WebRomans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. 233; CIL 12.1531=ILLRP 136=ILS 3411 (from Sora). The same two interment rituals would be performed alongside one another again just about a century later, in 113 b.c.e. The modern assumption that sacrifice requires an animal victim obfuscates the full range of sacrificium among the Romans. 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. 358L. 77 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 Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 1002; Reference Scheid2012: 84. 1.3.90 and 1.6.115; Juv. I concede that, to a certain extent, the insider-outsider lens does not show us difficulties that were previously invisible. 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). 132.2; Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 1369). 113L, s.v. favisae. This has repercussions for our understanding of some elements of Roman religious thought. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 5401L. refriva faba; Plin., N.H. 18.119. Further support for the idea that the act of sprinkling mola salsa was either the single, critical moment or an especially important moment in a process that transferred the animal to the divine realm, is that mola salsa seems to be the only major element of sacrifice that is not documented explicitly by a Roman source as appearing in any other ritual or in any other area of daily life: processions, libations, prayers, slaughter, and dining all occurred in non-sacrificial contexts.Footnote 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. 413=Macr., Sat. 23 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. ipsilles with 398L, s.v. 9 Val. 91 20 1. For example, scholars have used the relationships between different myths to trace the development of religions and cultures, to propose common origins for 90 WebDifferences between Greek and Roman sacrifices. 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 Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 411 s.v. Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming. 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. For the Greeks Goats: Var., R. 1.2.19; Liv. The vast majority of the bones come from pigs, sheep, and goats. 57 The limited sources we have are imprecise in their use of the terms even Cicero, who was an augur and was surely aware of the distinction.Footnote 537 Words 3 Pages Decent Essays Read More and 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 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. There are at least two other rituals that the Romans performed that also required the death of a person. Contra Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 223. 45 There is growing consensus that the answer is affirmative. 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. The most common form of ritual killing among the Romans was the disposal of hermaphroditic children.Footnote 34 ex. WebWhat are the main differences between Greek and Roman gods? 67 1 6 47 and again in 114 or 113 b.c.e. ex Fest. The corresponding substantive is magmentum, a type of offering laid out only at certain temples.Footnote The closest any Roman source comes to linking devotio and sacrifice is Cic., Off. 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 WebGreeks Romans Lived in small rural communities Polis functioned as the city-states religious center Greek Gods Sense of identity Polis isolated from one another and independent Sanctuaries to share music, religion, poetry, and athletics Classical Greek Orders basic design elements for architecture (sense of order, predictability, and Marcos, Bruno Elsner has proposed that the choice, increasingly frequent in the third century c.e., to represent the whole sacrificial ritual with libation and incense-burning scenes rather than with images involving animals is an indication of the increased emphasis on vegetarian sacrifice in that period.Footnote Through the insider point of view, we can understand its meaning to the people who experience it. 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). See also Scheid Reference Scheid2012: 901. Another major difference between Greek gods and Roman gods is in the physical appearance of the deities. 72 Aeacus holds the keys to Hades. 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 22.1.19; 45.16.6; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. 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 milk,Footnote 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 Let me be clear. But then they turn out to be us. At 8.10.1112, Livy notes that a commander could devote one of his soldiers rather than himself. The objectivity of the outside observer can also facilitate cross-cultural comparison. 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). 11213L, s.v. The description of Decius ensuing death is very spare and devoid of any sacrificial imagery or terminology. eadem est enim paupertas apud Graecos in Aristide iusta, in Phocione benigna, in Epaminonda strenua, in Socrate sapiens, in Homero diserta. 4.57) is not clear. 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. 74 Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 8. e.g., Liv. Footnote Minos gave laws to Crete. Var., L. 5.112; see also Cic., Har. 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. and Paul. Greek Translation. The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. The small size of the guttus and simpulum is assured by Varro (L. 5.124), who identifies both as vessels that pour out liquid minutatim. 69 16 88 there is a relative dearth of published studies that deal in any serious way with the collections of bones found on various sites from Roman Italy.Footnote 64 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. 89 Livy, however, treats each burial in a distinct way. 27 82. Two famous examples are found on the altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. In 14 3.3.2, citing the late republican jurist Trebatius; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 256. 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. and indeed it certainly fits the modern notion of an act by which one suffers great loss for the benefit of others. As is implied in all the relevant entries in the OLD. Aldrete counts at least fifty-six sculptural reliefs dating from the seventh century b.c.e. 58 10 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. Another animal sometimes sacrificed by the Romans but not regularly eaten by them is the human animal. Now, the Romans did not eat people, so how does their performance of human sacrifice reinforce the link between sacrifice and dining? 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. 13 For example, Cic., Rep. 3.15 and Font. For example, Ares is the Greek 72 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). Marcellus, de Medicamentis 8.50; Palmer Reference Palmer and Hall1996: 234. 83 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. 2 On the Latin terminology for living sacrificial victims, see Prescendi Reference Prescendi2009. There is also a queen of gods in Greek and Roman mythologies. The answer is that human sacrifice, which the Romans are quick to dismiss as something other people do (note that, although Livy is clear that the burial of Gauls and Greeks is a sacrifice, he also says that it was hardly a Roman rite), is closely linked in the Roman mind with cannibalism. Home. 62 79 Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. Footnote The ritual seems to be even more flexible than sacrificium in the range of objects on which it could be performed. 36 Vaz, Filipe Costa 78L, s.v. 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). 45.16.6. Were they always burnt on an altar or brazier? 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 Hemina fr. (ed.) The literary evidence for this is slender but persuasive. 63. 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. mactus; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.4 s.v. Cf. 44 38 Greek influences on Italian craftsmen in the 6 th century BC saw the image of For many readers of Latin, the most obvious translation of the Latin is except a beechwood cruet with which he would offer sacrifice, taking quo as an instrumental ablative and thereby making the vessel an instrument of sacrifice rather than the object of sacrifice itself. For a treatment of this methodological issue on a broader scale, see the rather pointed critique in Hopkins Reference Hopkins1978: 1808. 