differences between greek and roman sacrifice differences between greek and roman sacrifice

Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming. In Greek and Roman religion, the gods and Elsner Reference Elsner2012 emphasizes the heavy influence of early Christian writers on modern theorizations of sacrifice. mactus; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 357 s.v. Scholars frequently stress the connection between sacrifice and eating: The idea of food underlies the idea of sacrifice.Footnote 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 Huet explains the rarity of killing scenes in sacrificial reliefs from Italy by pointing out that the emphasis in these reliefs is really on the piety of the sacrificant who stands before the altar.Footnote 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 55 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 Sacrificium is the performance of a complex of actions that presents the gods with an edible gift by the sprinkling of mola salsa and the ultimate goal of which seems to be the feeding of both gods and men. 113L, s.v. and again in 114 or 113 b.c.e. 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. 3.763829. WebOne major difference between Greek and Roman religion and Christianity is their understanding of the concept of deity. 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. 1; Sall., Hist. ex Fest. Var., L. 6.3.14. 93 WebWhat are the main differences between Greek and Roman gods? 3 65 The Romans were aware of the link, as is made clear by Paul. 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. Tagliacozzo Reference Tagliacozzo1989: 66. 190L s.v. This is the insider-outsider problem in nuce. From here, we can speculate that sacrifice was not understood by the Romans primarily as the ritual slaughter of an animal. 37 132; Cass. Sacrificare is frequently accompanied by an instrumental ablative, but in almost all cases it is clear that the ablative is the object of sacrifice, as in the phrase maioribus hostiis sacrificaverant.Footnote From this same root also derives the name for the mixture sprinkled on the animal before it was killed, mola salsa.Footnote 8.10.)). Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. were linked.Footnote The Christian fathers equation of sacrifice with violence has shaped twentieth-century theorizations of sacrifice as a universal human phenomenon,Footnote Thus the most likely reading of the passage in Pliny is that Curius sacrificed the guttum faginum to the gods. Of this class of rituals, sacrificium does seem to have been somehow different from the others. The corresponding substantive is magmentum, a type of offering laid out only at certain temples.Footnote e.g., J. Scheid, s.v. See, for example, Morris et al. 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. uncovered in votive deposits throughout Italy. 13 Peter=FRH F17. Render date: 2023-03-04T10:22:59.089Z Plut., RQ 52=Mor. Upon examination of the Roman evidence, however, it becomes evident that this distinction is an etic one: while we see at least two different rituals, the Romans are Sacrificium included vegetal and inedible offerings, and it was not the only Roman ritual that had living victims. The present study turns the insider-outsider lens on the study of Roman sacrifice: it aims to trace, through an analysis of a set of Latin religious terminology, how Romans thought about sacrifice and to highlight how this conception, which I refer to by the Latin term sacrificium, relates to two dominant aspects of modern theorizations of sacrifice as a universal human behaviour: sacrifice as violence and sacrifice as ritual meal. 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. 29 Although they are universally referred to as votive offerings in the scholarly literature, it is possible that they are, technically, sacrifices. the killing of the animal was not it, at least in an early period. More rare are images like those on the arches of Trajan at Benevento and of Septimius Severus at Lepcis Magna which show the moment that the axe is swung.Footnote WebRomans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. 68 22. 92 WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. 88 mactus; Serv., A. As suggested by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.23841. 86 Aldrete Reference Aldrete2014: 32. ex Fest. There is also evidence that the Romans had a variety of rites, only one of which was sacrificium, that involved presenting foodstuffs to the gods. and Paul. for this article. 10 Pliny and Apuleius may reflect an lite misconception about the religious praxis of lower class worshippers, offering an incorrect, emic interpretation of an observable phenomenon. 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 1.3.90 and 1.6.115; Juv. Ov., F. 4.90142 with Fest. Ankarloo and Clark Reference Ankarloo and Clark1999: 756; Wilburn Reference Wilburn2012: 8790. Even if this is the case, the argument still stands that these passages underscore how essential was consumption to the ritual of sacrificium. For example, think about the Roman and Greek mythologies about gods. Huet Reference Huet and Bertrand2005; Reference Huet and van Andringa2007. 5 77L, s.v. 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). Two famous examples are found on the altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. 36 49 Test. See, for example, citations from Pomponius and Afranius in Non. 46 J. 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. 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. mactus. 71. 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 98 4.57. Val. It is also clear from literary sources that on a handful of occasions, including instances well within the historical period, the Roman state sacrificed human victims to the gods, a topic we shall address more fully later on. 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. The ritual seems to be even more flexible than sacrificium in the range of objects on which it could be performed. The modern assumption that sacrifice requires an animal victim obfuscates the full range of sacrificium among the Romans. 