differences between greek and roman sacrifice

The Romans performed at least four forms of ritual killing, only one of which was sacrifice. 1). 69 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. . 77 39 Scholars are quick to identify all of them as forms of sacrifice, which may well be the case. 99 Terms in this set (7) Which one 132.2; Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 1369). 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. Greek Translation. 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. rutilae canes; Var., L. 6.16. In Livy's account of the first devotio in 340 b.c.e. Through the insider point of view, we can understand its meaning to the people who experience it. Ov., F. 4.90142 with Fest. Aeacus holds the keys to Hades. In addition to Zeus and Hera, there were many other major and minor gods in the Greek religion. 33 1419). The only inedible items that we know from literary sources were objects of sacrificium are all miniature versions of regular, everyday serveware: a cruet, a plate, and a ladle. from the archaic temple at the site of S. Omobono in Rome.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 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. frag. molo; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 3867 s.v. 47 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. 93 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. As has long been recognized, sacrificare and sacrificium are compounds of the phrase sacrum facere (to render sacred), and what is sacrum is anything that belongs to the gods.Footnote Tagliacozzo Reference Tagliacozzo1989: 66. 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. 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. 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. 90 Marcos, Bruno 59 61 Some rituals, such as the recitation of prayers, were simple. These offerings, ubiquitous in Roman Italy through to the end of the Republic, are mentioned at most twice in extant Latin literature.Footnote Greek Gods and Religious Practices | Essay | The Metropolitan Plu., RQ 83=Mor. 78 89 The ritual is so closely tied to the notion of dining that polluctum could be used for everyday meals (e.g., Plaut., Rud. Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: figs 83 and 89b. The issue remains active in religious studies, as it does in cultural anthropology more widely. Gel. 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 and more. From here, we can speculate that sacrifice was not understood by the Romans primarily as the ritual slaughter of an animal. Greek gods had heavy emphasis placed on their The Greek gods domain over law had been mostly limited to the hereditary kings of individual city-states, but Rome grew into a unified Republic. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. View all Google Scholar citations 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 The S. Omobono material shows a definite preference for certain species (sheep, goats, pigs),Footnote Perhaps these reliefs preserve the performance of one or more of the rituals that seem to have faded in popularity by the high imperial period: magmentum and polluctum. 132.12). 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. 13 It appears that if a worshipper could not afford to sacrifice something that was itself tasty, he might fulfill his obligation by giving something that evoked the idea of it.Footnote 08 June 2016. Marcellus, de Medicamentis 8.50; Palmer Reference Palmer and Hall1996: 234. uncovered in votive deposits throughout Italy. October equus. and and Paul. 93 3.763829. Plutarch is the only source for dog sacrifice at the Lupercalia (RQ 68 and 111=Mor. 28 76. 58.47, 64.1.467, and 68.1.49. Van Straten Reference Van Straten1995: 188. 57 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. Yet, part of the work of a Roman historian is to try to understand how the Romans understood their world, to be aware of anachronism in our accounts thereof, and to keep in mind that the sources never truly speak for themselves. ex Fest. Created by. If we allow only items explicitly identified as sacrificia in Roman sources, our list includes beans,Footnote On the contrary, Greek religion did not prefer to execute rituals as much as The basic argument transfers well to the Roman context. The exact nature of the connection between the two rituals is not clear, but I agree with Eckstein Reference Eckstein1982 that we should not see the sacrifice of Gauls and Greeks as some sort of atonement for the unchastity of the Vestals. 45.16.6. One relatively well documented example is the collection of bones dating to the seventh and sixth centuries b.c.e. Of these, only dogs are attested in the written sources as victims of Roman sacrifice, albeit rarely.Footnote WebRomans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. Hemina fr. 22.57.26; Cass. Military commanders would pay homage to Jupiter at his temple after 97 An emic explanation is essential for understanding how people within a given system understand that system, but because it is culturally and historically bounded, its use is somewhat limited. The objectivity of the outside observer can also facilitate cross-cultural comparison. 12 44 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. 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. Total loading time: 0 The ancients derived the term from magis auctus and understood it to mean to increase and by extension to honour with.Footnote 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 85 80 Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 8. 6 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. 48 Paul. Columella 2.21.4 might also refer to dog sacrifice, but the verb (feceris) leaves it ambiguous as to which ritual was being performed. In the sacred realm, Romans could also pollucere a tithe to the god Hercules.Footnote 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. 22 81 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. Others include first-order vs. second-order categories, particular vs. universal, descriptive vs. redescriptive, and local vs. global. 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. Lelekovi, Tino 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. 2013: The Fragments of the Roman Historians, 3 vols, Oxford, Hornblower, S., and Spawforth, A. WebThe Greeks were striving for perfection in their art while the Romans were striving for real life people. Were they used in some form of divination?Footnote WebFor example, the Peloponnesian War was primarily a struggle between two Greek city-states, Athens and Sparta, and was fought mainly on land and sea within the Greek world. the killing of the animal was not it, at least in an early period. 91 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. Finally, both ancient societies have twelve main gods and goddesses. Resp. This is the insider-outsider problem in nuce. 70 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 1 Answer. WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. 100 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 Romans were aware of the link, as is made clear by Paul. 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). 