Learn. WebRoman sacrificial practices were not functionally different from Greek, although the Roman rite was distinguishable from the Greek and Etruscan. 49 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 91 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. Match. Curius Dentatus, famous for his victory over Pyrrhus in 275 b.c.e. 99 85 34 For a treatment of this methodological issue on a broader scale, see the rather pointed critique in Hopkins Reference Hopkins1978: 1808. 55 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. 13 ex Fest. Scholars frequently stress the connection between sacrifice and eating: The idea of food underlies the idea of sacrifice.Footnote 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 Study sets, textbooks, questions. 46 Home. Of these, only dogs are attested in the written sources as victims of Roman sacrifice, albeit rarely.Footnote 358L, s.v. 78L, s.v. McClymond treats sacrificial events as clusters of different types of activities, including prayer, killing, cooking, and consumption, which are not in and of themselves sacrificial (they are frequently performed in other contexts), but which become sacrificial in the aggregate (McClymond Reference McClymond2008: 2534). Reed, Kelly 28 Horses: Plin., N.H. 28.146; Fest. (ed.) The Romans, however, developed a more naturalistic approach to their art. Max. 79 Dogs had other ritual uses as well. For example, Cic., Rep. 3.15 and Font. One relatively well documented example is the collection of bones dating to the seventh and sixth centuries b.c.e. 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. The vast majority of the bones come from pigs, sheep, and goats. 2 But while Roman devotio aligns well with our idea of self-sacrifice, it appears that the Romans did not draw a similar connection between devotio and sacrificium. 32 pop. 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 450 Krenkel; Hor., Sat. We also find that the gods were open to receiving sacrifices of vegetables, grains, liquids, and, when those were not available, miniature versions of the serveware that would normally have contained them. The database is a very useful, but not infallible tool. The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. fabam and Fest. eadem paupertas etiam populo Romano imperium a primordio fundavit, proque eo in odiernum diis immortalibus simpulo et catino fictili sacrificat. See, for example, Morris et al. 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. 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 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. 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 Was a portion consumed later? The catinus is a piece of everyday ware used to serve food that contains a lot of liquid (L. 5.120). Flashcards. 22.57.26; Cass. 71 38 74 32 ex Fest. 72 62. 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. WebWhat's the Greek word for sacrifice? 65 3.763829. 16 3.3.2, citing the late republican jurist Trebatius; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 256. Ov., F. 4.90142 with Fest. 90 Were these items sprinkled with mola salsa?Footnote 80 Finally, both ancient societies have twelve main gods and goddesses. Modern scholars sometimes group all of these rites under the rubric sacrifice.Footnote What are the differences between Greek and Roman heroes? 59 Roman 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 43 35 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. 2019. 57 Greek and Roman The lack of interest in vegetal sacrifice is widespread in the field of religious studies (McClymond Reference McClymond2008: 65). For the possible link between this instance and the revelation of an unchaste Vestal, see Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 126 n. 18. hasContentIssue true, Copyright The Author(s) 2016. 413=Macr., Sat. What we find is that for the Romans, to sacrifice was not simply to kill in a ritual fashion. Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 4457; Reference Scheid and Rpke2007: 2639. Sacrifices of wine and incense are common in the Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium, e.g. 86 45 The ancients derived the term from magis auctus and understood it to mean to increase and by extension to honour with.Footnote The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, Van Straten Reference Van Straten1995: 188. Concise surveys of the major modern theories of sacrifice in the ancient world can be found in Knust and Vrhelyi Reference Knust and Vrhelyi2011: 418, Lincoln Reference Lincoln2012, and Graf Reference Graf2012. Let me be clear. The relationship between magmentum and augmentum (Paul. 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. 31; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. Of these, three-fourths come from the first and second centuries c.e. mactus; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.4 s.v. 2 Total loading time: 0 See also Scheid Reference Scheid2012: 901. From here, we can speculate that sacrifice was not understood by the Romans primarily as the ritual slaughter of an animal. Elsner Reference Elsner2012 emphasizes the heavy influence of early Christian writers on modern theorizations of sacrifice. 47 70 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. For the Greeks 48 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. WebRomans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. An exception is Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 52. 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 96 On fourteen occasions between 209 and 92 b.c.e., androgyne infants and children were included among the prodigies reported to the Roman Senate. Another example of the bias of our sources away from rituals performed by the lower classes is the dearth of references to a particular type of item found in votive deposits: anatomical votives, fictile representations of parts of the human body offered to the gods as requests for cures for physical ailments. 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 The difference between Greek Gods and Roman Gods is that Greek gods have unique names of their own, whereas, Roman gods are 1.3.90 and 1.6.115; Juv. 93 Fest. It is also noteworthy that sacrificium appears to be the only member of this class to require mola salsa. 176 and Serv., A. Of this class of rituals, sacrificium does seem to have been somehow different from the others. ipsilles with 398L, s.v. 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. Greek Cic., Red. 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. uncovered in votive deposits throughout Italy. Livy also uses the language of sacrifice when he describes the underground room as a place that had already seen human victims.Footnote 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. 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. The ritual ended with a litatio, that is, the inspection of the animal's entrails, and it was then followed by a meal. 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. 