WebThe gods, heroes, and humans of Greek mythology were flawed. Marcos, Bruno Chr. 46 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. 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. e.g., Faraone and Naiden Reference Faraone and Naiden2012: 4; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 36 and 1089. The elder Pliny, in his Natural History, discusses the high regard in which ancient Romans held simple vessels made of beechwood. Foundational is the collection of essays on Greek sacrifice in Detienne and Vernant Reference Detienne, Vernant and Wissing1989. To explain the decision to sometimes portray one weapon instead of the other, Aldrete posits that various gods, cults, and rituals may have dictated certain procedures or tools.Footnote I also thank the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments, suggestions and objections that have greatly improved this piece. 90 refriva faba; Plin., N.H. 18.119. Another famous instance of this scene is on the Boscoreale cup (Aldrete Reference Aldrete2014: 33, fig. to the fourth century c.e. 132.12). aryxnewland. 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 73 51, There is, of course, a large leap in scale from two literary references to an explanation for a ritual practice performed in hundreds of locations over many centuries. 10 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. The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. In both the passages from Pliny and Apuleius, the ritual implements are of diminutive size. 30 44 95 Hemina fr. Fest. October equus. 1034 seems to draw an equivalence between sacrificare and mactare (cf. If we allow only items explicitly identified as sacrificia in Roman sources, our list includes beans,Footnote molo; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 3867 s.v. The ritual is so closely tied to the notion of dining that polluctum could be used for everyday meals (e.g., Plaut., Rud. 344L, s.v. 37 magmentum; Serv., A. WebThe ancient Greeks and Romans performed many rituals in the observance of their religion. 74 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. Plutarch is the only source for dog sacrifice at the Lupercalia (RQ 68 and 111=Mor. uncovered in votive deposits throughout Italy. On fourteen occasions between 209 and 92 b.c.e., androgyne infants and children were included among the prodigies reported to the Roman Senate. 80 Home. mactus; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.4 s.v. 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. Finally, both ancient societies have twelve main gods and goddesses. Finally, while other rituals seem to have fallen into desuetude, or at least to have fallen out of the literature, by the late Republic or early Empire, sacrificium remained a vital part of Roman religious life for centuries. On three occasions during the Republic (228,Footnote 4.57) is not clear. 45.16.6. Plaut., Stich 233; Cato, Agr. 100 In Latin, one does not sacrifice with a knife or with an axe. 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 ), the Romans followed instructions from the Sibylline Books to bury alive pairs of Gauls and Greeks, one man and one woman of each, in the Forum Boarium. 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 "useRatesEcommerce": false In fact, devotio is viewed positively by the Romans as a selfless, almost superhuman act of true leadership.Footnote 96 There is a difference, however. Somewhat surprising is the considerably smaller presence of bovines,Footnote 64 Also Var., Men. Another example of a ritual that looks a lot like sacrificium but is not identical to it is polluctum. Nor, in broader terms, do I think that internal, or emic, categories should automatically be privileged over external, or etic, ones.Footnote 98 The survival beyond the early Empire of most aspects of the distinction among ritual forms discussed in Section IV cannot be asserted with any confidence. Jupiter also concentrated on protecting the Roman state. I use ritual killing as a blanket term for any rite, including but not limited to sacrifice, that involves the death of a human being. Scheid Reference Scheid1998: nn. 31; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. 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. Nonius 539L identifies mactare with immolare, but the texts he cites do not really support his claim. Rarest of all are images depicting the litatio, the inspection of the animal's entrails that Romans performed after ritual slaughter to determine the will of the gods.Footnote To give just a single example, we know that there was originally some technical distinction among the different types of divine signs sent to the Romans by the gods. Carretero, Lara Gonzalez On the general absence of wild meat from the Roman diet, see MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 1902. but in later texts as well. 76. 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? 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 92 17 Looking at Roman sacrifice through the insider-outsider lens lets us see more clearly that, for the Romans, sacrifice was both more and less than it is for many scholars writing about it today. See, for example, Morris et al. Sorted by: 6. 15, The apparent alignment of emic (Roman) and etic (modern) perceptions of the centrality of slaughter to the Roman sacrificial process, however, is not complete. Horses: Plin., N.H. 28.146; Fest. 10 37 Let me be clear. 93 Reed, Kelly 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. The database is a very useful, but not infallible tool. 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 sacrima. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. Possible Answers: Roman temples were built on the ruins of previous structures. 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. 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 fabam and Fest. 68 Sacrificium included vegetal and inedible offerings, and it was not the only Roman ritual that had living victims. 61 Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 22441 and, arriving at the same conclusion by a different path, Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1323. 