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. The modern assumption that sacrifice requires an animal victim obfuscates the full range of sacrificium among the Romans. 1.3.90 and 1.6.115; Juv. and Paul. The Romans, however, developed a more naturalistic approach to their art. They were rewarded for their endeavors with the position of judge in the Underworld. 69 70 and and Narbo in Gallia Narbonensis (CIL 12.4333, dated to 11 c.e.). 85 Nacirema is American spelt backwards, and Miner shows to, and interprets for, us our own bathroom habits.Footnote The description of Decius ensuing death is very spare and devoid of any sacrificial imagery or terminology. 83 Hemina fr. 38 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 Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: figs 83 and 89b. 3.2.16. Detry, Cleia 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 30 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. Plaut., Stich 233; Cato, Agr. 91 Aul. Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 1002; Reference Scheid2012: 84. Of the fifty-six reliefs, forty-one show officials carrying axes. 85 mactus. 48 Of this class of rituals, sacrificium does seem to have been somehow different from the others. 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. 76. WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. 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. Goats: Var., R. 1.2.19; Liv. WebWhat are the main differences between Greek and Roman gods? WebIn Greek mythology the king of gods is known as Zeus, whereas Romans call the king of gods Jupiter. 84 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 ex Fest. There is a small amount of evidence for a form of auspicium performed with beans: Fest. Livy, however, treats each burial in a distinct way. e.g., O'Gorman Reference O'Gorman2010: 1217 and Versnel Reference Versnel1976. 11213L, s.v. It appears that no Roman source ever uses the language of sacrificium to describe devotio,Footnote Scholars frequently stress the connection between sacrifice and eating: The idea of food underlies the idea of sacrifice.Footnote fabam and Fest. The catinus is a piece of everyday ware used to serve food that contains a lot of liquid (L. 5.120). 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 31. Classicists generally assume that the modern idea of sacrifice as the ritual killing of an animal applies to the Roman context. Mar. ex Fest. Published online by Cambridge University Press: Plutarch is the only source for dog sacrifice at the Lupercalia (RQ 68 and 111=Mor. (ed.) 9 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 Douglas Reference Douglas and Douglas1982: 117. 4 Thinking along the same lines, it is reasonable to conclude that there are relatively few images of slaughter among Roman sacrificial scenes in public artwork of the Classical period because the emphasis in state-sponsored sacrifice lay elsewhere. Once we have recognized that there are two notions of sacrifice at play, we can set aside our etic, outsider ideas for the moment and look at the Roman sources anew. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments, suggestions and objections that have greatly improved this piece. Lelekovi, Tino 08 June 2016. 97 For example, Cic., Rep. 3.15 and Font. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. The hypothesis that only sacrificium required mola salsa is strongly supported by the sources, but because that is an argument ex silentio, it cannot be proved beyond all doubt. 43 Paul. 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. Aldrete Reference Aldrete2014: 32. Knives would have been used only in conjunction with one or other of these implements. Foundational is the collection of essays on Greek sacrifice in Detienne and Vernant Reference Detienne, Vernant and Wissing1989. mactus; Serv., A. The same two interment rituals would be performed alongside one another again just about a century later, in 113 b.c.e. . 22.1.19; 45.16.6; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. Cf., n. 89 below. 52 3.3.2, citing the late republican jurist Trebatius; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 256. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. 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. 16 24 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. 18 th century excavations unearthed a number of sculptures with traces of color, but noted art historians dismissed the findings as anomalies. 17 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. 20 The ritual ended with a litatio, that is, the inspection of the animal's entrails, and it was then followed by a meal. WebIt housed an altar for animal sacrifice and was said to constantly burn incense. Pollucere is an old word, appearing mostly in literature of the second century b.c.e.,Footnote Modern scholars sometimes group all of these rites under the rubric sacrifice.Footnote Through the outsider point of view, we can interpret it in light of comparable behaviours in other cultures. 40 A wider range of scholarly approaches is presented by McClymond Reference McClymond2008: 124. 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. 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. wine,Footnote Ov., F. 4.90142 with Fest. WebRoman sacrificial practices were not functionally different from Greek, although the Roman rite was distinguishable from the Greek and Etruscan. How, if these animals did not make desirable entrees, could they be considered suitable for sacrifice? 41 ex Fest. The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. 80 31; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. 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. 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. 1034 seems to draw an equivalence between sacrificare and mactare (cf. 14 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 This is a clear difference from Athena, who was never associated with the weather. Working with the two of them together, we can get a more nuanced understanding of a cultural habit. Rhadamanthus and Minos were brothers. a more expensive offering that dominates in literary accounts of sacrifice. Of these, only dogs are attested in the written sources as victims of Roman sacrifice, albeit rarely.Footnote 93 66 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. Another example of a ritual that looks a lot like sacrificium but is not identical to it is polluctum. incense,Footnote Elsner Reference Elsner2012 emphasizes the heavy influence of early Christian writers on modern theorizations of sacrifice. WebThe gods, heroes, and humans of Greek mythology were flawed. The most common form of ritual killing among the Romans was the disposal of hermaphroditic children.Footnote } Roman sources make clear that Romans had several different rituals (sacrificium, polluctum, and magmentum) that appear, based on prominent structural similarities, to have been related to one another. 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 noun. The equation of sacrifice with the offering of an animal is not completely divorced from the ancient sources. Gel. 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. Aeacus holds the keys to Hades. 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. 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. 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. If we allow only items explicitly identified as sacrificia in Roman sources, our list includes beans,Footnote 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. 54 286L and 287L, s.v. and first fruits.Footnote I owe many thanks to C. P. Mann, B. Nongbri, and J. N. Dillon for their thoughtful, challenging responses to earlier drafts of this article, and to audiences at Trinity College, Baylor University, and Bryn Mawr College for comments on an oral version of it. 62. 39 CIL 6.32323.13940=ILS 5050.13940=Pighi Reference Pighi1965: 117 (from Rome). Curius Dentatus, famous for his victory over Pyrrhus in 275 b.c.e. 48 132.12). aryxnewland. 60 Birds: Suet., Calig. Of these, three-fourths come from the first and second centuries c.e. Another major difference between Greek gods and Roman gods is in the physical appearance of the deities. Footnote 79 15 Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming. 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. 2 WebWhat's the Greek word for sacrifice? Aldrete's survey of images commonly identified as sacrifice scenes makes clear that Roman art depicts different procedures (hitting with a hammer, chopping with an axe) and implements (hammers, axes, knives), and that the preference of implement changes over time. Flashcards. The numerous sources for this event are collected and analysed in Engels Reference Engels2007: 41618, 4438. In both the passages from Pliny and Apuleius, the ritual implements are of diminutive size. For this same poverty is, among the Greeks, just in Aristides, kind in Phocion, vigorous in Epaminondas, wise in Socrates, and eloquent in Homer. 37 Pliny reports a ritual, possibly sacrifice (res divina fit, 29.58), involving a dog in honour of the little-known goddess, Genita Mana (cf. milk,Footnote 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 65 36 On the Latin terminology for living sacrificial victims, see Prescendi Reference Prescendi2009. 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. 287L, s.v. 72 61 Those details, once recovered, can in turn subtly reshape our own idea of what sacrifice is and what it does. J. 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. 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.
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