Even if this is the case, the argument still stands that these passages underscore how essential was consumption to the ritual of sacrificium. 286L and 287L, s.v. CIL 6.32323.13940=ILS 5050.13940=Pighi Reference Pighi1965: 117 (from Rome). 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 60 WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. 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 Or the chastity of women and the safety of the state, Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, La vittima non un'ostia: Riflessioni storiche e linguistiche su un termine di uso corrente, Etruscan animal bones and their implications for sacrificial studies, Gste der Gtter Gtter als Gste: zur Konstrucktion des rmischen Opferbanketts, La Cuisine et l'autel: les sacrifices en questions dans les socits de la Mditerrane ancienne, Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium Qui Supersunt: les copies pigraphiques des protocoles annuels de la confrrie Arvale (21 av.304 ap. This repeated coincidence of ritual performances suggests that the two forms of ritual killingFootnote Other than the range of items that can be polluctum, the only other thing we know about the ritual is that it involved an altar, which is, of course, the proper locus of sacrifice. 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. Fest. The burial of Gauls and Greeks was a sacrifice, but one that Romans ought not to have performed. 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 4 132.2; Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 1369). 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). 100 36 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. Macr., Sat. We can push this second issue, what kinds of items can be the object of sacrifice, even further: Roman sacrifice, especially among the poor, was not limited to edible offerings. 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. Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 8. 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. 35 Roman sacrificium is both less and more than the typical etic notion of sacrifice. The errors and flaws that remain are all my own. 5401L. 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. mactus; Serv., A. 11 90 WebThe ancient Greeks and Romans performed many rituals in the observance of their religion. 423L s.v. 08 June 2016. 9 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 56 Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. The offering of a dog to Robigus may be the same ritual as the augurium canarium referred to by Plin., N.H. 18.14. 11213L, s.v. sacrifice, Roman in OCD ex Fest. 74 54 Dogs: Fest. 92 28 Braga, Cristina 52 I concede that, to a certain extent, the insider-outsider lens does not show us difficulties that were previously invisible. refriva faba. Here's a list of translations. In both the passages from Pliny and Apuleius, the ritual implements are of diminutive size. hasContentIssue true, Copyright The Author(s) 2016. and for his old-fashioned frugality and incorruptibility.Footnote Val. 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 37ab). 92 and for looking at Roman religion in the context of other religious traditions. 190L s.v. The Greek gods domain over law had been mostly limited to the hereditary kings of individual city-states, but Rome grew into a unified Republic. The only Roman reference to the sacrifice of a deer pertains to a Greek context: Ov., F. 1.3878 where the deer is sacrificed to Diana as a substitute for Iphigenia. 57 Contra Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 223. 88 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. 75 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 Plaut., Amph. Throughout his corpus Cicero uses a range of technical divinatory terms, including augur, ostentum, and portentum, in rather general ways, even in De Divinatione where one might reasonably expect him to be more precise. 49 Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: figs 83 and 89b. 16 This is the insider-outsider problem in nuce. 69 There are many other non-meat sacrifices the Romans could offer. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. 72 1419). See, for example, citations from Pomponius and Afranius in Non. 45.16.6. B. Rives provided valuable consultation on specific points and V. C. Moses generously shared her work-in-progress on the osteoarchaeological evidence from S. Omobono. frag. WebStudy with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Which temples were Greek and which were Roman?, When was the Temple of Zeus at Olympia built?, What the features of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia? 4 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. Main Differences Between Romans and Greeks Romans appeared in history from 753 BC to 1453 while the Greeks thrived from 7000 BC (Neolithic Greeks) to 146 BC. WebDifferences between Greek and Roman sacrifices. Oliveira, Cludia Aul. 64 but in later texts as well. This study argues, however, that the apparent continuity is illusory in some important ways and that we have lost sight of some fine distinctions that the Romans made among the rituals they performed. 97 Plut., RQ 52=Mor. 29 The problem is widely acknowledged, but see specifically Moussy Reference Moussy1977; Reference Moussy1990; Engels Reference Engels2007: 25982. 344L and 345L, s.v. The present study turns the insider-outsider lens on the study of Roman sacrifice: it aims to trace, through an analysis of a set of Latin religious terminology, how Romans thought about sacrifice and to highlight how this conception, which I refer to by the Latin term sacrificium, relates to two dominant aspects of modern theorizations of sacrifice as a universal human behaviour: sacrifice as violence and sacrifice as ritual meal. 55.1.20 and 58.13) where the presence of an accusative object of immolare necessitates that cultro be instrumental in the traditional sense: ture et vino in igne in foculo fecit immolavitque vino mola cultroque Iovi o(ptimo) m(aximo) b(ovem) m(arem), Iunoni reginae b(ovem) f(eminam), Minervae b(ovem) f(eminam), Saluti publicae populi Romani Quiritium b(ovem) f(eminam).. Let me be clear. to the fourth century c.e. 59 101 Scholars are quick to identify all of them as forms of sacrifice, which may well be the case. The most common form of ritual killing among the Romans was the disposal of hermaphroditic children.Footnote mactus; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.4 s.v. The basic argument transfers well to the Roman context. 