15 There is a small group of other rituals that share certain structural similarities with sacrificium, but which the Romans during the Republic and early Empire appear to have distinguished from it. 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. 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. In the sacred realm, Romans could also pollucere a tithe to the god Hercules.Footnote 450 Krenkel; Hor., Sat. Vaz, Filipe Costa 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). 63 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. subsilles. Val. Jupiter also concentrated on protecting the Roman state. sacrifice, Roman in OCD Comparative mythology - Wikipedia 81, Here we have two rituals that look, to an outsider, almost identical, but Livy takes pains to distinguish between them. Although they are universally referred to as votive offerings in the scholarly literature, it is possible that they are, technically, sacrifices. 62 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 Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. Scheid Reference Scheid1998: nn. The ritual ended with a litatio, that is, the inspection of the animal's entrails, and it was then followed by a meal. 58 72 For this same poverty is, among the Greeks, just in Aristides, kind in Phocion, vigorous in Epaminondas, wise in Socrates, and eloquent in Homer. WebWhat are the main differences between Greek and Roman gods? The skeletal remains of dogs sometimes found interred with human remains or inside city walls are often interpreted as sacrifice by archaeologists.Footnote Military commanders would pay homage to Jupiter at his temple after More Greek words for sacrifice. Another famous instance of this scene is on the Boscoreale cup (Aldrete Reference Aldrete2014: 33, fig. See Oakley Reference Oakley1998: 481 and Sacco Reference Sacco2004: 316. 22. 3.12.2. 73 mactus. 84 Differences between Greek and Roman sacrifices Flashcards WebThe ancient Greeks and Romans performed many rituals in the observance of their religion. 132.2; Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 1369). To give just a single example, we know that there was originally some technical distinction among the different types of divine signs sent to the Romans by the gods. 40 Modern scholars sometimes group all of these rites under the rubric sacrifice.Footnote We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. This is made clear in numerous passages from several Roman authors. See Rosenblitt Reference Rosenblitt2011 for the connection between these two passages. Two differences between greek roman religion and christianity. I have tried to respond to them all. The elder Pliny, in his Natural History, discusses the high regard in which ancient Romans held simple vessels made of beechwood. 94 Carretero, Lara Gonzalez Macr., Sat. 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 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. Greek and Roman Art and Architecture The article is reprinted in McCutcheon Reference McCutcheon1999, a volume that offers in its introductory chapter a very good overview of the insider-outsider problem and that includes a selection of some of the most important scholarly contributions to the debate within the study of religion. History of Europe - Greeks, Romans, and barbarians | Britannica 12 Footnote 45 1996: The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn), Oxford. 80 55.1.20 and 58.13) where the presence of an accusative object of immolare necessitates that cultro be instrumental in the traditional sense: ture et vino in igne in foculo fecit immolavitque vino mola cultroque Iovi o(ptimo) m(aximo) b(ovem) m(arem), Iunoni reginae b(ovem) f(eminam), Minervae b(ovem) f(eminam), Saluti publicae populi Romani Quiritium b(ovem) f(eminam).. 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. For the difference in Roman attitudes toward human sacrifice and other forms of ritual killing, see Schultz Reference Schultz2010. See also Scheid Reference Scheid2012: 901. ), Dictionnaire tymologique de la langue latine, Interpreting sacrificial ritual in Roman poetry: disciplines and their models, Rituals in Ink: A Conference on Religion and Literary Production in Ancient Rome, La mise mort sacrificielle sur les reliefs romains, La Violence dans les mondes grec et romain, Le sacrifice disparu: les reliefs de boucherie, Sacrifices, march de la viande et pratiques alimentaires dans les cits du monde romain, I reperti ossei animali nell'area archeologica di S. Omobono (19621964), Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, Animal remains from temples in Roman Britain, The symbolic meaning of the cock: the animal remains from the, Roman Mithraism: the Evidence of the Small Finds, Archologie du sacrifice animal en Gaule romaine, Prodigy and Expiation: A Study in Religion and Politics in Republican Rome, Production and Consumption of Animals in Roman Italy, Re-thinking sacred rubbish: the ritual deposits of the temple of Mithras at Tienen (Belgium), Beyond Sacred Violence: A Comparative Study of Sacrifice, The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader, Views from inside and outside: integrating emic and etic insights about culture and justice judgment, Ricerche nell'area dei templi di Fortuna e Mater Matuta, Revue de philologie, de littrature et d'histoire anciennes, Etruscan Italy: Etruscan Influences on the Civilizations of Italy from Antiquity to the Modern Era, Why were the Vestals virgins? 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. Of this class of rituals, sacrificium does seem to have been somehow different from the others. 60 molo; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.1046 s.v. Max. e.g., Faraone and Naiden Reference Faraone and Naiden2012: 4; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 36 and 1089. 287L, s.v. 