77L, s.v. The elder Cato instructs his reader to pollucere a cup of wine and a daps (ritual meal) to Jupiter Dapalis (Agr. This is the insider-outsider problem in nuce. As a comparandum, we can point to the Roman habit of creating votive deposits, collections of usually relatively inexpensive items buried in the ground: gifts to the gods that had been cleaned out of overstuffed temples and intentionally buried. 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. Unlike sacrificare, which remained solely in the divine realm, mactare did not need to involve the gods: mactare is something that one Roman could do to another, both literally (one can mactare someone else with a golden cup, for example) and metaphorically (with misfortune or expense). 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 The basic argument transfers well to the Roman context. See Oakley Reference Oakley1998: 481 and Sacco Reference Sacco2004: 316. Another major difference between Greek gods and Roman gods is in the physical appearance of the deities. 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. 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. 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. Dogs had other ritual uses as well. 3 The ritual ended with a litatio, that is, the inspection of the animal's entrails, and it was then followed by a meal. 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 Test. Our author makes clear that the sacrifice of two Gauls and two Greeks happened alongside another ritual: the punishment of an unchaste Vestal Virgin. Although they are universally referred to as votive offerings in the scholarly literature, it is possible that they are, technically, sacrifices. 14 The literary evidence for this is slender but persuasive. Were these items sprinkled with mola salsa?Footnote Paul. mactus; Serv., A. WebThe Greeks were striving for perfection in their art while the Romans were striving for real life people. In the sacred realm, Romans could also pollucere a tithe to the god Hercules.Footnote The objectivity of the outside observer can also facilitate cross-cultural comparison. 97L: Immolare est mola, id est farre molito et sale, hostiam perspersam sacrare (To immolate is to make sacred a victim sprinkled with mola, that is, with ground spelt and salt), a passage which also suggests that the link between immolatio and mola salsa was active in the minds of Romans in the early imperial period when the ultimate source of Paulus redaction, the dictionary written by Verrius Flaccus, was compiled.Footnote noun. 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. Study sets, textbooks, questions. 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. Vuli, Hrvoje 190L s.v. More Greek words for sacrifice. 280 BC and 290D; Rom. Liv. Others, such as animal Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 376 s.v. As an example, I offer Var., R. 1.2.19: Itaque propterea institutum diversa de causa ut ex caprino genere ad alii dei aram hostia adduceretur, ad alii non sacrificaretur, cum ab eodem odio alter videre nollet, alter etiam videre pereuntem vellet. 22. Match. Parents: Aeacus: Zeus and Aegina; Rhadamanthus and Minos: Zeus and Europa. 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 How, if these animals did not make desirable entrees, could they be considered suitable for sacrifice? 67 83 Van Straten Reference Van Straten1995: 188. 32 The numerous sources for this event are collected and analysed in Engels Reference Engels2007: 41618, 4438. 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). Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. and for looking at Roman religion in the context of other religious traditions. As in the Greek world, sacrifice was the central ritual of religion. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. 24 Although Roman writers most frequently do not explicitly identify the object of a sacrifice, when they do, cattle, pigs and sheep are well attested.Footnote One relatively well documented example is the collection of bones dating to the seventh and sixth centuries b.c.e. 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. Cf. 61 See, for example, Wilkens Reference Wilkens2006 and De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti2006. Greek Gods vs Roman Gods. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. } The Christian fathers equation of sacrifice with violence has shaped twentieth-century theorizations of sacrifice as a universal human phenomenon,Footnote It appears that no Roman source ever uses the language of sacrificium to describe devotio,Footnote wheat,Footnote 94 What we find is that for the Romans, to sacrifice was not simply to kill in a ritual fashion. Scheid's reconstruction and interpretation is followed by Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 3148. Paul. 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. and again in 114 or 113 b.c.e. There is growing consensus that the answer is affirmative. 2.47.10 (M)=2.44.10 McGushin. 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. 3 The S. Omobono material shows a definite preference for certain species (sheep, goats, pigs),Footnote 2019. The answers to these questions might reshape our understanding of what were the crucial elements of sacrificium. (ed.) 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. Plaut., Stich. 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. ipsilles with 398L, s.v. Since Greeks were the first ones, Romans followed them. for this article. 33 Emic and etic, terms drawn originally from the field of linguistics (Pike Reference Pike1967: 3744; reprinted in McCutcheon Reference McCutcheon1999: 2836), are one of several pairs of words used to present the insider-outsider distinction. and Paul. 6.34. 74 23, The importance of sprinkling mola salsa might explain a pattern in Roman public artwork from the republican through the high imperial periods. 59 Instead, their presence should be attributed to the status of those species as valuable and efficacious: the prevalence of dogs, lizards, and beavers in medicinal and magical recipes for potions is an indication of the exceptional value the animals were thought to have, an indication that they were somehow special, and therefore might be worthy of the gods. 69a). 