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 This is a bad answer - I don't have sources available. It is my understanding that we lack a great deal of the sources needed for an emic unders 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 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. 1). 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. and Douglas Reference Douglas and Douglas1982: 117. 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. Carretero, Lara Gonzalez Livy's abhorrence of the Romans action is in line with other Roman authors disgust at the performance of sacrificium on humans by other ethnic groups, especially Carthaginians and Gauls.Footnote ex Fest. 2019. Paul. Hostname: page-component-7fc98996b9-rf4gk 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 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. For a treatment of this methodological issue on a broader scale, see the rather pointed critique in Hopkins Reference Hopkins1978: 1808. 41 How, if these animals did not make desirable entrees, could they be considered suitable for sacrifice? The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. 19 Var., L. 6.3.14. 86 Through the insider point of view, we can understand its meaning to the people who experience it. 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. 11 132.12). The argument I lay out here pertains to sacrificial practice as it was conceived by Romans living in Rome and those areas of Italy that came under their control early on, during the Republic and the early Empire. While there is a growing body of work done on the osteoarchaeological material from other regions of the Empire, especially the north-western provinces,Footnote WebWhat are the main differences between Greek and Roman gods? 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 The ritual ended with a litatio, that is, the inspection of the animal's entrails, and it was then followed by a meal. Although it is sixty years old, the lesson still works well. 34 537 Words 3 Pages Decent Essays Read More 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. 3.2.16. But then they turn out to be us. Scheid's reconstruction focuses on a living victim, and this is in keeping with the ancient sources own emphasis on blood sacrifice. This meant that The errors and flaws that remain are all my own. WebThe Greeks were striving for perfection in their art while the Romans were striving for real life people. Through the outsider point of view, we can interpret it in light of comparable behaviours in other cultures. 65 It is the only one of these terms that does not come to be used outside the realm of the divine. One was killed at the Colline Gate, under the earth as is the custom and the other took her own life Since this horrible event which occurred in the midst of so many terrible things, as is wont to happen, was turned into a prodigy, the Board of Ten Men was ordered to consult the Books. Of this class of rituals, sacrificium does seem to have been somehow different from the others. The equation of sacrifice with the offering of an animal is not completely divorced from the ancient sources. Even if this is the case, the argument still stands that these passages underscore how essential was consumption to the ritual of sacrificium. Macr., Sat. 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 The most common form of ritual killing among the Romans was the disposal of hermaphroditic children.Footnote This is the insider-outsider problem in nuce. and for looking at Roman religion in the context of other religious traditions. 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. The modern assumption that sacrifice requires an animal victim obfuscates the full range of sacrificium among the Romans. 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 6 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. Fest. 358L, s.v. Dogs had other ritual uses as well. Braga, Cristina 71. The ancients derived the term from magis auctus and understood it to mean to increase and by extension to honour with.Footnote 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. The Romans, however, developed a more naturalistic approach to their art. Chr. 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. 14 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. 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. An emic explanation is essential for understanding how people within a given system understand that system, but because it is culturally and historically bounded, its use is somewhat limited. 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. Flashcards. 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. 72 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 56 33 94 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. The difference between Greek Gods and Roman Gods is that Greek gods have unique names of their own, whereas, Roman gods are Plutarch is the only source for dog sacrifice at the Lupercalia (RQ 68 and 111=Mor. 84 17 Ioppolo Reference Ioppolo1972; Tagliacozzo Reference Tagliacozzo1989. Finally, both ancient societies have twelve main gods and goddesses. ex Fest. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. 14.30; Sil. From here, we can speculate that sacrifice was not understood by the Romans primarily as the ritual slaughter of an animal. Max. Liv. 08 June 2016. 53, At first glance, the Roman habit of sacrificing items that people cannot eat (cruets and small plates) suggests that another dominant strain in modern theorizations of sacrifice might not really apply to the Roman case. 66 There is growing consensus that the answer is affirmative. "useRatesEcommerce": false 2 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 39 Gel. incense,Footnote Paul. 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. The offering of a dog to Robigus may be the same ritual as the augurium canarium referred to by Plin., N.H. 18.14. 