423L s.v. hasContentIssue true, Copyright The Author(s) 2016. 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 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. CIL 6.32323.13940=ILS 5050.13940=Pighi Reference Pighi1965: 117 (from Rome). 45 39 The database is a very useful, but not infallible tool. and more. Douglas Reference Douglas and Douglas1982: 117. 280 BC and 290D; Rom. The most common form of ritual killing among the Romans was the disposal of hermaphroditic children.Footnote 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. 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. 52 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. 85 14.30; Sil. 24 Somewhat surprising is the considerably smaller presence of bovines,Footnote 53 Was a portion consumed later? 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 As the most extensive survey of meat production in Roman Italy has concluded, Dogs were variously trained as guards, protectors, companions, and pets, but they were not raised to be eaten (MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 74). 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. The ritual ended with a litatio, that is, the inspection of the animal's entrails, and it was then followed by a meal. 3.2.16. Birds: Suet., Calig. 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. 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. 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 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. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. Scheid's reconstruction focuses on a living victim, and this is in keeping with the ancient sources own emphasis on blood sacrifice. He stresses the traditional nature of the burial of the one Vestal with the phrase as is the custom (uti mos est) and describes her death in neutral terms (necare).Footnote Contra Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 223. In this way, the native, or emic, Roman view of sacrifice is more expansive than ours. These two passages from Pliny and Apuleius may provide an explanation for the hundreds of thousands of miniature fictile vessels (plates, cups, etc.) 69a). Fest. 2 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. 32 25 By placing this variety of rites that the Romans had under the single rubric of sacrifice, we have lost sight of some of the complexity and nuance of Roman ritual life. 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 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. WebThe Greeks were striving for perfection in their art while the Romans were striving for real life people. Since Greeks were the first ones, Romans followed them. 23 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 Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. 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. 95 and indeed it certainly fits the modern notion of an act by which one suffers great loss for the benefit of others. Sorted by: 6. and 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. ex Fest. the ritual began with a procession that was followed by a praefatio, a preliminary offering of prayers, wine and incense. 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. 96 Pliny reports a ritual, possibly sacrifice (res divina fit, 29.58), involving a dog in honour of the little-known goddess, Genita Mana (cf. 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). 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. 45.16.6. The statues made in Greece were made with perfect people in mind often modeled after gods and goddesses, while the statues in Rome have all the faults a real person would have. The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, shows that sacrifice was an act of transfer of ownership. and the second century c.e. There are many other non-meat sacrifices the Romans could offer. 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. 67 ipsilles with 398L, s.v. WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. 22 magmentum; Serv., A. 92 90 It is likely, but admittedly not certain, that the concept of sacrificium I delineate here was also at play in citizen communities throughout the Empire, at least at moments when those communities performed public rituals in the same manner as did people in the capital. J. C.), Quand faire, c'est croire: les rites sacrificiels des romains, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Dogs and People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction, Proceedings of the 9, Annalisi dei resi faunistici dell'area sacra di S. Omobono, Il Viver quotidiano in Roma arcaica: materiali dagli scavi del tempio arcaico nell'area sacra di S. Omobono, Hiera Kala: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece, Materia Magica: The Archaeology of Magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain, Rome's Vestal Virgins: A Study of Rome's Vestal Priestesses in the Late Republic and Early Empire, http://apps.brepolis.net/BrepolisPortal/default.aspx. a more expensive offering that dominates in literary accounts of sacrifice. Greek Gods vs Roman Gods. 82 Military commanders would pay homage to Jupiter at his temple after 5 7 Nor, in broader terms, do I think that internal, or emic, categories should automatically be privileged over external, or etic, ones.Footnote 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. Lodwick, Lisa Marcellus, de Medicamentis 8.50; Palmer Reference Palmer and Hall1996: 234. ), 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 Pollucere is an old word, appearing mostly in literature of the second century b.c.e.,Footnote 38 13 Learn. Terms in this set (7) Which one 40 5401L. These offerings, ubiquitous in Roman Italy through to the end of the Republic, are mentioned at most twice in extant Latin literature.Footnote 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. 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). Paul. 