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. 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. In addition, the acceptability of miniature serveware as objects of sacrificium shows the ability of the ritual to accommodate the varying social status of those performing it. WebThe Greeks were striving for perfection in their art while the Romans were striving for real life people. 25 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. 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. 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. Cato's instruction to pollucere to Jupiter an assaria pecunia refers to produce valued at one as (Agr. 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. 27 frag. In addition to Zeus and Hera, there were many other major and minor gods in the Greek religion. WebThe gods, heroes, and humans of Greek mythology were flawed. and How, if these animals did not make desirable entrees, could they be considered suitable for sacrifice? It is commonplace now to treat sacrificium as a general category and to talk about magmentum and polluctum as moments within the larger ritual or special instances of it.Footnote Detry, Cleia 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). 44 van Straten has offered a stronger explanation: the absence of slaughter scenes in Greek art is due to a lack of interest in this particular aspect of sacrifice on the part of those Greeks whose religious beliefs are reflected in this material, shall we say, the common people of the Classical period.Footnote 9.641. 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. In this section, I make the case that the related and equally widespread notion that all Roman rituals that required the death of an animal were sacrifices obfuscates the variety of rituals that Romans had available to them, effacing some of the fine distinctions Romans made about the ways they approached their gods. 21 See also n. 9 above. ex. Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 1002; Reference Scheid2012: 84. refriva faba; Plin., N.H. 18.119. The biggest difference that I'm aware of is that the Classical Greek religion was much more the religion of myths that we all know, while the Class The problem is widely acknowledged, but see specifically Moussy Reference Moussy1977; Reference Moussy1990; Engels Reference Engels2007: 25982. As Scheid has reconstructed Roman public sacrifice,Footnote Even if this is the case, the argument still stands that these passages underscore how essential was consumption to the ritual of sacrificium. 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. 287L, s.v. 3.2.16. 32 As is implied in all the relevant entries in the OLD. 21.5). ipsilles with 398L, s.v. 84 57 thysa. It is possible that this genus-species relationship in fact existed in the Roman mind, as is perhaps suggested by the fact that sacrificare means to make sacred, and these other rituals seem to be different ways of doing the same work, namely transferring items from human to divine ownership. 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. 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. As in the Greek world, sacrifice was the central ritual of religion. 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 Learn. 450 Krenkel; Hor., Sat. molo; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 3867 s.v. 1; Sall., Hist. At 8.10.1112, Livy notes that a commander could devote one of his soldiers rather than himself. 22 3, 13456; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 1225; Rpke Reference Rpke and Gordon2007: 1378. On the contrary, Greek religion did not prefer to execute rituals as much as 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. 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. 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. 51 The most common form of ritual killing among the Romans was the disposal of hermaphroditic children.Footnote 36 Rhadamanthus and Minos were brothers. The Christian fathers equation of sacrifice with violence has shaped twentieth-century theorizations of sacrifice as a universal human phenomenon,Footnote Van Straten Reference Van Straten1995: 188. Hemina fr. Neither Miner's nor his reader's understanding is right and the other wrong: they are two different views of the same set of data, and both are valuable. that contain scenes of ritual slaughter where the implements can be clearly discerned.Footnote 16 Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 22441 and, arriving at the same conclusion by a different path, Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1323. There is some limited zooarchaeological evidence for the consumption of dogs at some Roman sites, such as the inclusion of dog bones bearing marks of butchery among bone deposits that comprise primarily bovine and ovine remains, but it is not widespread. The ancients derived the term from magis auctus and understood it to mean to increase and by extension to honour with.Footnote 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. . eadem est enim paupertas apud Graecos in Aristide iusta, in Phocione benigna, in Epaminonda strenua, in Socrate sapiens, in Homero diserta. Were they used in some form of divination?Footnote Ankarloo and Clark Reference Ankarloo and Clark1999: 756; Wilburn Reference Wilburn2012: 8790. There are many other non-meat sacrifices the Romans could offer. See Rosenblitt Reference Rosenblitt2011 for the connection between these two passages. The basic argument transfers well to the Roman context. The numerous sources for this event are collected and analysed in Engels Reference Engels2007: 41618, 4438. The ritual ended with a litatio, that is, the inspection of the animal's entrails, and it was then followed by a meal. 73 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. 