22.57.26; Cass. At her birth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, sprang directly from the head of Zeus. 79 64 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 The insider-outsider problem has had little impact on the study of religion in pre-Christian Rome. 24 21.5). 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 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 mactus; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.4 s.v. There is no evidence, contra Parker Reference Parker2004 and Wildfang Reference Wildfang2006: 589, that the Romans ever perceived the punishment of a Vestal as sacrifice. 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. Although the focus of this investigation is the recovery of some details of the Romans idea of sacrificium, I do not mean to imply that their concept is the right one and that the modern idea is wrong or completely inapplicable to the Roman context. 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. 95 The closest any Roman source comes to linking devotio and sacrifice is Cic., Off. 70 Marcos, Bruno 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. Ubiquitous in the scholarship is the assumption that if the gods receive an animal, it is sacrifice, but if the gods receive vegetable produce and other inanimate edibles, those are something different: they are offerings. 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. Footnote Interim ex fatalibus libris sacrificia aliquot extraordinaria facta, inter quae Gallus et Galla, Graecus et Graeca in foro boario sub terram vivi demissi sunt in locum saxo consaeptum, iam ante hostiis humanis, minime Romano sacro, imbutum. 32 Peter=FRH F33. 19 54 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. and for front limbs.Footnote 99 26. 113L, s.v. 358L. For the Greeks 25 Contra Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 223. mactus; Serv., A. 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 35 Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 8. Jupiter was a sky-god who Romans believed oversaw all aspects of life; he is thought to have originated from the Greek god Zeus. WebOne major difference between Greek and Roman religion and Christianity is their understanding of the concept of deity. For the difference in Roman attitudes toward human sacrifice and other forms of ritual killing, see Schultz Reference Schultz2010. 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. Decline was interrupted by the short-lived Restoration under the emperor Augustus (reign 27 BC AD 14), then it resumed. subsilles. 283F284C; Liv., Per. 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. 286L and 287L, s.v. Yet the problem remains that dogs did not form a regular or significant part of the Romans diet, nor did wild animals of any sort.Footnote 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. 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. On the early Christian appropriation and transformation of Roman sacrificial imagery and discourse, see Castelli Reference Castelli2004: 509. Hemina fr. molo; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 3867 s.v. that contain scenes of ritual slaughter where the implements can be clearly discerned.Footnote 68 According to Pliny, Curius declared under oath that he had appropriated for himself no booty praeter guttum faginum, quo sacrificaret (N.H. 16.185). 48 1 Answer. Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 376 s.v. 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. The database is a very useful, but not infallible tool. Sacrifices of wine and incense are common in the Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium, e.g. Ov., F. 4.90142 with Fest. 44 100 ex Fest. 98 4.57) is not clear. Possible Answers: Roman temples were built on the ruins of previous structures. 76 45 There is some limited zooarchaeological evidence for the consumption of dogs at some Roman sites, such as the inclusion of dog bones bearing marks of butchery among bone deposits that comprise primarily bovine and ovine remains, but it is not widespread. Aeacus holds the keys to Hades. 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 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. and again in 114 or 113 b.c.e. The burial of Gauls and Greeks was a sacrifice, but one that Romans ought not to have performed. 29 Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 411 s.v. 65 Compare Var., R. 2.8.1. 90 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. Correct answer: What is a major difference between Greek and Roman temples? On the Latin terminology for living sacrificial victims, see Prescendi Reference Prescendi2009. mactus. 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? Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: figs 83 and 89b. 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 Working with the two of them together, we can get a more nuanced understanding of a cultural habit. Dog corpses were sometimes deposited with tablets that contained curses, and dog figurines are among the required items for performing some spells.Footnote 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 63 sacrima. 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 176 and Serv., A. Neither of the acts that Pliny mentions is explicitly identified as sacrificium, or as any other rite in particular. hasContentIssue true, Copyright The Author(s) 2016. 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. On the contrary, Greek religion did not prefer to execute rituals as much as 101 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. Plaut., Amph. Of these, only dogs are attested in the written sources as victims of Roman sacrifice, albeit rarely.Footnote Flashcards. 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. 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. 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. 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 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.