7 For illustration, we can turn once again to the elder Pliny, who writes about the habits of the Gallic tribes north of the Alps: et nuperrime trans Alpis hominem immolari gentium earum more solitum, quod paulum a mandendo abest (And very recently, on the other side of the Alps, in accordance with the custom of those peoples, individuals were habitually sacrificed, which is not all that far from eating them N.H. 7.9). 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. The main god and goddesses in Roman culture were Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Reference Morris, Leung, Ames and Lickel1999 and Berry Reference Berry, Headland, Pike and Harris1990. In addition to such great disasters, the people were terrified both by other prodigies and because in this year two Vestals, Opimia and Floronia, were discovered to have had illicit affairs. uncovered in votive deposits throughout Italy. 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. Despite the fact that the S. Omobono assemblage dates to several centuries before the Classical period, the range of faunal remains from the site are primarily what one would expect from a sanctuary based on what we know from literary texts. Was a portion consumed later? 9.7.mil.Rom.2). 46 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 48 Fontes, Lus The vast majority of the bones come from pigs, sheep, and goats. 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. 43 See, for example, Feeney Reference Feeney, Barchiesi, Rpke and Stephens2004, an excellent discussion of the application of theoretical models of sacrifice to the poetry of Vergil and Ovid. One relatively well documented example is the collection of bones dating to the seventh and sixth centuries b.c.e. 56 33 and more. At her birth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, sprang directly from the head of Zeus. 91 95 and indeed it certainly fits the modern notion of an act by which one suffers great loss for the benefit of others. magmentum; Serv., A. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. 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 WebWhile Greek and Roman sculpture and ruins are linked with the purity of white marble in the Western mind, most of the works were originally polychrome, painted in multiple, lifelike colors. Devotio is frequently called self-sacrifice by modern scholars,Footnote Footnote Goats: Var., R. 1.2.19; Liv. 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 Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. 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 Lucil. On fourteen occasions between 209 and 92 b.c.e., androgyne infants and children were included among the prodigies reported to the Roman Senate. Match. 44 There is no evidence, contra Parker Reference Parker2004 and Wildfang Reference Wildfang2006: 589, that the Romans ever perceived the punishment of a Vestal as sacrifice. 65 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. Columella 2.21.4 might also refer to dog sacrifice, but the verb (feceris) leaves it ambiguous as to which ritual was being performed. 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.) 14 Aldrete counts at least fifty-six sculptural reliefs dating from the seventh century b.c.e. 25 55, The link between consumption and sacrifice is also reinforced by a second category of sacrificial items that Romans did not eat: animals, including human animals, that were not regularly included in the Roman diet. For the possible link between this instance and the revelation of an unchaste Vestal, see Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 126 n. 18. WebRomans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. Somewhat surprising is the considerably smaller presence of bovines,Footnote Indeed these two rituals appear at first glance to be identical live interment in underground chambers, though admittedly in different locations within the city and with different victims. Of this class of rituals, sacrificium does seem to have been somehow different from the others. The literary evidence for this is slender but persuasive. milk,Footnote Paul. Through the outsider point of view, we can interpret it in light of comparable behaviours in other cultures. 62 Q. Fabius Pictor was sent to the oracle at Delphi to ascertain by what prayers and supplications the Romans might placate the gods, and what end would there be to such calamities. If the commander who devoted himself did not die in battle, he was interdicted from performing any ritual on behalf of the state (publicum divinum). View all Google Scholar citations This has repercussions for our understanding of some elements of Roman religious thought. 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 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. 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. favisae. These two passages from Pliny and Apuleius may provide an explanation for the hundreds of thousands of miniature fictile vessels (plates, cups, etc.) There is also evidence that the Romans had a variety of rites, only one of which was sacrificium, that involved presenting foodstuffs to the gods. 27 e.g., Liv. It is also noteworthy that sacrificium appears to be the only member of this class to require mola salsa. But we can no longer recover indeed it appears that Romans of the early Empire could no longer recover what was the difference between a monstrum, a prodigium, a portentum, and an ostentum.Footnote The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. Livy's abhorrence of the Romans action is in line with other Roman authors disgust at the performance of sacrificium on humans by other ethnic groups, especially Carthaginians and Gauls.Footnote 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. Var., L. 6.3.14. 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 Compare Var., R. 2.8.1. Although Roman sources identify some specific types of sacrifice (e.g., sollemne, piaculare, lustrale, anniversarium), they do not identify any of the other rituals under discussion here as types of sacrificium.Footnote 45 Thus the most likely reading of the passage in Pliny is that Curius sacrificed the guttum faginum to the gods. 132; Cass. 3.763829. The most famous account is Livy's description of the Romans reaction to their losses at Cannae and Canusium to Hannibal in 216 b.c.e.,Footnote 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. 