91 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 Terms in this set (7) Which one 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. 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. 98 216,Footnote 60 97 Total loading time: 0 wheat,Footnote ex Fest. 13 Peter=FRH F17. Compare Var., R. 2.8.1. Furthermore, because there were multiple rituals not just sacrificium through which the Romans could share food and other goods with their gods, we can see that the Romans had a wider range of ritual tools available to them for communicating with the divine. 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. The other rite observed by the Romans that required a human death was called devotio, and it seems to have been restricted to a single family father, son, and grandson (it is possible our sources have multiplied a single occasion), all of whom, as commanders-in-the-field, vowed to commit themselves and the enemy troops to the gods of the underworld in order to ensure a Roman victory. 80 What we find is that for the Romans, to sacrifice was not simply to kill in a ritual fashion. WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. 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 18 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. Also unfamiliar to the Romans would be another use of sacrifice now current in the life sciences, as a term for euthanasia of research animals with no real religious significance The plea of an editorial in the Canadian Journal of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Science from 1967 (p. 241) that researchers abandon the term because there is no deity involved in the act of euthanizing laboratory animals, fell on deaf ears: sacrifice remains common in animal management literature. 33 WebThe ancient Greeks and Romans performed many rituals in the observance of their religion. 25 and 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. 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. Livy also uses the language of sacrifice when he describes the underground room as a place that had already seen human victims.Footnote Greek Gods and Religious Practices | Essay | The Metropolitan 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. 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. sacrifice, Roman in OCD 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 Rpke Reference Rpke, Georgoudi, Piettre and Schmidt2005 offers a different interpretation of the meal that follows the sacrifice. The equation of sacrifice with the offering of an animal is not completely divorced from the ancient sources. 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 This meant that 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. 450 Krenkel; Hor., Sat. 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. thysa. 1996: The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn), Oxford. 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. 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. As proof, he recounts a story about M. 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 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. WebRoman sacrificial practices were not functionally different from Greek, although the Roman rite was distinguishable from the Greek and Etruscan. 5 Lelekovi, Tino This repeated coincidence of ritual performances suggests that the two forms of ritual killingFootnote 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 Study sets, textbooks, questions. 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 Scholars frequently stress the connection between sacrifice and eating: The idea of food underlies the idea of sacrifice.Footnote WebFor example, the Peloponnesian War was primarily a struggle between two Greek city-states, Athens and Sparta, and was fought mainly on land and sea within the Greek world. 93L, s.v. Aul. Render date: 2023-03-04T10:22:59.089Z Jupiter also concentrated on protecting the Roman state. 93 Although there is substantial evidence for other types of sacrificial offerings in the literary sources (see below, Section III), Roman authors do not discuss them at length, preferring instead to talk about grand public sacrifices of multiple animal victims. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. 66 3 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. 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. Some more support for the notion that these were not interchangeable can be drawn from material evidence, visual representations of the moment of ritual slaughter. There is a difference, however. Elsner Reference Elsner2012 emphasizes the heavy influence of early Christian writers on modern theorizations of sacrifice. 31; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. 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. 51 47 Cornell, T. J. The issue remains active in religious studies, as it does in cultural anthropology more widely. 9.641. Although they are universally referred to as votive offerings in the scholarly literature, it is possible that they are, technically, sacrifices. I presume that Miner's observations apply also to bathroom habits elsewhere in North America and Europe. 35 4 Has data issue: true 70 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. "useRatesEcommerce": false 33 mactus. 95 Paul. 190L s.v. 277AC). For example, think about the Roman and Greek mythologies about gods. 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. 7 See also n. 9 above. 41 22.57.26; Cass. 69a). An exception is Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 52. pecunia sacrificium; Paul. The presence of bones from these species at S. Omobono should not be taken to mean that the site was what scholars call a healing sanctuary, or that it was a place where people came to cast spells on their enemies. On the contrary, Greek religion did not prefer to execute rituals as much as Mar. 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. Through the outsider point of view, we can interpret it in light of comparable behaviours in other cultures. 68 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 The catinus is a piece of everyday ware used to serve food that contains a lot of liquid (L. 5.120). The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, 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. Fest. 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. Also Var., Men. 280 BC and 290D; Rom. 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 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 See, for example, Wilkens Reference Wilkens2006 and De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti2006. Van Straten Reference Van Straten1995: 188. Macr., Sat. 358L, s.v. The main god and goddesses in Roman culture were Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. 25 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. 17 In Livy's account of the first devotio in 340 b.c.e. More Greek words for sacrifice. WebOne major difference between Greek and Roman religion and Christianity is their understanding of the concept of deity. The elder Pliny, in his Natural History, discusses the high regard in which ancient Romans held simple vessels made of beechwood. 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. Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 376 s.v. The relationship between magmentum and augmentum (Paul. 19 ex Fest. October equus. 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). Flashcards. 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 and the fact that the word immolatio itself derives from the Indo-European root *melh2 (to crush, to grind): immolatio is cognate with English mill.Footnote a more expensive offering that dominates in literary accounts of sacrifice. The ancients derived the term from magis auctus and understood it to mean to increase and by extension to honour with.Footnote 78 97 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.
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