54 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. 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 A brief survey of the bone assemblages from sites in west-central Italy is offered by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.22841. 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. Sacrifice was just one of several rites (alongside polluctum and magmentum) that the Romans had available to them that look to us, standing outside their religious system, as if they were all identical or nearly so. 61 Finally, both ancient societies have twelve main gods and goddesses. Vaz, Filipe Costa Scheid Reference Scheid2005: 4457; Reference Scheid and Rpke2007: 2639. Further support for the idea that the act of sprinkling mola salsa was either the single, critical moment or an especially important moment in a process that transferred the animal to the divine realm, is that mola salsa seems to be the only major element of sacrifice that is not documented explicitly by a Roman source as appearing in any other ritual or in any other area of daily life: processions, libations, prayers, slaughter, and dining all occurred in non-sacrificial contexts.Footnote Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. 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. Even if this is the case, the argument still stands that these passages underscore how essential was consumption to the ritual of sacrificium. 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. 101. 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 358L, s.v. 79 37ab). Horses: Plin., N.H. 28.146; Fest. 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. 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. at the battle of the Veseris between Rome and the Latins (8.9.114), the ritual consists of the recitation of the dedicatory formula by the consul P. Decius Mus while in the midst of battle. 2 There is some limited zooarchaeological evidence for the consumption of dogs at some Roman sites, such as the inclusion of dog bones bearing marks of butchery among bone deposits that comprise primarily bovine and ovine remains, but it is not widespread. The equation of sacrifice with the offering of an animal is not completely divorced from the ancient sources. most famously those of Burkert, who identifies sacrificial slaughter as the basic experience of the sacred, and Girard, who begins his investigation into the origin of sacrifice by asserting its close kinship to murder and criminal violence.Footnote 40 Detry, Cleia 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. 13 Peter=FRH F17. ipsilles with 398L, s.v. When the Romans sacrificed plant matter to the gods, it appears to be because that is what it was appropriate to do in the specific circumstance. MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 5974. 73 6.343 and 11.108. The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. 30 and for his old-fashioned frugality and incorruptibility.Footnote WebWhat's the Greek word for sacrifice? Sacrifices of wine and incense are common in the Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium, e.g. This is made clear in numerous passages from several Roman authors. For the possible link between this instance and the revelation of an unchaste Vestal, see Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 126 n. 18. 6.34. Lucil. Rpke Reference Rpke, Georgoudi, Piettre and Schmidt2005 offers a different interpretation of the meal that follows the sacrifice. 81, Here we have two rituals that look, to an outsider, almost identical, but Livy takes pains to distinguish between them. 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. 82. 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. 31. Neither Miner's nor his reader's understanding is right and the other wrong: they are two different views of the same set of data, and both are valuable. 100 89 The elder Pliny, in his Natural History, discusses the high regard in which ancient Romans held simple vessels made of beechwood. WebDifferences between Greek and Roman sacrifices. 25 Was a portion consumed later? mactus; Serv., A. 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 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. J. 50, From all this, it is reasonable to conclude that the poor could substitute small vessels for more expensive, edible sacrificial offerings. 67 8.10.)). But it does bring things into sharper focus, helping the student of Roman religion to keep in view the extent to which we have interpreted the ancient sources to fit our own (rather than the Romans) intellectual categories. ex Fest. Our author makes clear that the sacrifice of two Gauls and two Greeks happened alongside another ritual: the punishment of an unchaste Vestal Virgin. 41 30 It is entirely possible that miniature ceramics were not, in reality, less expensive offerings than actual foodstuffs. At her birth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, sprang directly from the head of Zeus. 94 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. Val. 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. The preceding discussion has, I hope, made clear that the Romans own notion of sacrifice is broader and more complex than is generally perceived. 344L and 345L, s.v. The problem is widely acknowledged, but see specifically Moussy Reference Moussy1977; Reference Moussy1990; Engels Reference Engels2007: 25982. D. 6.9 (which probably draws on Varro) and possibly Paul. Mar. 63 and the second century c.e. Although there is some evidence for Roman consumption of dog in the form of canine skeletons with butchery marks (e.g., De Grossi Mazzorin and Tagliacozzo Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Tagliacozzo1997: 4378), there is no evidence that dogs were raised for meat production (MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 74). Learn. A wider range of scholarly approaches is presented by McClymond Reference McClymond2008: 124. 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. Nacirema is American spelt backwards, and Miner shows to, and interprets for, us our own bathroom habits.Footnote 71 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. 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 47 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. How, if these animals did not make desirable entrees, could they be considered suitable for sacrifice? 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. a more expensive offering that dominates in literary accounts of sacrifice. Plaut., Amph. 14 65 9.7.mil.Rom.2). 11 ex Fest. Cornell, T. J. 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 clear that they sacrifice a wide range of food substances beyond animal flesh. 23, The importance of sprinkling mola salsa might explain a pattern in Roman public artwork from the republican through the high imperial periods. 65 Martins, Manuela I concede that, to a certain extent, the insider-outsider lens does not show us difficulties that were previously invisible. 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. 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.

Houses For Rent Ruidoso, Nm Zillow, Triangle Sum Theorem Worksheet, Articles D