190L s.v. For example, the apparent contradiction between Roman abhorrence of ritual killing and the frequency with which Romans performed various forms of it is, to a large extent, explicable once it is recognized that the Romans objected only to the performance (by themselves as much as by others) of sacrificium on human victims. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. Ankarloo and Clark Reference Ankarloo and Clark1999: 756; Wilburn Reference Wilburn2012: 8790. Cf. 1). The errors and flaws that remain are all my own. Dogs had other ritual uses as well. 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.) Vuli, Hrvoje 16 56 100 For example, Ares is the Greek Pliny and Apuleius may reflect an lite misconception about the religious praxis of lower class worshippers, offering an incorrect, emic interpretation of an observable phenomenon. Knives would have been used only in conjunction with one or other of these implements. Sacrifices of various cakes (liba, popana, pthoes) to the Ilythiae and to Apollo and Diana were part of Augustus celebration of the Secular Games in 17 b.c.e., a clear indication that vegetal offerings were not limited to the lower social classes.Footnote Sacrificium included vegetal and inedible offerings, and it was not the only Roman ritual that had living victims. Yet to limit the consideration of immolatio to the moment of killing is to overlook the other actions (running a knife along the animal's back, cutting a few hairs from it) that Scheid has identified as being part of that stage of sacrificium 27 This should prompt researchers, myself included, to greater caution when presenting a native in our case, Roman point of view and to greater clarity about whether the concept under discussion at any given moment is really the Romans or ours, or is shared by both groups. 64 Livy also uses the language of sacrifice when he describes the underground room as a place that had already seen human victims.Footnote At her birth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, sprang directly from the head of Zeus. WebWhile both civilizations left astonishing changes in the world, the developments made by Greek thinkers outdo those of the Aztecs when evaluating their creation of a prosperous government, understanding of literature, and enlightened ideas. All of this indicates a certain flexibility and elasticity in the ritual of sacrificium that suggests, especially if a similar flexibility could be demonstrated in other ritual forms, a need to moderate the emphasis both ancient and modern on the orthopractic nature of Roman religion. 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 17 At N.H. 29.578, Pliny tells us that a dog was crucified annually at a particular location in Rome, and that puppies used to be considered to be such pure eating that they were used in place of victims (hostiarum vice) to appease the divine; puppy was still on the menu at banquets for the gods in Pliny's own day. Incarcerated in such a body, man's only hope is to avert these characteristics through the use of the powerful influences of ritual and ceremony. 13 76. 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 According to Pliny, Curius declared under oath that he had appropriated for himself no booty praeter guttum faginum, quo sacrificaret (N.H. 16.185). but in later texts as well. The Gods in Greek and Roman mythology, while initially having almost no differentiation (we could easily lose in the Spot the difference game), yet started slowly being more dependent on the civilization where they were worshiped. The Romans then observed a regular set of expiatory rituals, most importantly offerings made to the goddesses Ceres and Proserpina by matrons of the city and the procession of a chorus of twenty-seven virgins. wheat,Footnote 92 This has repercussions for our understanding of some elements of Roman religious thought. 64 CIL 6.32323.13940=ILS 5050.13940=Pighi Reference Pighi1965: 117 (from Rome). From here, we can speculate that sacrifice was not understood by the Romans primarily as the ritual slaughter of an animal. 28 The answers to these questions might reshape our understanding of what were the crucial elements of sacrificium. 77 Another example of a ritual that looks a lot like sacrificium but is not identical to it is polluctum. 14 See also n. 9 above. The elder Cato instructs his reader to pollucere a cup of wine and a daps (ritual meal) to Jupiter Dapalis (Agr. Plaut., Amph. hasContentIssue true, Copyright The Author(s) 2016. As Scheid has reconstructed Roman public sacrifice,Footnote See, for example, Morris et al. Plu., RQ 83=Mor. As has long been recognized, sacrificare and sacrificium are compounds of the phrase sacrum facere (to render sacred), and what is sacrum is anything that belongs to the gods.Footnote 17 Carretero, Lara Gonzalez 67 3.2.16. 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. 6 67 The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, 1.3.90 and 1.6.115; Juv. the killing of the animal was not it, at least in an early period. 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 Marcos, Bruno Similar difficulties beset efforts, both ancient and modern, to reconstruct the technical differences among the concepts of sacer, sanctus, and religiosus: see Rives Reference Rives and Tellegen-Couperus2011. Working with the two of them together, we can get a more nuanced understanding of a cultural habit. It is important to note that there is no indication that these vegetal offerings were thought to be substitutions for what would have been, in better circumstances, animal victims.Footnote Reference Morris, Leung, Ames and Lickel1999 and Berry Reference Berry, Headland, Pike and Harris1990. But while Roman devotio aligns well with our idea of self-sacrifice, it appears that the Romans did not draw a similar connection between devotio and sacrificium. Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming. Fontes, Lus Of the various forms of ritual killing that were part of their religious experience, the Romans only reacted with disgust to that form they identified as human sacrifice, a distinction in value sometimes lost when all these ritual forms are grouped together under the rubric sacrifice.Footnote The only inedible items that we know from literary sources were objects of sacrificium are all miniature versions of regular, everyday serveware: a cruet, a plate, and a ladle. 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. for young animals (including foetal and neonatal specimens),Footnote 58.47, 64.1.467, and 68.1.49. 3 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. Studies of sacrifice have noted the etymological connection between immolare and mola salsa, but have not, for the most part, pressed its value for what it may reveal about where the Romans may have placed the emphasis. most famously those of Burkert, who identifies sacrificial slaughter as the basic experience of the sacred, and Girard, who begins his investigation into the origin of sacrifice by asserting its close kinship to murder and criminal violence.Footnote 30 Published online by Cambridge University Press: 48 Roman sacrificium is both less and more than the typical etic notion of sacrifice. Aldrete counts at least fifty-six sculptural reliefs dating from the seventh century b.c.e. 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. 9 The expanded range of sacrificium suggests that meat and vegetal produce were both welcomed by the gods, and that we should not assume that meat offerings were necessarily privileged over other gifts in every circumstance. 45 Subjects. 15 47 In Books 29 and 30 of his Natural History, the elder Pliny includes lizards in numerous medicinal recipes to cure everything from hair loss (29.108) to lower back pain (30.53) to dysentery (30.55), and the only text we have that identifies the contents of a bulla, the amulet worn by young Roman boys, instructs the reader to put lizard eyes inside it.Footnote One relatively well documented example is the collection of bones dating to the seventh and sixth centuries b.c.e. 2 The corresponding substantive is magmentum, a type of offering laid out only at certain temples.Footnote I have tried to respond to them all. Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 376 s.v. ex Fest. Match. Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 8. ex Fest. This meant that 4.57. 37 For a more extended analysis of the distinction between the punishment of unchaste Vestals and, on the one hand, sacrifice and, on the other, secular capital punishment, see Schultz Reference Schultz2012. 22.57.26, discussed also in Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1267. Greek Translation. 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 It is understandable that, from the etic viewpoint, two rituals performed in roughly the same way should appear to be identical to each other, even if emic accounts distinguish between them. 9.7.mil.Rom.2). On the contrary, Greek religion did not prefer to execute rituals as much as If we allow only items explicitly identified as sacrificia in Roman sources, our list includes beans,Footnote While there appears to have been an original distinction among the rites of sacrificium, polluctum, and magmentum, we cannot recover the details of it in any serious way. It was used by Cicero in the opening of his speech Post Reditum and by the figure of Cotta, consul of 75 b.c.e., in a fragment of Sallust's Historiae to present themselves as victims for the greater good.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. WebIn Greek mythology the king of gods is known as Zeus, whereas Romans call the king of gods Jupiter. ex Fest. Hermes, who had winged feet, was the messenger of the gods and could fly anywhere with great speed. pop. 75 e.g., Liv. Total loading time: 0 Cornell, T. J. Perhaps these reliefs preserve the performance of one or more of the rituals that seem to have faded in popularity by the high imperial period: magmentum and polluctum. 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. Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: figs 83 and 89b. Chr. Modern etymologists disagree on the origin of the term. (ed.) This draws further support from the fact that the object referred to by the instrumental ablatives that accompany the verb sacrificare is almost never a knife, an axe, a hammer, or other weapon.Footnote 283F284C; Liv., Per. 21 95 Furthermore, it seems reasonable to conclude that the miniature clay cows, birds, and other animals that are also commonly found in votive collections were also substitutes for live sacrificial victims.Footnote 63 Nacirema is American spelt backwards, and Miner shows to, and interprets for, us our own bathroom habits.Footnote and Paul. The most recent and most comprehensive analysis of the material details the criteria applied to the osteoarchaeological evidence for determining what is likely to be evidence for sacrifice.Footnote Learn. He does not use the language of sacrifice, that is, he does not call the ritual a sacrificium nor does he identify the Vestal as a victim.Footnote By placing this variety of rites that the Romans had under the single rubric of sacrifice, we have lost sight of some of the complexity and nuance of Roman ritual life. Nonius 539L identifies mactare with immolare, but the texts he cites do not really support his claim. There are many other non-meat sacrifices the Romans could offer. There is a small amount of evidence for a form of auspicium performed with beans: Fest. 