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. and again in 114 or 113 b.c.e. 11 2013: The Fragments of the Roman Historians, 3 vols, Oxford, Hornblower, S., and Spawforth, A. WebWhat are the main differences between Greek and Roman gods? Plut., RQ 52=Mor. e.g., J. Scheid, s.v. 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. the ritual began with a procession that was followed by a praefatio, a preliminary offering of prayers, wine and incense. Carretero, Lara Gonzalez 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. WebThe gods, heroes, and humans of Greek mythology were flawed. On the early Christian appropriation and transformation of Roman sacrificial imagery and discourse, see Castelli Reference Castelli2004: 509. Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes 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). There are many other non-meat sacrifices the Romans could offer. At her birth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, sprang directly from the head of Zeus. Nacirema is American spelt backwards, and Miner shows to, and interprets for, us our own bathroom habits.Footnote Greek Gods and Religious Practices | Essay | The Metropolitan 8 These offerings, ubiquitous in Roman Italy through to the end of the Republic, are mentioned at most twice in extant Latin literature.Footnote For example, Ares is the Greek The present study argues that looking at the relationship between sacrificium as it is presented in Roman sources and comparing that with modern notions of sacrifice reveals that some important, specific aspects of what has been conceived of as Roman sacrifice are not there in the ancient sources and may not be part of how the Romans perceived their ritual. 77 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. Similarities and Differences Between Greek and Roman Another example of a ritual that looks a lot like sacrificium but is not identical to it is polluctum. 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 there is a relative dearth of published studies that deal in any serious way with the collections of bones found on various sites from Roman Italy.Footnote 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 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. By looking at Roman sacrificium through the insider-outsider lens, by keeping in sight what is there in the sources, what we add to it, and where our modern notion of sacrifice does and does not align with the Romans own idea, we have a sharper, more detailed picture of one aspect of Roman antiquity. 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. There is also a queen of gods in Greek and Roman mythologies. incense,Footnote The Similarities And Differences Of Greek And Roman Religions 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 59 Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 411 s.v. 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. 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. The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, shows that sacrifice was an act of transfer of ownership. 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 6 Hemina fr. and Val. Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming. Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 22441 and, arriving at the same conclusion by a different path, Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1323. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. I concede that, to a certain extent, the insider-outsider lens does not show us difficulties that were previously invisible. See, for example, Wilkens Reference Wilkens2006 and De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti2006. 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 Fontes, Lus 4.57. 6.34. Difference Between Greek Gods and Roman Gods The Romans were aware of the link, as is made clear by Paul. 73 83 Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.Footnote 36 Scheid Reference Scheid1998: nn. 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 Contra Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 223. 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 86 80 44 Lodwick, Lisa 22.57.26, discussed also in Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1267. Tagliacozzo Reference Tagliacozzo1989: 66. 78 For the difference in Roman attitudes toward human sacrifice and other forms of ritual killing, see Schultz Reference Schultz2010. Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. Marcellus, de Medicamentis 8.50; Palmer Reference Palmer and Hall1996: 234. 35 Greek Zeus to the Roman Jupiter: The Complete Guide (2022) 13 According to Pliny, Curius declared under oath that he had appropriated for himself no booty praeter guttum faginum, quo sacrificaret (N.H. 16.185). More Greek words for sacrifice. 6 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). The answers to these questions might reshape our understanding of what were the crucial elements of sacrificium. The insider-outsider problem has had little impact on the study of religion in pre-Christian Rome. 20 40 Some rituals, such as the recitation of prayers, were simple. 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. 3, 13456; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 1225; Rpke Reference Rpke and Gordon2007: 1378. 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. The basic argument transfers well to the Roman context. 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. Var., L 5.122. 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. But then they turn out to be us. Greek Gods and Religious Practices | Essay | The Metropolitan WebThe Greeks were striving for perfection in their art while the Romans were striving for real life people. 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. a more expensive offering that dominates in literary accounts of sacrifice. 57 37ab). Furthermore, although all of these rites were performed on foodstuffs at altars or at least in sanctuaries, there are some critical differences among them and the ways they are discussed by the Romans. 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. This draws further support from the fact that the object referred to by the instrumental ablatives that accompany the verb sacrificare is almost never a knife, an axe, a hammer, or other weapon.Footnote 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 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. 92 74 51 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). 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. For example, think about the Roman and Greek mythologies about gods. 40 17ac) and the Cancellaria relief (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. 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 23 Created by. The problem is widely acknowledged, but see specifically Moussy Reference Moussy1977; Reference Moussy1990; Engels Reference Engels2007: 25982. 75 ex Fest. Modern etymologists disagree on the origin of the term. 101. 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. As is implied in all the relevant entries in the OLD. This is suggested by Ov., F. 1.1278.