17ac) and the Cancellaria relief (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. 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. Mactare is another ritual performed on animals (referred to as hostiae and victimae) at an altar, but also on porridge (Nonius 539L). 132; Cass. Bottom line: The Greeks tended towards greater personification of their gods; the Romans tended towards their religion being a series of quid pro quo transactions with Scholars are quick to identify all of them as forms of sacrifice, which may well be the case. most famously those of Burkert, who identifies sacrificial slaughter as the basic experience of the sacred, and Girard, who begins his investigation into the origin of sacrifice by asserting its close kinship to murder and criminal violence.Footnote 97 Cornell, T. J. 52 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. 78 Our modern idea of sacrifice can, with some refinement and clarification, remain a useful concept for constructing accounts of how and why the Romans dealt with their gods in the ways they didFootnote 91 1. 62 8.9 per cent of the total, according to Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 2. 5 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. View all Google Scholar citations 4 In Var., L 5.122. 67 See also Scheid Reference Scheid2012: 901. See, for example, citations from Pomponius and Afranius in Non. As suggested by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.23841. 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. As illustrated by Livy's description of the first Decius to perform the ritual as he rode out to meet the enemy: aliquanto augustior humano visu, sicut caelo missus (8.9.10). Scheid's reconstruction focuses on a living victim, and this is in keeping with the ancient sources own emphasis on blood sacrifice. Burkert Reference Burkert and Bing1983: 3; Girard Reference Girard and Gregory1977: 1. 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. Ankarloo and Clark Reference Ankarloo and Clark1999: 756; Wilburn Reference Wilburn2012: 8790. 22.57.26, discussed also in Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1267. 85 The vast majority of the bones come from pigs, sheep, and goats. more because the Romans sacrificed things that are not animals, and less because sacrificium is not a term that encompasses every Roman ritual that involves the death of a living being. For example, Ares is the Greek Huet Reference Huet and Bertrand2005; Reference Huet and van Andringa2007. Were they used in some form of divination?Footnote The offering of a dog to Robigus may be the same ritual as the augurium canarium referred to by Plin., N.H. 18.14. 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. 2.10.34, quoting a letter of Varro, and Paul. While there appears to have been an original distinction among the rites of sacrificium, polluctum, and magmentum, we cannot recover the details of it in any serious way. 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. 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. ex Fest. 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 Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming. The same two interment rituals would be performed alongside one another again just about a century later, in 113 b.c.e. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.Footnote We do not know what name the Romans gave the ritual burial of an unchaste Vestal Virgin, but we know it was not sacrifice. 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. 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. Macr., Sat. 286L and 287L, s.v. Instead they seem to have conceived of it as the ritual consecration of an animal which was afterwards killed and eaten. Marcellus, de Medicamentis 8.50; Palmer Reference Palmer and Hall1996: 234. WebIt housed an altar for animal sacrifice and was said to constantly burn incense. 64 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. 45 The closest any Roman source comes to linking devotio and sacrifice is Cic., Off. Devotio is frequently called self-sacrifice by modern scholars,Footnote The exact nature of the connection between the two rituals is not clear, but I agree with Eckstein Reference Eckstein1982 that we should not see the sacrifice of Gauls and Greeks as some sort of atonement for the unchastity of the Vestals. Two famous examples are found on the altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. 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. 82 Rpke Reference Rpke, Georgoudi, Piettre and Schmidt2005 offers a different interpretation of the meal that follows the sacrifice. 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. Thus the most likely reading of the passage in Pliny is that Curius sacrificed the guttum faginum to the gods. 8.10.)). The preceding discussion has, I hope, made clear that the Romans own notion of sacrifice is broader and more complex than is generally perceived. Fontes, Lus As proof, he recounts a story about M. Liv. 12 Macr., Sat. 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. 19 ex Fest. WebIn Greek mythology the king of gods is known as Zeus, whereas Romans call the king of gods Jupiter. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. 28 In Greek and Roman religion, the gods and eadem paupertas etiam populo Romano imperium a primordio fundavit, proque eo in odiernum diis immortalibus simpulo et catino fictili sacrificat. 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. 2 From this same root also derives the name for the mixture sprinkled on the animal before it was killed, mola salsa.Footnote The errors and flaws that remain are all my own. At the centre of the whole complex was the immolatio, during which the animal was sprinkled with mola salsa (a mixture of spelt and salt), the flat of a knife was run along its back, and then it was slaughtered. WebOn the whole, political development in Greece followed a pattern: first the rule of kings, found as early as the period of Mycenaean civilization; then a feudal period, the 52 90 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. 277AC). 16 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.

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