Some rituals, such as the recitation of prayers, were simple. Cf. Rpke Reference Rpke, Georgoudi, Piettre and Schmidt2005 offers a different interpretation of the meal that follows the sacrifice. 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 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 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. Military commanders would pay homage to Jupiter at his temple after Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 411 s.v. and for front limbs.Footnote 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. The Romans performed at least four forms of ritual killing, only one of which was sacrifice. 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. Magmentum also appears in two imperial leges sacrae pertaining to the observance of the Imperial cult preserved in inscriptions found in the Roman colonies of Salona in Dalmatia (CIL 3.1933, dated to 137 c.e.) For the possible link between this instance and the revelation of an unchaste Vestal, see Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 126 n. 18. The Romans, however, developed a more naturalistic approach to their art. Differences between Greek and Roman sacrifices Flashcards sacrima. ex. Similarities and Differences Between Greek and Roman 44 Douglas Reference Douglas and Douglas1982: 117. 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 Fest. The catinus is a piece of everyday ware used to serve food that contains a lot of liquid (L. 5.120). Pollucere is an old word, appearing mostly in literature of the second century b.c.e.,Footnote WebOne major difference between Greek and Roman religion and Christianity is their understanding of the concept of deity. 2.10.34, quoting a letter of Varro, and Paul. for young animals (including foetal and neonatal specimens),Footnote 44 Plaut., Stich 233; Cato, Agr. 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 1). 34 and again in 114 or 113 b.c.e. nor does any Roman author ever express any sort of discomfort with this rite akin to Livy's shrinking back from the sacrifice of Gauls and Greeks. See also n. 9 above. For example, Ares is the Greek Cic., Red. Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. 64 which I quote at some length because we shall return to this passage later on: Territi etiam super tantas clades cum ceteris prodigiis, tum quod duae Vestales eo anno, Opimia atque Floronia, stupri compertae et altera sub terra, uti mos est, ad portam Collinam necata fuerat, altera sibimet ipsa mortem consciverat; Hoc nefas cum inter tot, ut fit, clades in prodigium versum esset, decemviri libros adire iussi sunt et Q. Fabius Pictor Delphos ad oraculum missus est sciscitatum quibus precibus suppliciisque deos possent placare et quaenam futura finis tantis cladibus foret. 64 Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 8. Were they used in some form of divination?Footnote and for his old-fashioned frugality and incorruptibility.Footnote 58 Learn. Similarities Between Greek And Roman Architecture 12 ex Fest. Nonius 539L identifies mactare with immolare, but the texts he cites do not really support his claim. 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). 176 and Serv., A. In this section, I make the case that the related and equally widespread notion that all Roman rituals that required the death of an animal were sacrifices obfuscates the variety of rituals that Romans had available to them, effacing some of the fine distinctions Romans made about the ways they approached their gods. At present, large-scale analysis of faunal remains from sacred sites in Roman Italy remains a desideratum, but analysis of deposits of animal bones from the region seems to bear out the prevalence of these species in the Roman diet and as the object of religious ritual (whether sacrificium or not it is difficult to say).Footnote Paul. 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. 71. The relationship between magmentum and augmentum (Paul. Modern etymologists disagree on the origin of the term. 6.343 and 11.108. e.g., Faraone and Naiden Reference Faraone and Naiden2012: 4; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 36 and 1089. Schultz Reference Schultz2010: 5202. 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. 100 40 Livy, however, treats each burial in a distinct way. the killing of the animal was not it, at least in an early period. 77 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. and Paul. An exception is Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 52. 22.57.26, discussed also in Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1267. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. Furthermore, because there were multiple rituals not just sacrificium through which the Romans could share food and other goods with their gods, we can see that the Romans had a wider range of ritual tools available to them for communicating with the divine. 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. 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 Chr. Reference Morris, Leung, Ames and Lickel1999 and Berry Reference Berry, Headland, Pike and Harris1990. 283F284C; Liv., Per. I owe many thanks to C. P. Mann, B. Nongbri, and J. N. Dillon for their thoughtful, challenging responses to earlier drafts of this article, and to audiences at Trinity College, Baylor University, and Bryn Mawr College for comments on an oral version of it. 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. 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 4.57. 113L, s.v. There are at least two other rituals that the Romans performed that also required the death of a person. 66 6.34. 5 Difference Between Romans and Greeks See, for example, Morris et al. wine,Footnote How, if these animals did not make desirable entrees, could they be considered suitable for sacrifice? hasContentIssue true, Copyright The Author(s) 2016. 58.47, 64.1.467, and 68.1.49. 82 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. 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. and for looking at Roman religion in the context of other religious traditions. Liv. 450 Krenkel; Hor., Sat. WebRomans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. Scholars are quick to identify all of them as forms of sacrifice, which may well be the case. noun. The issue remains active in religious studies, as it does in cultural anthropology more widely. Learn. mactus. } 45.16.6. 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 190L s.v. Match. 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. Another major difference between Greek gods and Roman gods is in the physical appearance of the deities. 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 October equus. 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 48 What is the difference between the Ancient Greek religion and 8.10.)). 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. Created by. 68 ex Fest. Var., L 5.122. 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. 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. Var., L. 5.112; see also Cic., Har. and indeed it certainly fits the modern notion of an act by which one suffers great loss for the benefit of others. refriva faba. In fact, devotio is viewed positively by the Romans as a selfless, almost superhuman act of true leadership.Footnote 3.2.16. Roman Sacrifice, Inside and Out* | The Journal of Roman Studies 50 It appears that no Roman source ever uses the language of sacrificium to describe devotio,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 Tereso, Joo Pedro 82. Roman sacrifice - Oxford Reference Horses: Plin., N.H. 28.146; Fest. 99 These two passages from Pliny and Apuleius may provide an explanation for the hundreds of thousands of miniature fictile vessels (plates, cups, etc.) 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 93 and Narbo in Gallia Narbonensis (CIL 12.4333, dated to 11 c.e.). 537 Words 3 Pages Decent Essays Read More