differences between greek and roman sacrifice differences between greek and roman sacrifice

This is made clear in numerous passages from several Roman authors. 21 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 incense,Footnote 40 70 At N.H. 29.578, Pliny tells us that a dog was crucified annually at a particular location in Rome, and that puppies used to be considered to be such pure eating that they were used in place of victims (hostiarum vice) to appease the divine; puppy was still on the menu at banquets for the gods in Pliny's own day. The offering of a dog to Robigus may be the same ritual as the augurium canarium referred to by Plin., N.H. 18.14. In light of the importance of ritual killing in modern theoretical treatments of sacrifice, the relative paucity of slaughter scenes in Roman art requires some explanation. 1.3.90 and 1.6.115; Juv. 287L, s.v. The numerous sources for this event are collected and analysed in Engels Reference Engels2007: 41618, 4438. 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 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. the killing of the animal was not it, at least in an early period. 2.47.10 (M)=2.44.10 McGushin. See also n. 9 above. 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. 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. 37ab). D. 6.9 (which probably draws on Varro) and possibly Paul. Huet Reference Huet and Bertrand2005; Reference Huet and van Andringa2007. Minos gave laws to Crete. Another animal sometimes sacrificed by the Romans but not regularly eaten by them is the human animal. Mar. WebAnswer (1 of 3): The differences between the heroes of Greco-Roman mythology come down to significant contrasts in the cultural identities of both civilisations. Var., L. 6.3.14. 60 22.57.26, discussed also in Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1267. 14 22. 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. 11 22 Home. Another example of a ritual that looks a lot like sacrificium but is not identical to it is polluctum. The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. 57 There is also a queen of gods in Greek and Roman mythologies. 21.5). Fest. 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. Match. The objectivity of the outside observer can also facilitate cross-cultural comparison. 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. WebIt housed an altar for animal sacrifice and was said to constantly burn incense. 1 Answer. Lodwick, Lisa Therefore, instead of privileging either the emic or etic, I argue for an increased awareness of the insider-outsider distinction and for an approach to Roman religion that makes use of both emic and etic concepts. 97 The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, shows that sacrifice was an act of transfer of ownership. Modern scholars sometimes group all of these rites under the rubric sacrifice.Footnote 49 Test. 95 344L, 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. 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 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 Rpke Reference Rpke, Georgoudi, Piettre and Schmidt2005 offers a different interpretation of the meal that follows the sacrifice. But we can no longer recover indeed it appears that Romans of the early Empire could no longer recover what was the difference between a monstrum, a prodigium, a portentum, and an ostentum.Footnote 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. Vuli, Hrvoje 87 13 Peter=FRH F17. 97 14 45 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. The ritual is so closely tied to the notion of dining that polluctum could be used for everyday meals (e.g., Plaut., Rud. Oliveira, Cludia 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. The distinction is preserved by Suet., Prat. 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. WebDifferences between Greek and Roman sacrifices. Plutarch is the only source for dog sacrifice at the Lupercalia (RQ 68 and 111=Mor. 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. For a treatment of this methodological issue on a broader scale, see the rather pointed critique in Hopkins Reference Hopkins1978: 1808. All of this indicates a certain flexibility and elasticity in the ritual of sacrificium that suggests, especially if a similar flexibility could be demonstrated in other ritual forms, a need to moderate the emphasis both ancient and modern on the orthopractic nature of Roman religion. The catinus is a piece of everyday ware used to serve food that contains a lot of liquid (L. 5.120). 64 Marcos, Bruno 49 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 Now, the Romans did not eat people, so how does their performance of human sacrifice reinforce the link between sacrifice and dining? 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 91 Livy also uses the language of sacrifice when he describes the underground room as a place that had already seen human victims.Footnote 3, 13456; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 1225; Rpke Reference Rpke and Gordon2007: 1378. 17 ex Fest. 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. 66 81 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 and first fruits.Footnote Flashcards. Finally, while other rituals seem to have fallen into desuetude, or at least to have fallen out of the literature, by the late Republic or early Empire, sacrificium remained a vital part of Roman religious life for centuries. 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 83 from the archaic temple at the site of S. Omobono in Rome.Footnote Hammers appear in only fifteen scenes, two-thirds of which date between the first century b.c.e. 216,Footnote Plin., N.H. 31.89 is usually taken to refer to sacrifice (so Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 105) but the text mentions only sacra, not sacrificia. 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. 52 We do not know what name the Romans gave the ritual burial of an unchaste Vestal Virgin, but we know it was not sacrifice. 12 75 ex Fest. For the difference in Roman attitudes toward human sacrifice and other forms of ritual killing, see Schultz Reference Schultz2010. 3.12.2. B. Rives provided valuable consultation on specific points and V. C. Moses generously shared her work-in-progress on the osteoarchaeological evidence from S. Omobono. 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 See, for example, Wilkens Reference Wilkens2006 and De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti2006. 85 Also the same poverty has established from the very beginning an empire for the Roman people and, on behalf of this, still today she sacrifices to the immortal gods a little ladle and a dish made of clay. Greek Gods and Religious Practices | Essay | The Metropolitan 7 See, for example, Feeney Reference Feeney, Barchiesi, Rpke and Stephens2004, an excellent discussion of the application of theoretical models of sacrifice to the poetry of Vergil and Ovid. 51 While Romans had many god they belief in that they believed in and they would sacrifice items to the gods so positive things would happened and if something bad happened than people blame the king or whoever does the sacrifice to the gods. 