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Numen, pl.
numina, is a
Latin term for "
divinity", or a "divine presence", "divine will." The Latin authors defined it as follows.
Cicero writes of a "divine mind" (
divina mens), a god "whose numen everything obeys," and a "divine power" (
vim divinam) "which pervades the lives of men." It causes the motions and cries of birds during augury. In
Virgil's recounting of the blinding of the one-eyed giant,
Polyphemus, from the Odyssey, in his
Aeneid, he has Odysseus and his men first "ask for the assistance of the great numina" (
magna precati numina). Reviewing public opinion of
Augustus on the day of his funeral, the historian
Tacitus reports that some thought "no honor was left to the gods" when he "established the cult of himself" (
se ... coli vellet) "with temples and the effigies of numina" (
effigie numinum).
Pliny the younger in a letter to Paternus raves about the "power," the "dignity," and "the majesty;" in short, the "
numen of history."
Lucretius uses the expression
numen mentis, or "bidding of the mind," where "bidding" is
numen, not, however, the divine numen, unless the mind is to be considered divine (which well may be the case), but as simply human will.
