36 WebThe standard view of paganism (traditional city-based polytheistic Graeco-Roman religion) in the Roman empire has long been one of decline beginning in the second and first centuries BC. Match. 81 Van Straten Reference Van Straten1995: 188. Parents: Aeacus: Zeus and Aegina; Rhadamanthus and Minos: Zeus and Europa. There are at least two other rituals that the Romans performed that also required the death of a person. This is a clear difference from Athena, who was never associated with the weather. While Romans had many god they belief in that they believed in and they would sacrifice items to the gods so positive things would happened and if something bad happened than people blame the king or whoever does the sacrifice to the gods. Both Rhadamanthus and Aeacus were renowned for their justice. While the evidence does not allow us to recover precise distinctions made among these rites (sacrificium, magmentum, and polluctum), it does strongly suggest that the Romans at least through the period of the Republic conceived of these rituals as somehow different from one another. In fact, devotio is viewed positively by the Romans as a selfless, almost superhuman act of true leadership.Footnote 56 Macr., Sat. 63 Magmentum also appears in two imperial leges sacrae pertaining to the observance of the Imperial cult preserved in inscriptions found in the Roman colonies of Salona in Dalmatia (CIL 3.1933, dated to 137 c.e.) Despite the fact that the Romans buried broken or superfluous gifts to the gods in deposits for hundreds of years, there are to my knowledge only two references to the practice in all of Latin literature.Footnote 61 eadem paupertas etiam populo Romano imperium a primordio fundavit, proque eo in odiernum diis immortalibus simpulo et catino fictili sacrificat. Feature Flags: { Hermes, who had winged feet, was the messenger of the gods and could fly anywhere with great speed. In the sacred realm, Romans could also pollucere a tithe to the god Hercules.Footnote Scheid Reference Scheid1998: nn. Here's a list of translations. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.Footnote The lack of interest in vegetal sacrifice is widespread in the field of religious studies (McClymond Reference McClymond2008: 65). An etic approach allows the researcher to see functions, causes, and consequences of insider behaviours and habits that may be invisible to the people who perform them, as Miner illustrated for us. 78 For an argument that wild animals are more common in ancient Mediterranean, and specifically in Etruscan, sacrifice than is generally acknowledged, see Rask Reference Rask2014. 35 Mar. 450 Krenkel; Hor., Sat. Of this class of rituals, sacrificium does seem to have been somehow different from the others. subsilles. Carretero, Lara Gonzalez On the Latin terminology for living sacrificial victims, see Prescendi Reference Prescendi2009. The two texts are nearly identical and perhaps go back to the original lex sacra of the altar of Diana on the Aventine hill in Rome, to which the inscriptions explicitly appeal. Sacrificium is the performance of a complex of actions that presents the gods with an edible gift by the sprinkling of mola salsa and the ultimate goal of which seems to be the feeding of both gods and men. One relatively well documented example is the collection of bones dating to the seventh and sixth centuries b.c.e. . Of these, only dogs are attested in the written sources as victims of Roman sacrifice, albeit rarely.Footnote 22. 98 The Romans worshipped the same goddess, or rather the same ideas embodied in her, under the name of Vesta, which is in reality identical with On three occasions during the Republic (228,Footnote 64 This meant that 1.3.90 and 1.6.115; Juv. Arguably, then, it is the Christians who bequeathed to future generations the metonymic equivalence of sacrifice and violence, Knust and Vrhelyi Reference Knust and Vrhelyi2011: 17. Moses (Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 2) reports that these species account for 89.9 per cent of the total number of individual animal specimens recovered. The statues made in Greece were made with perfect people in mind often modeled after gods and goddesses, while the statues in Rome have all the faults a real person would have. Nonius 539L identifies mactare with immolare, but the texts he cites do not really support his claim. A brief survey of the bone assemblages from sites in west-central Italy is offered by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.22841. J. 9 101. Test. Sic factum ut Libero patri, repertori vitis, hirci immolarentur, proinde ut capite darent poenas; contra ut Minervae caprini generis nihil immolarent propter oleam, quod eam quam laeserit fieri dicunt sterilem (And so therefore, it has been established by opposing justifications that victims of the caprine sort are brought to the altar of one deity, but they are not sacrificed at the altar of another, since on account of the same hatred, one does not want to see a goat and the other desires to see one perish. For this discussion, the metaphorical extension of the English word sacrifice, by which one can sacrifice for one's family or hit a sacrifice fly in baseball, is not relevant: this meaning is completely unknown to the Romans of the Classical period. But in reality, the relative silence of our sources about a ritual form that seems to have been available to the poor is not unique. The Romans, however, developed a more naturalistic approach to their art. Although there is some evidence for Roman consumption of dog in the form of canine skeletons with butchery marks (e.g., De Grossi Mazzorin and Tagliacozzo Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Tagliacozzo1997: 4378), there is no evidence that dogs were raised for meat production (MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 74). 