More Greek words for sacrifice. See, for example, citations from Pomponius and Afranius in Non. Thus it happens that goats are immolated to Liber Pater, who discovered the vine, so that they pay him a penalty and, by a contrary logic, caprine victims are never immolated to Minerva on account of the olive: they say that whatever olive plant a goat bites becomes sterile). hasContentIssue true, Copyright The Author(s) 2016. 34 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. 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 Those details, once recovered, can in turn subtly reshape our own idea of what sacrifice is and what it does. As illustration, let us return to Livy and the human sacrifice in 216 b.c.e. to the fourth century c.e. 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). The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. noun. According to Pliny, Curius declared under oath that he had appropriated for himself no booty praeter guttum faginum, quo sacrificaret (N.H. 16.185). The Gods in Greek and Roman mythology, while initially having almost no differentiation (we could easily lose in the Spot the difference game), yet started slowly being more dependent on the civilization where they were worshiped. 21.5). 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. 74 Hermes, who had winged feet, was the messenger of the gods and could fly anywhere with great speed. 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 71. 75 thysa. 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. and for front limbs.Footnote I concede that, to a certain extent, the insider-outsider lens does not show us difficulties that were previously invisible. 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. The elder Cato instructs his reader to pollucere a cup of wine and a daps (ritual meal) to Jupiter Dapalis (Agr. 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. Knives would have been used only in conjunction with one or other of these implements. The Romans were aware of the link, as is made clear by Paul. The Romans performed at least four forms of ritual killing, only one of which was sacrifice. It is entirely possible that the search for a single, critical moment where a change from profane to sacred occurs is, in fact, a modern preoccupation. 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. Greek Gods and Religious Practices | Essay | The Metropolitan 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 [1] Comparative mythology has served a Scholars frequently stress the connection between sacrifice and eating: The idea of food underlies the idea of sacrifice.Footnote 54 78 26 The description of Decius ensuing death is very spare and devoid of any sacrificial imagery or terminology. mactus; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.4 s.v. Devotio is primarily a form of vow that is, ideally, followed by a death (si is homo qui devotus est moritur, probe factum videri (Liv. 8.10.)). 62 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. 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. 76 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. Contra Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 223. The ritual is so closely tied to the notion of dining that polluctum could be used for everyday meals (e.g., Plaut., Rud. e.g., O'Gorman Reference O'Gorman2010: 1217 and Versnel Reference Versnel1976. Marcos, Bruno Gel. ex Fest. 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. Cic., Red. WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. 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. Was a portion consumed later? 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. 82 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). 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. 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. 82. 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. 93L, s.v. Scheid's reconstruction and interpretation is followed by Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 3148. Dear Mr. Chang, Aside from the obvious differences in language (one culture speaks as much Latin as the Vatican, while the other is all Greek to me), the Romans art largely imitated that of the Greeks. Vuli, Hrvoje for this article. Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. 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 86 33 MacBain Reference MacBain1982: 12735; Schultz Reference Schultz2010: 52930; Reference Schultz2012: 12930. The issue remains active in religious studies, as it does in cultural anthropology more widely. 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. 9.641. 4 Despite the fact that the Romans buried broken or superfluous gifts to the gods in deposits for hundreds of years, there are to my knowledge only two references to the practice in all of Latin literature.Footnote subsilles. Were they used in some form of divination?Footnote 59 Fest. 61 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. 62. Create. Possible Answers: Roman temples were built on the ruins of previous structures. 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 This line of interpretation has enjoyed a wider influence in the study of Classical Antiquity than work along the lines of Burkert Reference Burkert and Bing1983 and Girard Reference Girard and Gregory1977, and the bibliography is enormous. 7 Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. 