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. Match. 1. To my knowledge, the sole exception is a phrase preserved twice in the Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium (Scheid Reference Scheid1998: nn. Those details, once recovered, can in turn subtly reshape our own idea of what sacrifice is and what it does. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments, suggestions and objections that have greatly improved this piece. As is implied in all the relevant entries in the OLD. 216,Footnote Pliny reports a ritual, possibly sacrifice (res divina fit, 29.58), involving a dog in honour of the little-known goddess, Genita Mana (cf. 52 90 In 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. 31; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. Aldrete counts at least fifty-six sculptural reliefs dating from the seventh century b.c.e. 176 and Serv., A. One does, however, sacrifice with a cow, with a pig, or with a little cruet. Neither of the acts that Pliny mentions is explicitly identified as sacrificium, or as any other rite in particular. 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 94 52 Miner Reference Miner1956: 503. An exception is Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 52. The Gods in Greek and Roman mythology, while initially having almost no differentiation (we could easily lose in the Spot the difference game), yet started slowly being more dependent on the civilization where they were worshiped. 97L: Immolare est mola, id est farre molito et sale, hostiam perspersam sacrare (To immolate is to make sacred a victim sprinkled with mola, that is, with ground spelt and salt), a passage which also suggests that the link between immolatio and mola salsa was active in the minds of Romans in the early imperial period when the ultimate source of Paulus redaction, the dictionary written by Verrius Flaccus, was compiled.Footnote We can push this second issue, what kinds of items can be the object of sacrifice, even further: Roman sacrifice, especially among the poor, was not limited to edible offerings. ex Fest. It is also noteworthy that sacrificium appears to be the only member of this class to require mola salsa. 45 12 One can also pollucere grain, wine, oil, cheese, meat, fish with scales, a host of other food items, and even unidentified (and presumably inedible) goods.Footnote favisae. The description of Decius ensuing death is very spare and devoid of any sacrificial imagery or terminology. 190L s.v. Major differences between Roman and Greek Culture? - HistoryNet There is a difference, however. 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 from the archaic temple at the site of S. Omobono in Rome.Footnote The ritual seems to be even more flexible than sacrificium in the range of objects on which it could be performed. 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. These offerings, ubiquitous in Roman Italy through to the end of the Republic, are mentioned at most twice in extant Latin literature.Footnote Although they are universally referred to as votive offerings in the scholarly literature, it is possible that they are, technically, sacrifices. What are the differences between the Greek Hestia and the 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. 4 14 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. 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 I presume that Miner's observations apply also to bathroom habits elsewhere in North America and Europe. 73 Feature Flags: { 55 98 18 th century excavations unearthed a number of sculptures with traces of color, but noted art historians dismissed the findings as anomalies. MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 5974. The elder Pliny, in his Natural History, discusses the high regard in which ancient Romans held simple vessels made of beechwood. 5 Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. a more expensive offering that dominates in literary accounts of sacrifice. The answers to these questions might reshape our understanding of what were the crucial elements of sacrificium. 19 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. Others, such as animal Ankarloo and Clark Reference Ankarloo and Clark1999: 756; Wilburn Reference Wilburn2012: 8790. 93L, s.v. ex. 2.10.34, quoting a letter of Varro, and Paul. 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 The main god and goddesses in Roman culture were Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. 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. 12 In Livy's account of the first devotio in 340 b.c.e. 6.343 and 11.108. Similarities and Differences Between Greek and Roman A brief survey of the bone assemblages from sites in west-central Italy is offered by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.22841. 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. Live interment was only performed by the Romans as ritual killing, but live interment was not the only form of ritual killing (whether human sacrifice or not) that the Romans had available to them. 88. Var., L 5.122. 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. Flashcards. 11 It is important to remember, however, that no ancient source articulates any sort of relationship among these rituals. Reed, Kelly Studies of sacrifice have noted the etymological connection between immolare and mola salsa, but have not, for the most part, pressed its value for what it may reveal about where the Romans may have placed the emphasis. 84 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). 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. 43 Aul. The Romans performed at least four forms of ritual killing, only one of which was sacrifice. Our author makes clear that the sacrifice of two Gauls and two Greeks happened alongside another ritual: the punishment of an unchaste Vestal Virgin. The same two interment rituals would be performed alongside one another again just about a century later, in 113 b.c.e. 358L. The lack of interest in vegetal sacrifice is widespread in the field of religious studies (McClymond Reference McClymond2008: 65). Footnote Test. 74 As illustration, let us return to Livy and the human sacrifice in 216 b.c.e. 94. 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. 64 How to say sacrifice in Greek - WordHippo sacrifice, Roman in OCD Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 22441 and, arriving at the same conclusion by a different path, Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1323. 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. Classicists generally assume that the modern idea of sacrifice as the ritual killing of an animal applies to the Roman context. 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 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). Lelekovi, Tino Of the various forms of ritual killing that were part of their religious experience, the Romans only reacted with disgust to that form they identified as human sacrifice, a distinction in value sometimes lost when all these ritual forms are grouped together under the rubric sacrifice.Footnote Oliveira, Cludia 97 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. 3.763829. 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 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. 100 As suggested by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.23841. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. 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. Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 376 s.v. The Romans, however, developed a more naturalistic approach to their art. 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 Nonius 539L identifies mactare with immolare, but the texts he cites do not really support his claim. 42 3.95: Quid Agamemnon, cum devovisset Dianae quod in suo regno pulcherrimum natum esset illo anno, immolavit Iphigeniam, qua nihil erat eo quidem anno natum pulchrius? Because the context is Greek, it is safe to assume that Cicero is using, as he often does elsewhere when addressing a general audience, technical terms in a very general way. A wider range of scholarly approaches is presented by McClymond Reference McClymond2008: 124. Devotio is frequently called self-sacrifice by modern scholars,Footnote 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. The Similarities And Differences Of Greek And Roman Religions 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. See, for example, citations from Pomponius and Afranius in Non. Other than the range of items that can be polluctum, the only other thing we know about the ritual is that it involved an altar, which is, of course, the proper locus of sacrifice. 78L, s.v. ), 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. Birds: Suet., Calig. 69a). 69 The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, shows that sacrifice was an act of transfer of ownership. 1). Liv. 9 Were these items sprinkled with mola salsa?Footnote Although it is sixty years old, the lesson still works well. Minerva and Athena: Roman vs. Greek Goddesses of War WebThe Greeks were striving for perfection in their art while the Romans were striving for real life people. WebThe gods, heroes, and humans of Greek mythology were flawed. 84 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. 1.3.90 and 1.6.115; Juv. Detry, Cleia 72 Another major difference between Greek gods and Roman gods is in the physical appearance of the deities. For the possible link between this instance and the revelation of an unchaste Vestal, see Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 126 n. 18. and the second century c.e. 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 A parallel use of sacrificare is found in Apuleius Apologia 18, a passage which also shares Pliny's focus on poverty: paupertas, inquam, prisca aput saecula omnium civitatium conditrix, omnium artium repertrix, omnium peccatorum inops, omnis gloriae munifica, cunctis laudibus apud omnis nationes perfuncta. 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. Roman Greek gods had heavy emphasis placed on their Poverty, I say, is the ancient founder of all states throughout the ages, the discoverer of all arts, devoid of all transgressions, resplendent in every type of glory, and enjoying every praise among all the nations. 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. See, for example, Wilkens Reference Wilkens2006 and De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti2006. Cf. Analyses of the traditions about Curius and his contemporary Fabricius, both famous for prudentia and paupertas, are found in Berrendonner Reference Berrendonner2001 and Vigourt Reference Vigourt2001.