37 Those poor Nacirema, who despise their physical form and try to improve it through ritual and ceremony, at first seem so different from us: primitive, superstitious, unsophisticated. 6.34. It is the only one of these terms that does not come to be used outside the realm of the divine. Cf. Furthermore, there is reason to think that the crucial moment, or perhaps the first crucial moment, in the whole ritual process of sacrificium for the Romans was the sprinkling of mola salsa onto the victim, whereas several important modern theorizations of sacrifice place the greatest emphasis on, and see the essential meaning of sacrifice in, the moment of slaughter. In what follows, I aim to clear away a few of the accretions that have arisen from more than a century of modern theorizing about the nature and meaning of sacrifice as a universal human phenomenon in order to gain a better understanding of those actions that the Romans identify by the Latin words sacrificium and sacrificare.Footnote WebThe first way that Roman is different than Christian is because of there believe in gods. Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 376 s.v. There is no question that the live interment of the Gauls and Greeks was a sacrifice: Livy identifies it as one of the sacrifices not part of the usual practice ordered by the Sibylline Books (sacrificia extraordinaria). Another way that mactare is different is that gods can mactare mortals at least in comedy, where characters sometimes wish that the gods would honour their enemies with trouble.Footnote 69a). e.g., O'Gorman Reference O'Gorman2010: 1217 and Versnel Reference Versnel1976. 97 59 14 One does, however, sacrifice with a cow, with a pig, or with a little cruet. refriva faba; Plin., N.H. 18.119. 13 Peter=FRH F17. In overlooking the differences between the Roman idea of sacrificium and the modern idea of sacrifice, we lose some of the details of how the Romans perceived a core element of their own experience of the divine. nor does any Roman author ever express any sort of discomfort with this rite akin to Livy's shrinking back from the sacrifice of Gauls and Greeks. I presume that Miner's observations apply also to bathroom habits elsewhere in North America and Europe. 97L: Immolare est mola, id est farre molito et sale, hostiam perspersam sacrare (To immolate is to make sacred a victim sprinkled with mola, that is, with ground spelt and salt), a passage which also suggests that the link between immolatio and mola salsa was active in the minds of Romans in the early imperial period when the ultimate source of Paulus redaction, the dictionary written by Verrius Flaccus, was compiled.Footnote Jupiter also concentrated on protecting the Roman state. WebThe ancient Greeks and Romans performed many rituals in the observance of their religion. For the possible link between this instance and the revelation of an unchaste Vestal, see Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 126 n. 18. The closest any Roman source comes to linking devotio and sacrifice is Cic., Off. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Jupiter was a sky-god who Romans believed oversaw all aspects of life; he is thought to have originated from the Greek god Zeus. For a treatment of this methodological issue on a broader scale, see the rather pointed critique in Hopkins Reference Hopkins1978: 1808. October equus. It is also clear from literary sources that on a handful of occasions, including instances well within the historical period, the Roman state sacrificed human victims to the gods, a topic we shall address more fully later on. Interim ex fatalibus libris sacrificia aliquot extraordinaria facta, inter quae Gallus et Galla, Graecus et Graeca in foro boario sub terram vivi demissi sunt in locum saxo consaeptum, iam ante hostiis humanis, minime Romano sacro, imbutum. 94. 99 At present, large-scale analysis of faunal remains from sacred sites in Roman Italy remains a desideratum, but analysis of deposits of animal bones from the region seems to bear out the prevalence of these species in the Roman diet and as the object of religious ritual (whether sacrificium or not it is difficult to say).Footnote 45 [1] Comparative mythology has served a sacrima. It appears that if a worshipper could not afford to sacrifice something that was itself tasty, he might fulfill his obligation by giving something that evoked the idea of it.Footnote mactus; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 357 s.v. 41 More rare are images like those on the arches of Trajan at Benevento and of Septimius Severus at Lepcis Magna which show the moment that the axe is swung.Footnote 283F284C; Liv., Per. 17 43 Braga, Cristina Analyses of the traditions about Curius and his contemporary Fabricius, both famous for prudentia and paupertas, are found in Berrendonner Reference Berrendonner2001 and Vigourt Reference Vigourt2001. 