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 The elder Pliny, in his Natural History, discusses the high regard in which ancient Romans held simple vessels made of beechwood. Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 411 s.v. 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. 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 The most common images of blood sacrifice in Roman art are procession scenes of animals being led to the altar or standing before it, waiting for mola salsa to be applied to them.Footnote 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. Marcellus, de Medicamentis 8.50; Palmer Reference Palmer and Hall1996: 234. 19 89 There are at least two other rituals that the Romans performed that also required the death of a person. 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. 14.30; Sil. Pollucere is an old word, appearing mostly in literature of the second century b.c.e.,Footnote The article is reprinted in McCutcheon Reference McCutcheon1999, a volume that offers in its introductory chapter a very good overview of the insider-outsider problem and that includes a selection of some of the most important scholarly contributions to the debate within the study of religion. 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. Miner Reference Miner1956: 503. 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. 84 ex Fest. 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 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. WebOne major difference between Greek and Roman religion and Christianity is their understanding of the concept of deity. 60 Plu., RQ 83=Mor. e.g., J. Scheid, s.v. 31; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. Cf. 83 In fact, devotio is viewed positively by the Romans as a selfless, almost superhuman act of true leadership.Footnote Flashcards. You would do well to remember that there were very few similarities between Roman and Greek religion until the Romans began borrowing from the Gree Lelekovi, Tino 42 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 From an examination that is restricted to Roman sources and that sets aside Christian texts where the terms for these various rituals begin to be used in rather different ways, it appears that the hierarchy of rituals I have just described has been imposed from the outside. Goats and dogs are less common, and we can expand the range of species to include horses and birds if we admit animals that are identified only as the object of immolatio, if not of sacrificium itself.Footnote 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. Art historians have debated whether the choice to encapsulate the entirety of sacrificial experience in a scene of libation rather than a scene of animal slaughter (or vice versa) may tell us something about what was being emphasized as significant about sacrifice at that time or context.Footnote While vegetal and meat offerings were on a par, inedible gifts could be sacrificed only as substitutes for edible offerings when money was a concern. 1 Answer. 50, From all this, it is reasonable to conclude that the poor could substitute small vessels for more expensive, edible sacrificial offerings. Both Rhadamanthus and Aeacus were renowned for their justice. Although they are universally referred to as votive offerings in the scholarly literature, it is possible that they are, technically, sacrifices. It is the only one of these terms that does not come to be used outside the realm of the divine. See also Scheid Reference Scheid2012: 901. mactus; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 357 s.v. Some rituals, such as the recitation of prayers, were simple. The distinction between sacrificare and mactare was lost by Late Antiquity, but it was still active in the Republic and early Empire.Footnote 34 47 See Oakley Reference Oakley1998: 481 and Sacco Reference Sacco2004: 316. Greek Translation. 277AC). 34 Footnote 32 The equation of sacrifice with the offering of an animal is not completely divorced from the ancient sources. Carretero, Lara Gonzalez 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. 64 82. There is a small group of other rituals that share certain structural similarities with sacrificium, but which the Romans during the Republic and early Empire appear to have distinguished from it. Far less common in the S. Omobono collection, but still present in significant amounts, is a range of animals that do not seem to have formed a regular part of the Roman diet, such as deer, a beaver, lizards, a tortoise, and several puppies.Footnote 67 25 See, for example, Wilkens Reference Wilkens2006 and De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti2006. The Romans performed at least four forms of ritual killing, only one of which was sacrifice. The answers to these questions might reshape our understanding of what were the crucial elements of sacrificium. 81, Here we have two rituals that look, to an outsider, almost identical, but Livy takes pains to distinguish between them. At 8.10.1112, Livy notes that a commander could devote one of his soldiers rather than himself. Liv. 537 Words 3 Pages Decent Essays Read More But then they turn out to be us. Has data issue: true For this same poverty is, among the Greeks, just in Aristides, kind in Phocion, vigorous in Epaminondas, wise in Socrates, and eloquent in Homer. 61 Nacirema is American spelt backwards, and Miner shows to, and interprets for, us our own bathroom habits.Footnote ipsilles with 398L, s.v. For example, Cic., Rep. 3.15 and Font. An emic explanation is essential for understanding how people within a given system understand that system, but because it is culturally and historically bounded, its use is somewhat limited. 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. Modern scholars sometimes group all of these rites under the rubric sacrifice.Footnote 3 This is made clear in numerous passages from several Roman authors. The children were drowned by the haruspices, usually in the sea. The Christian fathers equation of sacrifice with violence has shaped twentieth-century theorizations of sacrifice as a universal human phenomenon,Footnote