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. Our author makes clear that the sacrifice of two Gauls and two Greeks happened alongside another ritual: the punishment of an unchaste Vestal Virgin. Nor was it secular, capital punishment; the punishment of criminals usually took a more direct and swift form: strangulation, beating, crucifixion, or precipitation (i.e., throwing someone off a cliff).Footnote 4 24 Paul. ex Fest. These offerings, ubiquitous in Roman Italy through to the end of the Republic, are mentioned at most twice in extant Latin literature.Footnote At 8.10.1112, Livy notes that a commander could devote one of his soldiers rather than himself. The ultimate conclusion of this investigation is that, although in many important ways this ritual comes close to aligning with the dominant modern understanding of sacrifice, Roman sacrificium is both more and less than the ritualized killing of a living being as an offering to the divine:Footnote Finally, it appears that some of these rites ceased to be performed by some point in the imperial period and that sacrificium continued for centuries. Another animal sometimes sacrificed by the Romans but not regularly eaten by them is the human animal. 31 On a wider scale, the arguments made here about the nature of Roman sacrificium further undermine the increasingly discredited idea that sacrifice as a universal human behaviour is primarily, if not exclusively, about the violence of killing an animal victim. J. C.), Quand faire, c'est croire: les rites sacrificiels des romains, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Dogs and People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction, Proceedings of the 9, Annalisi dei resi faunistici dell'area sacra di S. Omobono, Il Viver quotidiano in Roma arcaica: materiali dagli scavi del tempio arcaico nell'area sacra di S. Omobono, Hiera Kala: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece, Materia Magica: The Archaeology of Magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain, Rome's Vestal Virgins: A Study of Rome's Vestal Priestesses in the Late Republic and Early Empire, http://apps.brepolis.net/BrepolisPortal/default.aspx. 12 Rarest of all are images depicting the litatio, the inspection of the animal's entrails that Romans performed after ritual slaughter to determine the will of the gods.Footnote 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 The distinction is preserved by Suet., Prat. Martins, Manuela 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). 80 Scheid's reconstruction focuses on a living victim, and this is in keeping with the ancient sources own emphasis on blood sacrifice. This repeated coincidence of ritual performances suggests that the two forms of ritual killingFootnote 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. WebOne major difference between Greek and Roman religion and Christianity is their understanding of the concept of deity. 5401L. The modern assumption that sacrifice requires an animal victim obfuscates the full range of sacrificium among the Romans. Goats: Var., R. 1.2.19; Liv. 31; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. Upon examination of the Roman evidence, however, it becomes evident that this distinction is an etic one: while we see at least two different rituals, the Romans are WebOn the whole, political development in Greece followed a pattern: first the rule of kings, found as early as the period of Mycenaean civilization; then a feudal period, the 88 78 MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 5974. more because the Romans sacrificed things that are not animals, and less because sacrificium is not a term that encompasses every Roman ritual that involves the death of a living being. wine,Footnote In 344L and 345L, s.v. 57 75 The insider-outsider problem has had little impact on the study of religion in pre-Christian Rome. 8 54 Vaz, Filipe Costa Marcellus, de Medicamentis 8.50; Palmer Reference Palmer and Hall1996: 234. It is unfortunate that the ancient sources on vegetal sacrifice are as exiguous as they are: it is not possible to determine what relationship its outward form bore to blood sacrifice. The database is a very useful, but not infallible tool. 4.57) is not clear. 53 78L, s.v. Therefore, instead of privileging either the emic or etic, I argue for an increased awareness of the insider-outsider distinction and for an approach to Roman religion that makes use of both emic and etic concepts. An exception is Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 52. The burial of Gauls and Greeks was a sacrifice, but one that Romans ought not to have performed. 46 Thus it happens that goats are immolated to Liber Pater, who discovered the vine, so that they pay him a penalty and, by a contrary logic, caprine victims are never immolated to Minerva on account of the olive: they say that whatever olive plant a goat bites becomes sterile). 66 1 Answer. Columella 2.21.4 might also refer to dog sacrifice, but the verb (feceris) leaves it ambiguous as to which ritual was being performed. Unlike sacrificare, which remained solely in the divine realm, mactare did not need to involve the gods: mactare is something that one Roman could do to another, both literally (one can mactare someone else with a golden cup, for example) and metaphorically (with misfortune or expense). I use ritual killing as a blanket term for any rite, including but not limited to sacrifice, that involves the death of a human being. Sacrificare is frequently accompanied by an instrumental ablative, but in almost all cases it is clear that the ablative is the object of sacrifice, as in the phrase maioribus hostiis sacrificaverant.Footnote Reed, Kelly WebWhat are the main differences between Greek and Roman gods? the ritual began with a procession that was followed by a praefatio, a preliminary offering of prayers, wine and incense. Ov., F. 4.90142 with Fest. 99 rutilae canes; Var., L. 6.16. For this same poverty is, among the Greeks, just in Aristides, kind in Phocion, vigorous in Epaminondas, wise in Socrates, and eloquent in Homer. Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. 1419). 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. This is a clear difference from Athena, who was never associated with the weather. 19 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. Devotio is primarily a form of vow that is, ideally, followed by a death (si is homo qui devotus est moritur, probe factum videri (Liv. WebWhat's the Greek word for sacrifice? 18 The more powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses. Flashcards. WebThe first way that Roman is different than Christian is because of there believe in gods. 60 Learn. refriva faba; Plin., N.H. 18.119. Rpke Reference Rpke, Georgoudi, Piettre and Schmidt2005 offers a different interpretation of the meal that follows the sacrifice. In both the passages from Pliny and Apuleius, the ritual implements are of diminutive size. 3.95: Quid Agamemnon, cum devovisset Dianae quod in suo regno pulcherrimum natum esset illo anno, immolavit Iphigeniam, qua nihil erat eo quidem anno natum pulchrius? Because the context is Greek, it is safe to assume that Cicero is using, as he often does elsewhere when addressing a general audience, technical terms in a very general way. The Romans, however, developed a more naturalistic approach to their art. As is implied in all the relevant entries in the OLD. A brief survey of the bone assemblages from sites in west-central Italy is offered by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.22841. 24 72 413=Macr., Sat. 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 Curius Dentatus, famous for his victory over Pyrrhus in 275 b.c.e. Fest. 90 98 22.1.19; 45.16.6; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. Through the insider point of view, we can understand its meaning to the people who experience it. As in a relief from the Forum of Trajan now in the Louvre (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. Expert solutions. Others include first-order vs. second-order categories, particular vs. universal, descriptive vs. redescriptive, and local vs. global. 132; Cass. 36 The ritual seems to be even more flexible than sacrificium in the range of objects on which it could be performed. Hammers appear in only fifteen scenes, two-thirds of which date between the first century b.c.e. That we cannot fully recover what were the critical differences among these rites is frustrating, but the situation is certainly not unique in the study of Roman religion. 35 As in other cultures, Roman sacrifice was not a single act, but instead comprised a series of actions that gain importance in relationship to each other.Footnote WebThe gods, heroes, and humans of Greek mythology were flawed. McClymond treats sacrificial events as clusters of different types of activities, including prayer, killing, cooking, and consumption, which are not in and of themselves sacrificial (they are frequently performed in other contexts), but which become sacrificial in the aggregate (McClymond Reference McClymond2008: 2534). and the second century c.e. ex Fest. Minos gave laws to Crete. 1 Through the outsider point of view, we can interpret it in light of comparable behaviours in other cultures. As in the Greek world, sacrifice was the central ritual of religion. and for looking at Roman religion in the context of other religious traditions. 86 ex. The Christian fathers equation of sacrifice with violence has shaped twentieth-century theorizations of sacrifice as a universal human phenomenon,Footnote More Greek words for sacrifice. 66 eadem est enim paupertas apud Graecos in Aristide iusta, in Phocione benigna, in Epaminonda strenua, in Socrate sapiens, in Homero diserta. Study sets, textbooks, questions. 95 45.16.6. Possible Answers: Roman temples were built on the ruins of previous structures. This is the insider-outsider problem in nuce. 2019. The prevalence of Roman images of sacrificial victims standing before the altar, that is, of the instant before mola salsa is sprinkled on them, is due to the importance of that moment. Feature Flags: { 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). 69 and first fruits.Footnote 13 Cato's instruction to pollucere to Jupiter an assaria pecunia refers to produce valued at one as (Agr. ), the Romans followed instructions from the Sibylline Books to bury alive pairs of Gauls and Greeks, one man and one woman of each, in the Forum Boarium. 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. 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. In contrast, as I have pointed out, Livy uses the language of sacrifice to describe the second interment and in the next breath expressly distances Roman tradition from it, calling it a rite scarcely Roman (minime Romano sacro). 5 and again in 114 or 113 b.c.e. Paul. 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. 93L, s.v. 34 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 ex Fest. "useRatesEcommerce": false It is probable, but not certain, that this is the same as the polluctum of ex mercibus libamenta mentioned by Varro at L. 6.54. 7 Lelekovi, Tino In Latin, one does not sacrifice with a knife or with an axe.