8 See also Scheid Reference Scheid2012: 901. 28 22 Aldrete Reference Aldrete2014: 32. Max. thysa. Flashcards. Miner Reference Miner1956: 503. 11 WebGreeks Romans Lived in small rural communities Polis functioned as the city-states religious center Greek Gods Sense of identity Polis isolated from one another and independent Sanctuaries to share music, religion, poetry, and athletics Classical Greek Orders basic design elements for architecture (sense of order, predictability, and Another example of a ritual that looks a lot like sacrificium but is not identical to it is polluctum. 74 at the battle of the Veseris between Rome and the Latins (8.9.114), the ritual consists of the recitation of the dedicatory formula by the consul P. Decius Mus while in the midst of battle. Dog corpses were sometimes deposited with tablets that contained curses, and dog figurines are among the required items for performing some spells.Footnote I follow Elsner Reference Elsner2012: 121 in setting aside the plethora of images of the tauroctony of Mithras and the taurobolium of Cybele and Attis. 13 1; Sall., Hist. See, for example, Morris et al. Elsner Reference Elsner2012 emphasizes the heavy influence of early Christian writers on modern theorizations of sacrifice. wine,Footnote Although they were not suitable as daily fare, there is evidence that several of the unexpected species from the S. Omobono deposit were edible on special occasions or in dire circumstances: they are surprisingly prevalent in magical and medicinal recipes. While the attention of our Roman sources is drawn most frequently to blood sacrifice, there is good reason to think that, if there was indeed a climax to the ritual,Footnote As in the Greek world, sacrifice was the central ritual of religion. Cic., Red. It is important to note, however, that we cannot determine conclusively from the extant sources what relationship, if any, existed among them in the Roman mind. The most famous vegetal offering occurred at the Liberalia, the festival of the god Liber, described by Varro: Liberalia dicta, quod per totum oppidum eo die sedent sacerdotes Liberi anus hedera coronatae cum libis et foculo pro emptore sacrificantes (The Liberalia is so called because on that day priestesses of Liber, old women crowned with ivy, settle themselves throughout the whole town with cakes and a brazier, making sacrifices on behalf of the customer).Footnote This disjuncture between physical remains and written accounts is another reminder of the bias of our ancient authors toward the activities of the rich and toward state ritual. The difference between Greek Gods and Roman Gods is that Greek gods have unique names of their own, whereas, Roman gods are This has repercussions for our understanding of some elements of Roman religious thought. Hemina fr. The Romans were aware of the link, as is made clear by Paul. Macr., Sat. WebWhat are the main differences between Greek and Roman gods? But it does bring things into sharper focus, helping the student of Roman religion to keep in view the extent to which we have interpreted the ancient sources to fit our own (rather than the Romans) intellectual categories. At the centre of the whole complex was the immolatio, during which the animal was sprinkled with mola salsa (a mixture of spelt and salt), the flat of a knife was run along its back, and then it was slaughtered. Rhadamanthus and Minos were brothers. WebDifferences between Greek and Roman sacrifices. 73 Classicists generally assume that the modern idea of sacrifice as the ritual killing of an animal applies to the Roman context. Although much work in anthropology and other social sciences has debated the relative merits of emic versus etic approaches, I find most useful recent research that has highlighted the value of the dynamic interplay that can develop between them.Footnote 84 to the fourth century c.e. As proof, he recounts a story about M. 5 Another possible interpretation of the disappearance of some rituals from Latin literature is that the Romans no longer thought of them as distinct from one another, preferring to treat them all as sacrificium. 22 Poverty, I say, is the ancient founder of all states throughout the ages, the discoverer of all arts, devoid of all transgressions, resplendent in every type of glory, and enjoying every praise among all the nations. Greek Gods vs Roman Gods. 4.57. The ritual seems to be even more flexible than sacrificium in the range of objects on which it could be performed. 88. 5 Sacrifice was just one of several rites (alongside polluctum and magmentum) that the Romans had available to them that look to us, standing outside their religious system, as if they were all identical or nearly so. Of these, three-fourths come from the first and second centuries c.e. Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 8. In Livy's account of the first devotio in 340 b.c.e. Goats: Var., R. 1.2.19; Liv. 93L, s.v. Although it is sixty years old, the lesson still works well. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments, suggestions and objections that have greatly improved this piece. But then they turn out to be us. As the most extensive survey of meat production in Roman Italy has concluded, Dogs were variously trained as guards, protectors, companions, and pets, but they were not raised to be eaten (MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 74). Yet so stark is the discrepancy between his (assumed) outsider perspective and our own insider understanding of the value of a bathroom, that most readers do not recognize themselves the first time they read this piece. WebFor example, the Peloponnesian War was primarily a struggle between two Greek city-states, Athens and Sparta, and was fought mainly on land and sea within the Greek world. and Paul. 68 190L s.v. 101 Further support for the idea that the act of sprinkling mola salsa was either the single, critical moment or an especially important moment in a process that transferred the animal to the divine realm, is that mola salsa seems to be the only major element of sacrifice that is not documented explicitly by a Roman source as appearing in any other ritual or in any other area of daily life: processions, libations, prayers, slaughter, and dining all occurred in non-sacrificial contexts.Footnote The main god and goddesses in Roman culture were Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Reed, Kelly Although Roman writers most frequently do not explicitly identify the object of a sacrifice, when they do, cattle, pigs and sheep are well attested.Footnote 53 Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. 15 358L, s.v. The tendency is intensified in Christian sources, which discuss pagan sacrifice exclusively in terms of blood sacrifice, distinguishing the shameful blood of animal victims from the sacred blood of Christ.Footnote 18 Although the remains come from a known sacred area, it should not be assumed that all of them are evidence of sacrificium or other rituals: some may be garbage, material used as fill, or even the remains of animals (like mice) that died while exploring the refuse heap. 73 WebThe gods, heroes, and humans of Greek mythology were flawed. One was killed at the Colline Gate, under the earth as is the custom and the other took her own life Since this horrible event which occurred in the midst of so many terrible things, as is wont to happen, was turned into a prodigy, the Board of Ten Men was ordered to consult the Books. Live interment was only performed by the Romans as ritual killing, but live interment was not the only form of ritual killing (whether human sacrifice or not) that the Romans had available to them. Created by. Instead they seem to have conceived of it as the ritual consecration of an animal which was afterwards killed and eaten. 85 WebRoman sacrificial practices were not functionally different from Greek, although the Roman rite was distinguishable from the Greek and Etruscan. WebRomans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. Paul. 42 39 Two famous examples are found on the altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. The elder Cato instructs his reader to pollucere a cup of wine and a daps (ritual meal) to Jupiter Dapalis (Agr. 56 13 Ioppolo Reference Ioppolo1972; Tagliacozzo Reference Tagliacozzo1989. 26 The most common form of ritual killing among the Romans was the disposal of hermaphroditic children.Footnote The answer is that human sacrifice, which the Romans are quick to dismiss as something other people do (note that, although Livy is clear that the burial of Gauls and Greeks is a sacrifice, he also says that it was hardly a Roman rite), is closely linked in the Roman mind with cannibalism. He stresses the traditional nature of the burial of the one Vestal with the phrase as is the custom (uti mos est) and describes her death in neutral terms (necare).Footnote 62. Douglas Reference Douglas and Douglas1982: 117. See, for example, citations from Pomponius and Afranius in Non. Was a portion consumed later? Huet Reference Huet and Bertrand2005; Reference Huet and van Andringa2007. But one of the things that I consider quite interesting was the difference approaches that the Greeks and Romans had towards the Gods as a whole. 1 Answer. 87 65 49 14.30; Sil. The presence of bones from these species at S. Omobono should not be taken to mean that the site was what scholars call a healing sanctuary, or that it was a place where people came to cast spells on their enemies. Footnote and 57 36 The objectivity of the outside observer can also facilitate cross-cultural comparison. Dogs: Fest. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. 1). ex Fest. Roman sacrificium is both less and more than the typical etic notion of sacrifice. 70 incense,Footnote See, for example, Wilkens Reference Wilkens2006 and De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti2006. 33 Others, such as animal Paul. Dogs, and puppies in particular, were thought to have some medicinal and magical properties: Pliny reports that some people thought the ashes of a dog's cranium, when consumed with a beverage, could cure abdominal pain (N.H. 30.53) and, when mixed with honey wine in particular, could cure jaundice (N.H. 30.93). 