford, 2015, pp. 104–142.
^Livy, iv 23, 25 and 61; v 17, vi 2.
^A. Alföldi, "Die Etrusker in Latium und Rom", Gymnasium70 (1963), p 204.
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