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. MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 5974. As in other cultures, Roman sacrifice was not a single act, but instead comprised a series of actions that gain importance in relationship to each other.Footnote 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. Oliveira, Cludia Although Roman sources identify some specific types of sacrifice (e.g., sollemne, piaculare, lustrale, anniversarium), they do not identify any of the other rituals under discussion here as types of sacrificium.Footnote 36 1419). Minos gave laws to Crete. I presume that Miner's observations apply also to bathroom habits elsewhere in North America and Europe. 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. 4 Indeed these two rituals appear at first glance to be identical live interment in underground chambers, though admittedly in different locations within the city and with different victims. Lucil. and Narbo in Gallia Narbonensis (CIL 12.4333, dated to 11 c.e.). The vast majority of the bones come from pigs, sheep, and goats. 14 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 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. Jupiter was a sky-god who Romans believed oversaw all aspects of life; he is thought to have originated from the Greek god Zeus. 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. As is implied in all the relevant entries in the OLD. wine,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 wheat,Footnote The elder Cato instructs his reader to pollucere a cup of wine and a daps (ritual meal) to Jupiter Dapalis (Agr. ex Fest. 44 eadem paupertas etiam populo Romano imperium a primordio fundavit, proque eo in odiernum diis immortalibus simpulo et catino fictili sacrificat. Roman sacrificium is both less and more than the typical etic notion of sacrifice. 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. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. Vaz, Filipe Costa pecunia sacrificium; Paul. Hammers appear in only fifteen scenes, two-thirds of which date between the first century b.c.e. Liv. This has repercussions for our understanding of some elements of Roman religious thought. 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. 87 Hemina fr. On the Latin terminology for living sacrificial victims, see Prescendi Reference Prescendi2009. noun. The insider-outsider problem has had little impact on the study of religion in pre-Christian Rome. 69 64 71 Meanwhile, from the Sibylline Books some unusual sacrifices were ordered, among which was one where a Gallic man and woman and a Greek man and woman were sent down alive into an underground room walled with rock, a place that had already been tainted before by human victims hardly a Roman rite. 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. Test. D. 6.9 (which probably draws on Varro) and possibly Paul. 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 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. The children were drowned by the haruspices, usually in the sea. 24 One relatively well documented example is the collection of bones dating to the seventh and sixth centuries b.c.e. 4 While there has been tentative speculation that the reason behind a preference for procession scenes in Greek representations of sacrifice in the Archaic and Classical periods is due to a growing squeamishness inside Greek culture,Footnote 1996: The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn), Oxford. 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. As Scheid has reconstructed Roman public sacrifice,Footnote 40 Sacrifice was just one of several rites (alongside polluctum and magmentum) that the Romans had available to them that look to us, standing outside their religious system, as if they were all identical or nearly so. 33 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. 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. 49 344L and 345L, s.v. 42 31. The S. Omobono material shows a definite preference for certain species (sheep, goats, pigs),Footnote Were they used in some form of divination?Footnote 7 As proof, he recounts a story about M. Cf. 41 Match. 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 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. 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 WebThe first way that Roman is different than Christian is because of there believe in gods. The Romans worshipped the same goddess, or rather the same ideas embodied in her, under the name of Vesta, which is in reality identical with 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. Study sets, textbooks, questions. Plin., N.H. 31.89 is usually taken to refer to sacrifice (so Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 105) but the text mentions only sacra, not sacrificia. Nonius 539L identifies mactare with immolare, but the texts he cites do not really support his claim. There is growing consensus that the answer is affirmative. 51 84 The tendency is intensified in Christian sources, which discuss pagan sacrifice exclusively in terms of blood sacrifice, distinguishing the shameful blood of animal victims from the sacred blood of Christ.Footnote Decline was interrupted by the short-lived Restoration under the emperor Augustus (reign 27 BC AD 14), then it resumed. Finally, both ancient societies have twelve main gods and goddesses. Has data issue: true Paul. but in later texts as well. The preceding discussion has, I hope, made clear that the Romans own notion of sacrifice is broader and more complex than is generally perceived. 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 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 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 78L, s.v. WebIn Greek mythology the king of gods is known as Zeus, whereas Romans call the king of gods Jupiter. 61 1034 seems to draw an equivalence between sacrificare and mactare (cf. Another animal sometimes sacrificed by the Romans but not regularly eaten by them is the human animal.