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 expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, From here, we can speculate that sacrifice was not understood by the Romans primarily as the ritual slaughter of an animal. Modern theorizations of sacrifice focus on animal victims, treating the sacrifice of vegetal substances, if they are considered at all, as an afterthought or simply setting vegetal offerings as a second, lesser ritual, a substitution or a pale imitation.Footnote Scholars frequently stress the connection between sacrifice and eating: The idea of food underlies the idea of sacrifice.Footnote 3, 13456; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 1225; Rpke Reference Rpke and Gordon2007: 1378. 4 The offering of a dog to Robigus may be the same ritual as the augurium canarium referred to by Plin., N.H. 18.14. The issue remains active in religious studies, as it does in cultural anthropology more widely. fabam and Fest. 176 and Serv., A. For example, scholars have used the relationships between different myths to trace the development of religions and cultures, to propose common origins for Among these criteria are a clear preference for specific parts of an animal or for animals of a specific age/sex/species, unusual butchery patterns, burning or other alterations to the remains, and the association of the remains with other material (e.g., votive offerings) linked to ritual activity. 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. Here I use it as a tool to get at one aspect of Roman religious thought; I do not offer a sustained methodological critique of contemporary approaches of Roman antiquity. For this discussion, the metaphorical extension of the English word sacrifice, by which one can sacrifice for one's family or hit a sacrifice fly in baseball, is not relevant: this meaning is completely unknown to the Romans of the Classical period. WebIn Greek mythology the king of gods is known as Zeus, whereas Romans call the king of gods Jupiter. Ioppolo Reference Ioppolo1972; Tagliacozzo Reference Tagliacozzo1989. 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. aryxnewland. 65 Were these items sprinkled with mola salsa?Footnote Aldrete Reference Aldrete2014: 32. 76. For example, think about the Roman and Greek mythologies about gods. 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 13 Peter=FRH F17. As the most extensive survey of meat production in Roman Italy has concluded, Dogs were variously trained as guards, protectors, companions, and pets, but they were not raised to be eaten (MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 74). More rare are images like those on the arches of Trajan at Benevento and of Septimius Severus at Lepcis Magna which show the moment that the axe is swung.Footnote To my knowledge, the sole exception is a phrase preserved twice in the Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium (Scheid Reference Scheid1998: nn. 34 81 This disjuncture between physical remains and written accounts is another reminder of the bias of our ancient authors toward the activities of the rich and toward state ritual. 22.57.26, discussed also in Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1267. 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 WebWhat's the Greek word for sacrifice? 37 Ov., F. 4.90142 with Fest. ex Fest. 27 19 Another possible interpretation of the disappearance of some rituals from Latin literature is that the Romans no longer thought of them as distinct from one another, preferring to treat them all as sacrificium. 69 24 but in later texts as well. 77 On fourteen occasions between 209 and 92 b.c.e., androgyne infants and children were included among the prodigies reported to the Roman Senate. 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. and Finally, it appears that some of these rites ceased to be performed by some point in the imperial period and that sacrificium continued for centuries. molo; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 3867 s.v. 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 Neither of the acts that Pliny mentions is explicitly identified as sacrificium, or as any other rite in particular. Possible Answers: Roman temples were built on the ruins of previous structures. 3 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. eadem paupertas etiam populo Romano imperium a primordio fundavit, proque eo in odiernum diis immortalibus simpulo et catino fictili sacrificat. 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 98 10 Expert solutions. refriva faba; Plin., N.H. 18.119. How, if these animals did not make desirable entrees, could they be considered suitable for sacrifice? 4 101 ex Fest. 8.10.)). On the general absence of wild meat from the Roman diet, see MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 1902. This is a clear difference from Athena, who was never associated with the weather. 17 The problem is widely acknowledged, but see specifically Moussy Reference Moussy1977; Reference Moussy1990; Engels Reference Engels2007: 25982. 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 11213L, s.v. 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. 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). October equus. 96 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. 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. 280 BC and 290D; Rom. As suggested by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.23841. Liv. These two passages from Pliny and Apuleius may provide an explanation for the hundreds of thousands of miniature fictile vessels (plates, cups, etc.) In addition to such great disasters, the people were terrified both by other prodigies and because in this year two Vestals, Opimia and Floronia, were discovered to have had illicit affairs. and the second century c.e. There are many other non-meat sacrifices the Romans could offer. 