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. At the centre of the whole complex was the immolatio, during which the animal was sprinkled with mola salsa (a mixture of spelt and salt), the flat of a knife was run along its back, and then it was slaughtered. 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? Were these items sprinkled with mola salsa?Footnote Match. 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 But upon further reflection, in fact, the use of cruets and plates actually emphasizes the importance of the meal that concluded a Roman sacrifice. 6 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. Plaut., Amph. Lelekovi, Tino 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. Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming. 76 (ed.) While vegetal and meat offerings were on a par, inedible gifts could be sacrificed only as substitutes for edible offerings when money was a concern. 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. 13 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. Ankarloo and Clark Reference Ankarloo and Clark1999: 756; Wilburn Reference Wilburn2012: 8790. 28 eadem est enim paupertas apud Graecos in Aristide iusta, in Phocione benigna, in Epaminonda strenua, in Socrate sapiens, in Homero diserta. 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 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. As is implied in all the relevant entries in the OLD. 78 Braga, Cristina Others include first-order vs. second-order categories, particular vs. universal, descriptive vs. redescriptive, and local vs. global. 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 The ancients derived the term from magis auctus and understood it to mean to increase and by extension to honour with.Footnote 84 magmentum; Serv., A. Vaz, Filipe Costa Martins, Manuela 99 1034 seems to draw an equivalence between sacrificare and mactare (cf. and again in 114 or 113 b.c.e. 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. ex Fest. 8.10.)). noun. 2019. 98 ex. 13 3.3.2, citing the late republican jurist Trebatius; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 256. 22 08 June 2016. Here's a list of translations. 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 283F284C; Liv., Per. Fontes, Lus and 3 The most common images of blood sacrifice in Roman art are procession scenes of animals being led to the altar or standing before it, waiting for mola salsa to be applied to them.Footnote 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. Paul. See, however, C. Ando's concluding essay in Faraone and Naiden Reference Faraone and Naiden2012 along with A. Hollman's review of that same volume in BMCR 2013.04.44 and, in the same vein but with reference to ancient Egypt, Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011. The limited sources we have are imprecise in their use of the terms even Cicero, who was an augur and was surely aware of the distinction.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. wine,Footnote 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 difference between Greek Gods and Roman Gods is that Greek gods have unique names of their own, whereas, Roman gods are Douglas Reference Douglas and Douglas1982: 117. 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. 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. As proof, he recounts a story about M. 16 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 mactus; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.4 s.v. ex Fest. In Books 29 and 30 of his Natural History, the elder Pliny includes lizards in numerous medicinal recipes to cure everything from hair loss (29.108) to lower back pain (30.53) to dysentery (30.55), and the only text we have that identifies the contents of a bulla, the amulet worn by young Roman boys, instructs the reader to put lizard eyes inside it.Footnote There are many other non-meat sacrifices the Romans could offer. If the commander who devoted himself did not die in battle, he was interdicted from performing any ritual on behalf of the state (publicum divinum). Plaut., Stich. The basic argument transfers well to the Roman context. Classicists generally assume that the modern idea of sacrifice as the ritual killing of an animal applies to the Roman context. 30 Let me be clear. thysa. Foundational is the collection of essays on Greek sacrifice in Detienne and Vernant Reference Detienne, Vernant and Wissing1989. You would do well to remember that there were very few similarities between Roman and Greek religion until the Romans began borrowing from the Gree and Narbo in Gallia Narbonensis (CIL 12.4333, dated to 11 c.e.). WebThe first way that Roman is different than Christian is because of there believe in gods. 32 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. 98 6.343 and 11.108. As illustrated by Livy's description of the first Decius to perform the ritual as he rode out to meet the enemy: aliquanto augustior humano visu, sicut caelo missus (8.9.10). 34 88. The Romans performed at least four forms of ritual killing, only one of which was sacrifice. This assertion is based on a search of sacrific* on the Brepolis Library of Latin Texts A. } A brief survey of the bone assemblages from sites in west-central Italy is offered by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.22841. Parents: Aeacus: Zeus and Aegina; Rhadamanthus and Minos: Zeus and Europa. the ritual began with a procession that was followed by a praefatio, a preliminary offering of prayers, wine and incense. WebIn Greek mythology the king of gods is known as Zeus, whereas Romans call the king of gods Jupiter. Both Rhadamanthus and Aeacus were renowned for their justice. Paul. Paul. Throughout his corpus Cicero uses a range of technical divinatory terms, including augur, ostentum, and portentum, in rather general ways, even in De Divinatione where one might reasonably expect him to be more precise. 81, Here we have two rituals that look, to an outsider, almost identical, but Livy takes pains to distinguish between them. 62 As in a relief from the Forum of Trajan now in the Louvre (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. 93 280 BC and 290D; Rom. 47 Also Var., Men. Greek Gods vs Roman Gods. 76. 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. 358L. 7 According to Pliny, Curius declared under oath that he had appropriated for himself no booty praeter guttum faginum, quo sacrificaret (N.H. 16.185). 22.57.26; Cass. 77L, s.v. 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 most famous account is Livy's description of the Romans reaction to their losses at Cannae and Canusium to Hannibal in 216 b.c.e.,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