85 Scholars are quick to identify all of them as forms of sacrifice, which may well be the case. The main god and goddesses in Roman culture were Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. frag. 9 We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Macr., Sat. 95 Burkert Reference Burkert and Bing1983: 3; Girard Reference Girard and Gregory1977: 1. 87 Learn. 30 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. 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. Those studying ancient Greece and Rome in general and those focusing on Roman religion in particular have been wrestling with these issues for some time even if the terms of the discussion have not been explicit.Footnote The errors and flaws that remain are all my own. While the evidence does not allow us to recover precise distinctions made among these rites (sacrificium, magmentum, and polluctum), it does strongly suggest that the Romans at least through the period of the Republic conceived of these rituals as somehow different from one another. Feature Flags: { 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 Greek influences on Italian craftsmen in the 6 th century BC saw the image of 41 In addition to Zeus and Hera, there were many other major and minor gods in the Greek religion. Dog corpses were sometimes deposited with tablets that contained curses, and dog figurines are among the required items for performing some spells.Footnote 47 Hostname: page-component-7fc98996b9-rf4gk 26. 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. ex Fest. Var., L. 5.112; see also Cic., Har. 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. 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. 22. The ancient Greek and Roman gods did not become incarnate the way Jesus was, did not enter the stream of real human history the way Jesus did, did not die as a The ancients derived the term from magis auctus and understood it to mean to increase and by extension to honour with.Footnote 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. For an argument that wild animals are more common in ancient Mediterranean, and specifically in Etruscan, sacrifice than is generally acknowledged, see Rask Reference Rask2014. Ioppolo Reference Ioppolo1972; Tagliacozzo Reference Tagliacozzo1989. 46 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. Jupiter also concentrated on protecting the Roman state. 3.3.2, citing the late republican jurist Trebatius; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 256. 48 As in the Greek world, sacrifice was the central ritual of religion. 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 Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. The relationship between magmentum and augmentum (Paul. Another example of a ritual that looks a lot like sacrificium but is not identical to it is polluctum. 31; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. Scheid Reference Scheid1998: nn. 113L, s.v. Learn. 12 aryxnewland. WebWhat's the Greek word for sacrifice? 59 Finally, it appears that some of these rites ceased to be performed by some point in the imperial period and that sacrificium continued for centuries. 29 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. Hemina fr. For example, Cic., Rep. 3.15 and Font. 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 38 08 June 2016. Sacrificium included vegetal and inedible offerings, and it was not the only Roman ritual that had living victims. Total loading time: 0 Also Var., Men. 63 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. } See also n. 9 above. ipsilles with 398L, s.v. For the possible link between this instance and the revelation of an unchaste Vestal, see Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 126 n. 18. 9 13 It is the only one of these terms that does not come to be used outside the realm of the divine. 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. 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. Horses: Plin., N.H. 28.146; Fest. 37ab). Resp. Pollucere is an old word, appearing mostly in literature of the second century b.c.e.,Footnote 95 88. 58 Columella 2.21.4 might also refer to dog sacrifice, but the verb (feceris) leaves it ambiguous as to which ritual was being performed. In overlooking the differences between the Roman idea of sacrificium and the modern idea of sacrifice, we lose some of the details of how the Romans perceived a core element of their own experience of the divine. Rhadamanthus and Minos were brothers. Foundational is the collection of essays on Greek sacrifice in Detienne and Vernant Reference Detienne, Vernant and Wissing1989. See Rosenblitt Reference Rosenblitt2011 for the connection between these two passages. Huet Reference Huet and Bertrand2005; Reference Huet and van Andringa2007. refriva faba; Plin., N.H. 18.119. 12 The modern assumption that sacrifice requires an animal victim obfuscates the full range of sacrificium among the Romans. Aeacus holds the keys to Hades. 94. As is implied in all the relevant entries in the OLD. Footnote For the Greeks The distinction between sacrificare and mactare was lost by Late Antiquity, but it was still active in the Republic and early Empire.Footnote 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? The burial of Gauls and Greeks was a sacrifice, but one that Romans ought not to have performed. If we allow only items explicitly identified as sacrificia in Roman sources, our list includes beans,Footnote 71 68 Greek governments varied from kings and oligarchs to the totalitarian, racist, warrior culture of Sparta and the direct democracy of Athens, whereas Roman kings gave It appears that no Roman source ever uses the language of sacrificium to describe devotio,Footnote Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.Footnote Hemina fr. ex Fest. 