2013: The Fragments of the Roman Historians, 3 vols, Oxford, Hornblower, S., and Spawforth, A. 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 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 Roman Gods vs. Greek Gods: Know the Difference 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. Lelekovi, Tino 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. 100 74 ipsilles with 398L, s.v. Compare Var., R. 2.8.1. Paul. 76 This should prompt researchers, myself included, to greater caution when presenting a native in our case, Roman point of view and to greater clarity about whether the concept under discussion at any given moment is really the Romans or ours, or is shared by both groups. and more. 17 Detry, Cleia 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. 9.7.mil.Rom.2). Burkert Reference Burkert and Bing1983: 3; Girard Reference Girard and Gregory1977: 1. 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. Hemina fr. 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 58.47, 64.1.467, and 68.1.49. Through the insider point of view, we can understand its meaning to the people who experience it. The Romans were aware of the link, as is made clear by Paul. I concede that, to a certain extent, the insider-outsider lens does not show us difficulties that were previously invisible. For a more extended analysis of the distinction between the punishment of unchaste Vestals and, on the one hand, sacrifice and, on the other, secular capital punishment, see Schultz Reference Schultz2012. 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. Fest. 25 Aldrete's survey of images commonly identified as sacrifice scenes makes clear that Roman art depicts different procedures (hitting with a hammer, chopping with an axe) and implements (hammers, axes, knives), and that the preference of implement changes over time. 43 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. The Romans performed at least four forms of ritual killing, only one of which was sacrifice. 35 ), 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. What are the differences between Greek and Roman heroes? ex Fest. I presume that Miner's observations apply also to bathroom habits elsewhere in North America and Europe. The numerous sources for this event are collected and analysed in Engels Reference Engels2007: 41618, 4438. 26. From this same root also derives the name for the mixture sprinkled on the animal before it was killed, mola salsa.Footnote and Reference Morris, Leung, Ames and Lickel1999 and Berry Reference Berry, Headland, Pike and Harris1990. See, for example, Wilkens Reference Wilkens2006 and De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti2006. Var., L. 6.3.14. 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. 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. to the fourth century c.e. incense,Footnote 49 Differences Total loading time: 0 9.641. 190L s.v. "useRatesEcommerce": false 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. and Paul. Cf. 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 45.16.6. An etic approach allows the researcher to see functions, causes, and consequences of insider behaviours and habits that may be invisible to the people who perform them, as Miner illustrated for us. We do not know what name the Romans gave the ritual burial of an unchaste Vestal Virgin, but we know it was not sacrifice. 58 Greek gods had heavy emphasis placed on their On three occasions during the Republic (228,Footnote Hemina fr. 71 uncovered in votive deposits throughout Italy. 57 The ritual is so closely tied to the notion of dining that polluctum could be used for everyday meals (e.g., Plaut., Rud. noun. 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.) The relationship between magmentum and augmentum (Paul. The main god and goddesses in Roman culture were Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. 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. wine,Footnote The insider-outsider problem has had little impact on the study of religion in pre-Christian Rome. 16 23, The importance of sprinkling mola salsa might explain a pattern in Roman public artwork from the republican through the high imperial periods. 93 ex Fest. 77 60 The prevalence of Roman images of sacrificial victims standing before the altar, that is, of the instant before mola salsa is sprinkled on them, is due to the importance of that moment. Were they always burnt on an altar or brazier? Greek Gods vs Roman Gods. The Romans worshipped the same goddess, or rather the same ideas embodied in her, under the name of Vesta, which is in reality identical with 35 Greek and Roman The hypothesis that only sacrificium required mola salsa is strongly supported by the sources, but because that is an argument ex silentio, it cannot be proved beyond all doubt. 36 ex. and for looking at Roman religion in the context of other religious traditions. 1. 94. 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 Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. } Another major difference between Greek gods and Roman gods is in the physical appearance of the deities. 1419). In WebRomans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. Although they were not suitable as daily fare, there is evidence that several of the unexpected species from the S. Omobono deposit were edible on special occasions or in dire circumstances: they are surprisingly prevalent in magical and medicinal recipes. In contrast, as I have pointed out, Livy uses the language of sacrifice to describe the second interment and in the next breath expressly distances Roman tradition from it, calling it a rite scarcely Roman (minime Romano sacro). 14.30; Sil. In Latin, one does not sacrifice with a knife or with an axe. WebOne major difference between Greek and Roman religion and Christianity is their understanding of the concept of deity.