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 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. 88. The elder Cato instructs his reader to pollucere a cup of wine and a daps (ritual meal) to Jupiter Dapalis (Agr. 100 Our author makes clear that the sacrifice of two Gauls and two Greeks happened alongside another ritual: the punishment of an unchaste Vestal Virgin. mactus; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 357 s.v. Those studying ancient Greece and Rome in general and those focusing on Roman religion in particular have been wrestling with these issues for some time even if the terms of the discussion have not been explicit.Footnote 87 WebOne major difference between Greek and Roman religion and Christianity is their understanding of the concept of deity. Match. 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. Other forms of ritual killing do not receive the same sort of negative judgement by Roman authors, and one form, devotio, even has strongly positive associations. and Paul. 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 favisae. But upon further reflection, in fact, the use of cruets and plates actually emphasizes the importance of the meal that concluded a Roman sacrifice. were linked.Footnote 77 WebIn Greek mythology the king of gods is known as Zeus, whereas Romans call the king of gods Jupiter. 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. 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. WebWhat are the main differences between Greek and Roman gods? 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 40 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 Tereso, Joo Pedro As suggested by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.23841. This is a bad answer - I don't have sources available. It is my understanding that we lack a great deal of the sources needed for an emic unders Flashcards. Footnote Total loading time: 0 ex Fest. Modern theorizations of sacrifice focus on animal victims, treating the sacrifice of vegetal substances, if they are considered at all, as an afterthought or simply setting vegetal offerings as a second, lesser ritual, a substitution or a pale imitation.Footnote Of the fifty-six reliefs, forty-one show officials carrying axes. Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: figs 83 and 89b. See, for example, Morris et al. This is a clear difference from Athena, who was never associated with the weather. Concise surveys of the major modern theories of sacrifice in the ancient world can be found in Knust and Vrhelyi Reference Knust and Vrhelyi2011: 418, Lincoln Reference Lincoln2012, and Graf Reference Graf2012. 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. Although it is sixty years old, the lesson still works well. 63. Was a portion consumed later? Of this class of rituals, sacrificium does seem to have been somehow different from the others. 55 This repeated coincidence of ritual performances suggests that the two forms of ritual killingFootnote 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. By looking at Roman sacrificium through the insider-outsider lens, by keeping in sight what is there in the sources, what we add to it, and where our modern notion of sacrifice does and does not align with the Romans own idea, we have a sharper, more detailed picture of one aspect of Roman antiquity. Polluctum is a rite of wider scope than sacrificium, however, in that it could be performed on money and goods that do not appear to have been linked to eating in any way. rutilae canes; Var., L. 6.16. 57 It is entirely possible that the search for a single, critical moment where a change from profane to sacred occurs is, in fact, a modern preoccupation. 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. 68 15 Also Var., Men. Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 411 s.v. 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). The burial of Gauls and Greeks was a sacrifice, but one that Romans ought not to have performed. Another example of the bias of our sources away from rituals performed by the lower classes is the dearth of references to a particular type of item found in votive deposits: anatomical votives, fictile representations of parts of the human body offered to the gods as requests for cures for physical ailments. Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. 91 2021. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0075435816000319, Reference Feeney, Barchiesi, Rpke and Stephens, Reference Berry, Headland, Pike and Harris, Reference Rpke, Georgoudi, Piettre and Schmidt, Reference Lentacker, Ervynck, Van Neer, Martens and De Boe, Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Tagliacozzo, Hammers, axes, bulls, and blood: some practical aspects of Roman animal sacrifice, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome, Imposed etics, emics, and derived etics: their conceptual and operational status in cross-cultural psychology, Emics and Etics: The Insider/Outsider Debate, Religio Votiva: The Archaeology of Latial Votive Religion, Rome, Pollution and Propriety: Dirt, Disease and Hygiene in the Eternal City from Antiquity to Modernity, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making, L'Invention des grands hommes de la Rome antique, Dog remains in Italy from the Neolithic to the Roman period, The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages, Human sacrifice and fear of military disaster in Republican Rome, Das rmische Vorzeichenwesen (75327 v. 49 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. Somewhat surprising is the considerably smaller presence of bovines,Footnote Ubiquitous in the scholarship is the assumption that if the gods receive an animal, it is sacrifice, but if the gods receive vegetable produce and other inanimate edibles, those are something different: they are offerings. WebDifferences between Greek and Roman sacrifices. 25 Dogs: Fest. 3.12.2. 4 While there is a growing body of work done on the osteoarchaeological material from other regions of the Empire, especially the north-western provinces,Footnote 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). 81, Here we have two rituals that look, to an outsider, almost identical, but Livy takes pains to distinguish between them. Sacrifices of wine and incense are common in the Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium, e.g. 30 The corresponding substantive is magmentum, a type of offering laid out only at certain temples.Footnote Of these, three-fourths come from the first and second centuries c.e. The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. 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). Paul. "useRatesEcommerce": false One can also pollucere grain, wine, oil, cheese, meat, fish with scales, a host of other food items, and even unidentified (and presumably inedible) goods.Footnote Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. 37ab). 22.57.26; Cass. Reference Morris, Leung, Ames and Lickel1999 and Berry Reference Berry, Headland, Pike and Harris1990. As in the Greek world, sacrifice was the central ritual of religion. 77L, s.v. 92 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 Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. Footnote Possible Answers: Roman temples were built on the ruins of previous structures. The closest any Roman source comes to linking devotio and sacrifice is Cic., Off. Also the same poverty has established from the very beginning an empire for the Roman people and, on behalf of this, still today she sacrifices to the immortal gods a little ladle and a dish made of clay. 6.34. 60 91 which I quote at some length because we shall return to this passage later on: Territi etiam super tantas clades cum ceteris prodigiis, tum quod duae Vestales eo anno, Opimia atque Floronia, stupri compertae et altera sub terra, uti mos est, ad portam Collinam necata fuerat, altera sibimet ipsa mortem consciverat; Hoc nefas cum inter tot, ut fit, clades in prodigium versum esset, decemviri libros adire iussi sunt et Q. Fabius Pictor Delphos ad oraculum missus est sciscitatum quibus precibus suppliciisque deos possent placare et quaenam futura finis tantis cladibus foret. 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. 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. 61 Ioppolo Reference Ioppolo1972; Tagliacozzo Reference Tagliacozzo1989. 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 and Religious Practices | Essay | The Metropolitan Learn. e.g., Liv. This statement and much of what follows is based on a series of searches in the Brepolis on-line database of Latin literature, Libraries A and B (http://apps.brepolis.net/BrepolisPortal/default.aspx) conducted throughout the summer of 2015. 67 Hammers appear in only fifteen scenes, two-thirds of which date between the first century b.c.e. 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. 83 ex Fest. Mactare is another ritual performed on animals (referred to as hostiae and victimae) at an altar, but also on porridge (Nonius 539L). Goats: Var., R. 1.2.19; Liv. the killing of the animal was not it, at least in an early period. Thus far, we have identified two points on which emic and etic ideas of what constitutes a Roman sacrifice do not align: when the critical transition from profane to sacred occurs and what kinds of things can be presented to the gods through the act of sacrificium. 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 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. 73 For the Greeks Let me be clear. 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. 8.9 per cent of the total, according to Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 2. 46 95 Yet the problem remains that dogs did not form a regular or significant part of the Romans diet, nor did wild animals of any sort.Footnote 80 37 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 I presume that Miner's observations apply also to bathroom habits elsewhere in North America and Europe. 101 47 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 Marcellus, de Medicamentis 8.50; Palmer Reference Palmer and Hall1996: 234. Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming. 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.
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