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 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. 78L, s.v. 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. ex Fest. Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 411 s.v. Plu., RQ 83=Mor. and more. 91 wine,Footnote Livy, however, treats each burial in a distinct way. WebOne major difference between Greek and Roman religion and Christianity is their understanding of the concept of deity. wheat,Footnote ), Dictionnaire tymologique de la langue latine, Interpreting sacrificial ritual in Roman poetry: disciplines and their models, Rituals in Ink: A Conference on Religion and Literary Production in Ancient Rome, La mise mort sacrificielle sur les reliefs romains, La Violence dans les mondes grec et romain, Le sacrifice disparu: les reliefs de boucherie, Sacrifices, march de la viande et pratiques alimentaires dans les cits du monde romain, I reperti ossei animali nell'area archeologica di S. Omobono (19621964), Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, Animal remains from temples in Roman Britain, The symbolic meaning of the cock: the animal remains from the, Roman Mithraism: the Evidence of the Small Finds, Archologie du sacrifice animal en Gaule romaine, Prodigy and Expiation: A Study in Religion and Politics in Republican Rome, Production and Consumption of Animals in Roman Italy, Re-thinking sacred rubbish: the ritual deposits of the temple of Mithras at Tienen (Belgium), Beyond Sacred Violence: A Comparative Study of Sacrifice, The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader, Views from inside and outside: integrating emic and etic insights about culture and justice judgment, Ricerche nell'area dei templi di Fortuna e Mater Matuta, Revue de philologie, de littrature et d'histoire anciennes, Etruscan Italy: Etruscan Influences on the Civilizations of Italy from Antiquity to the Modern Era, Why were the Vestals virgins? 90 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. 23, The importance of sprinkling mola salsa might explain a pattern in Roman public artwork from the republican through the high imperial periods. Greek Gods vs Roman Gods. 39 Martins, Manuela 76. 36 Correct answer: What is a major difference between Greek and Roman temples? Jupiter was a sky-god who Romans believed oversaw all aspects of life; he is thought to have originated from the Greek god Zeus. Aul. 13 Aldrete Reference Aldrete2014: 32. Marcellus, de Medicamentis 8.50; Palmer Reference Palmer and Hall1996: 234. 280 BC and 290D; Rom. 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. 216,Footnote Carretero, Lara Gonzalez It is important to note, however, that we cannot determine conclusively from the extant sources what relationship, if any, existed among them in the Roman mind. 11213L, s.v. 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 6 Has data issue: true 45 I have tried to respond to them all. But then they turn out to be us. Plaut., Stich 233; Cato, Agr. 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. 85 For example, the apparent contradiction between Roman abhorrence of ritual killing and the frequency with which Romans performed various forms of it is, to a large extent, explicable once it is recognized that the Romans objected only to the performance (by themselves as much as by others) of sacrificium on human victims. 65 Finally, both ancient societies have twelve main gods and goddesses. Let me be clear. Significant exceptions to this rule in the study of Roman sacrifice are the treatment of the sacrifice of wheat and wine in Scheid Reference Scheid2012 and the argument for the increased popularity of vegetal sacrifice in Late Antiquity advanced by Elsner Reference Elsner2012. 72 Plaut., Stich. 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. 1 magmentum; Serv., A. 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. ex Fest. 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. Sorted by: 6. from the archaic temple at the site of S. Omobono in Rome.Footnote 176 and Serv., A. 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. The offering of a dog to Robigus may be the same ritual as the augurium canarium referred to by Plin., N.H. 18.14. 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. and the second century c.e. 73 WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to conclude that the miniature clay cows, birds, and other animals that are also commonly found in votive collections were also substitutes for live sacrificial victims.Footnote It is a hallmark of poverty, whether in a religious context or not, appearing often in poetic passages where the narrator describes a low-budget lifestyle.Footnote One does, however, sacrifice with a cow, with a pig, or with a little cruet. 14.30; Sil. Goats: Var., R. 1.2.19; Liv. Paul. 46 Tereso, Joo Pedro Of this class of rituals, sacrificium does seem to have been somehow different from the others. 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. 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). Yet, part of the work of a Roman historian is to try to understand how the Romans understood their world, to be aware of anachronism in our accounts thereof, and to keep in mind that the sources never truly speak for themselves. 3.2.16. 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.
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