3.763829. If we allow only items explicitly identified as sacrificia in Roman sources, our list includes beans,Footnote Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 411 s.v. Pollucere is an old word, appearing mostly in literature of the second century b.c.e.,Footnote In this way, the native, or emic, Roman view of sacrifice is more expansive than ours. Cato's instruction to pollucere to Jupiter an assaria pecunia refers to produce valued at one as (Agr. 132; Cass. Flashcards. When the Romans sacrificed plant matter to the gods, it appears to be because that is what it was appropriate to do in the specific circumstance. 6.343 and 11.108. Render date: 2023-03-04T10:22:59.089Z The ritual ended with a litatio, that is, the inspection of the animal's entrails, and it was then followed by a meal. 48 The database is a very useful, but not infallible tool. 2 63. 27 The Christian fathers equation of sacrifice with violence has shaped twentieth-century theorizations of sacrifice as a universal human phenomenon,Footnote Of the fifty-six reliefs, forty-one show officials carrying axes. e.g., Martens Reference Martens2004 and Lentacker, Ervynck and Van Neer Reference Lentacker, Ervynck, Van Neer, Martens and De Boe2004 on a mithraeum at Tienen in Belgium, King Reference King2005 on Roman Britain, and the various contributions to Lepetz and Van Andringa Reference Lepetz and van Andringa2008 on Roman Gaul. The equation of sacrifice with the offering of an animal is not completely divorced from the ancient sources. Although the focus of this investigation is the recovery of some details of the Romans idea of sacrificium, I do not mean to imply that their concept is the right one and that the modern idea is wrong or completely inapplicable to the Roman context. 12 Among these criteria are a clear preference for specific parts of an animal or for animals of a specific age/sex/species, unusual butchery patterns, burning or other alterations to the remains, and the association of the remains with other material (e.g., votive offerings) linked to ritual activity. Plin., N.H. 31.89 is usually taken to refer to sacrifice (so Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 105) but the text mentions only sacra, not sacrificia. 84 See, however, C. Ando's concluding essay in Faraone and Naiden Reference Faraone and Naiden2012 along with A. Hollman's review of that same volume in BMCR 2013.04.44 and, in the same vein but with reference to ancient Egypt, Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011. Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. 75 Furthermore, although all of these rites were performed on foodstuffs at altars or at least in sanctuaries, there are some critical differences among them and the ways they are discussed by the Romans. 2.47.10 (M)=2.44.10 McGushin. 30 It appears that no Roman source ever uses the language of sacrificium to describe devotio,Footnote Beavers, too, had curative properties for example, a mixture of honey wine, anise seed, and beaver oil was thought to cure flatulence (Plin., N.H. 20.193) and their anal scent glands (mistaken for testicles) were part of the Roman trade in luxury goods.Footnote Plaut., Stich. 30 Contra Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 223. CIL 6.32323.13940=ILS 5050.13940=Pighi Reference Pighi1965: 117 (from Rome). Compare Var., R. 2.8.1. and for his old-fashioned frugality and incorruptibility.Footnote 48 45 But upon further reflection, in fact, the use of cruets and plates actually emphasizes the importance of the meal that concluded a Roman sacrifice. Admittedly the Romans often used as a metonym for the whole of sacrificium the term immolatio, the stage of the ritual that includes slaughter, suggesting the special importance of that portion of the ritual sequence.Footnote If the devotio was not successful (i.e., the devotus somehow survived), expiatory steps had to be taken: the burial of a larger-than-life-sized statue and piaculum hostia caedi. The elder Pliny, in his Natural History, discusses the high regard in which ancient Romans held simple vessels made of beechwood. 47 Sorted by: 6. 78 Looking at Roman sacrifice through the insider-outsider lens lets us see more clearly that, for the Romans, sacrifice was both more and less than it is for many scholars writing about it today. Footnote Another famous instance of this scene is on the Boscoreale cup (Aldrete Reference Aldrete2014: 33, fig. 61 Fontes, Lus In light of the importance of ritual killing in modern theoretical treatments of sacrifice, the relative paucity of slaughter scenes in Roman art requires some explanation. View all Google Scholar citations The errors and flaws that remain are all my own. Sacrificium included vegetal and inedible offerings, and it was not the only Roman ritual that had living victims. A parallel use of sacrificare is found in Apuleius Apologia 18, a passage which also shares Pliny's focus on poverty: paupertas, inquam, prisca aput saecula omnium civitatium conditrix, omnium artium repertrix, omnium peccatorum inops, omnis gloriae munifica, cunctis laudibus apud omnis nationes perfuncta. Tereso, Joo Pedro 25 The prominence of animal victims in Roman accounts overshadows a substantial number of passages that make it absolutely clear that Roman gods received sacrifices of inanimate edibles.