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 6 1. 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. 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. Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. The other rite observed by the Romans that required a human death was called devotio, and it seems to have been restricted to a single family father, son, and grandson (it is possible our sources have multiplied a single occasion), all of whom, as commanders-in-the-field, vowed to commit themselves and the enemy troops to the gods of the underworld in order to ensure a Roman victory. 75 It is unfortunate that the ancient sources on vegetal sacrifice are as exiguous as they are: it is not possible to determine what relationship its outward form bore to blood sacrifice. 24 358L, s.v. On the general absence of wild meat from the Roman diet, see MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 1902. The distinction between sacrificare and mactare was lost by Late Antiquity, but it was still active in the Republic and early Empire.Footnote 66 74 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. Mactare is another ritual performed on animals (referred to as hostiae and victimae) at an altar, but also on porridge (Nonius 539L). 14.30; Sil. 64 81, Here we have two rituals that look, to an outsider, almost identical, but Livy takes pains to distinguish between them. Far less common in the S. Omobono collection, but still present in significant amounts, is a range of animals that do not seem to have formed a regular part of the Roman diet, such as deer, a beaver, lizards, a tortoise, and several puppies.Footnote 30 10 It is also noteworthy that sacrificium appears to be the only member of this class to require mola salsa. 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. The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, shows that sacrifice was an act of transfer of ownership. The literary evidence for this is slender but persuasive. Livy, however, treats each burial in a distinct way. ex. Fontes, Lus Decline was interrupted by the short-lived Restoration under the emperor Augustus (reign 27 BC AD 14), then it resumed. 69 How, if these animals did not make desirable entrees, could they be considered suitable for sacrifice? mactus; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 357 s.v. and for looking at Roman religion in the context of other religious traditions. 56 67 In Greek and Roman religion, the gods and Fest. Greek Gods vs Roman Gods. Lelekovi, Tino 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 Hermes, who had winged feet, was the messenger of the gods and could fly anywhere with great speed. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. The vast majority of the bones come from pigs, sheep, and goats. The distinction is preserved by Suet., Prat. It appears that no Roman source ever uses the language of sacrificium to describe devotio,Footnote 66 As illustration, let us return to Livy and the human sacrifice in 216 b.c.e. molo; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.1046 s.v. 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 49 The elder Pliny, in his Natural History, discusses the high regard in which ancient Romans held simple vessels made of beechwood. 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. 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. Resp. 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. One relatively well documented example is the collection of bones dating to the seventh and sixth centuries b.c.e. Although they are universally referred to as votive offerings in the scholarly literature, it is possible that they are, technically, sacrifices. Even if this is the case, the argument still stands that these passages underscore how essential was consumption to the ritual of sacrificium. and first fruits.Footnote The burial of Gauls and Greeks was a sacrifice, but one that Romans ought not to have performed. Dogs: Fest. 60 Reed, Kelly Greek influences on Italian craftsmen in the 6 th century BC saw the image of Scholars frequently stress the connection between sacrifice and eating: The idea of food underlies the idea of sacrifice.Footnote For example, scholars have used the relationships between different myths to trace the development of religions and cultures, to propose common origins for 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 pop. 2 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 rutilae canes; Var., L. 6.16. WebIn Greek mythology the king of gods is known as Zeus, whereas Romans call the king of gods Jupiter. 84 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. Sacrificium included vegetal and inedible offerings, and it was not the only Roman ritual that had living victims. 52 25 [1] Comparative mythology has served a Liv. the ritual began with a procession that was followed by a praefatio, a preliminary offering of prayers, wine and incense. 9.7.mil.Rom.2). The elder Cato instructs his reader to pollucere a cup of wine and a daps (ritual meal) to Jupiter Dapalis (Agr. Neither Miner's nor his reader's understanding is right and the other wrong: they are two different views of the same set of data, and both are valuable. The small size of the guttus and simpulum is assured by Varro (L. 5.124), who identifies both as vessels that pour out liquid minutatim. 93 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 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 Rhadamanthus and Minos were brothers. 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 Max. 37 Fest. 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 89 20 57 101. This has repercussions for our understanding of some elements of Roman religious thought. 38 From here, we can speculate that sacrifice was not understood by the Romans primarily as the ritual slaughter of an animal. 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. 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 80 Plaut., Amph. Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. 287L, s.v. 22.57.26; Cass. Marcellus, de Medicamentis 8.50; Palmer Reference Palmer and Hall1996: 234. 68 Burkert Reference Burkert and Bing1983: 3; Girard Reference Girard and Gregory1977: 1. 42 36 Var., L 5.122. 63 Tereso, Joo Pedro Although much work in anthropology and other social sciences has debated the relative merits of emic versus etic approaches, I find most useful recent research that has highlighted the value of the dynamic interplay that can develop between them.Footnote 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. 54 and the second century c.e. 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. 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. 32 Peter=FRH F33. 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. 62. 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. As in a relief from the Forum of Trajan now in the Louvre (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. and There is a difference, however. Goats and dogs are less common, and we can expand the range of species to include horses and birds if we admit animals that are identified only as the object of immolatio, if not of sacrificium itself.Footnote These two passages from Pliny and Apuleius may provide an explanation for the hundreds of thousands of miniature fictile vessels (plates, cups, etc.) Hammers appear in only fifteen scenes, two-thirds of which date between the first century b.c.e. 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.