differences between greek and roman sacrificedifferences between greek and roman sacrifice

Var., L 5.122. As in a relief from the Forum of Trajan now in the Louvre (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Goats: Var., R. 1.2.19; Liv. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. View all Google Scholar citations Created by. Classicists generally assume that the modern idea of sacrifice as the ritual killing of an animal applies to the Roman context. 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. 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. The relationship between magmentum and augmentum (Paul. 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 and indeed it certainly fits the modern notion of an act by which one suffers great loss for the benefit of others. Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 8. 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 numerous sources for this event are collected and analysed in Engels Reference Engels2007: 41618, 4438. Decline was interrupted by the short-lived Restoration under the emperor Augustus (reign 27 BC AD 14), then it resumed. 5 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). 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 On the contrary, Greek religion did not prefer to execute rituals as much as There are many other non-meat sacrifices the Romans could offer. thysa. There is growing consensus that the answer is affirmative. 3.12.2. . It is entirely possible that miniature ceramics were not, in reality, less expensive offerings than actual foodstuffs. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. The lack of interest in vegetal sacrifice is widespread in the field of religious studies (McClymond Reference McClymond2008: 65). The distinction between sacrificare and mactare was lost by Late Antiquity, but it was still active in the Republic and early Empire.Footnote 78 67 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. 73 1). 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 Differences between Greek and Roman sacrifices Flashcards 49 29 Interim ex fatalibus libris sacrificia aliquot extraordinaria facta, inter quae Gallus et Galla, Graecus et Graeca in foro boario sub terram vivi demissi sunt in locum saxo consaeptum, iam ante hostiis humanis, minime Romano sacro, imbutum. 19 Our modern idea of sacrifice can, with some refinement and clarification, remain a useful concept for constructing accounts of how and why the Romans dealt with their gods in the ways they didFootnote The children were drowned by the haruspices, usually in the sea. 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. It is important to note that there is no indication that these vegetal offerings were thought to be substitutions for what would have been, in better circumstances, animal victims.Footnote 58.47, 64.1.467, and 68.1.49. J. C.), Quand faire, c'est croire: les rites sacrificiels des romains, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Dogs and People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction, Proceedings of the 9, Annalisi dei resi faunistici dell'area sacra di S. Omobono, Il Viver quotidiano in Roma arcaica: materiali dagli scavi del tempio arcaico nell'area sacra di S. Omobono, Hiera Kala: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece, Materia Magica: The Archaeology of Magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain, Rome's Vestal Virgins: A Study of Rome's Vestal Priestesses in the Late Republic and Early Empire, http://apps.brepolis.net/BrepolisPortal/default.aspx. Schultz Reference Schultz2010: 5202. 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 Through the insider point of view, we can understand its meaning to the people who experience it. 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. e.g., J. Scheid, s.v. As a comparandum, we can point to the Roman habit of creating votive deposits, collections of usually relatively inexpensive items buried in the ground: gifts to the gods that had been cleaned out of overstuffed temples and intentionally buried. Another famous instance of this scene is on the Boscoreale cup (Aldrete Reference Aldrete2014: 33, fig. 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. Test. WebOn the whole, political development in Greece followed a pattern: first the rule of kings, found as early as the period of Mycenaean civilization; then a feudal period, the Finally, both ancient societies have twelve main gods and goddesses. noun. Were these items sprinkled with mola salsa?Footnote sacrifice, Roman in OCD At 8.10.1112, Livy notes that a commander could devote one of his soldiers rather than himself. Greek Translation. fabam and Fest. 1 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 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 89 48 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. 92 24 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 In Livy's account of the first devotio in 340 b.c.e. 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. MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 5974. 20 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). 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 24 Scheid's reconstruction and interpretation is followed by Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 3148. This is a clear difference from Athena, who was never associated with the weather. 2019. From an examination that is restricted to Roman sources and that sets aside Christian texts where the terms for these various rituals begin to be used in rather different ways, it appears that the hierarchy of rituals I have just described has been imposed from the outside. Working with the two of them together, we can get a more nuanced understanding of a cultural habit. 88 89 3 The Romans were aware of the link, as is made clear by Paul. e.g., Faraone and Naiden Reference Faraone and Naiden2012: 4; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 36 and 1089. In the sacred realm, Romans could also pollucere a tithe to the god Hercules.Footnote uncovered in votive deposits throughout Italy. Resp. 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. 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. 55 Feature Flags: { 25 48 WebRoman sacrificial practices were not functionally different from Greek, although the Roman rite was distinguishable from the Greek and Etruscan. Lodwick, Lisa Difference Between Romans and Greeks 8.9 per cent of the total, according to Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 2. Some rituals, such as the recitation of prayers, were simple. Plut., RQ 52=Mor. 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. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. The issue remains active in religious studies, as it does in cultural anthropology more widely. 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. 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. 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. 53 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. Those details, once recovered, can in turn subtly reshape our own idea of what sacrifice is and what it does. WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. 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 100 37ab). 88. 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. For example, think about the Roman and Greek mythologies about gods. Indeed these two rituals appear at first glance to be identical live interment in underground chambers, though admittedly in different locations within the city and with different victims. 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. Moses (Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 2) reports that these species account for 89.9 per cent of the total number of individual animal specimens recovered. 38 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 74 Study sets, textbooks, questions. The Christian fathers equation of sacrifice with violence has shaped twentieth-century theorizations of sacrifice as a universal human phenomenon,Footnote 28 for this article. Of the fifty-six reliefs, forty-one show officials carrying axes. 97 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. 52 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. Curius Dentatus, famous for his victory over Pyrrhus in 275 b.c.e. 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. 66 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. On three occasions during the Republic (228,Footnote 46 58 87 13 Peter=FRH F17. frag. For the possible link between this instance and the revelation of an unchaste Vestal, see Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 126 n. 18. 5401L. 41 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).. 39 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 and again in 114 or 113 b.c.e. 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. He stresses the traditional nature of the burial of the one Vestal with the phrase as is the custom (uti mos est) and describes her death in neutral terms (necare).Footnote 29 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. Major differences between Roman and Greek Culture? - HistoryNet In Latin, one does not sacrifice with a knife or with an axe. refriva faba; Plin., N.H. 18.119. 98 4 While the evidence does not allow us to recover precise distinctions made among these rites (sacrificium, magmentum, and polluctum), it does strongly suggest that the Romans at least through the period of the Republic conceived of these rituals as somehow different from one another. Liv. 79 Pliny reports a ritual, possibly sacrifice (res divina fit, 29.58), involving a dog in honour of the little-known goddess, Genita Mana (cf. Dogs had other ritual uses as well. and the second century c.e. 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. Although they are universally referred to as votive offerings in the scholarly literature, it is possible that they are, technically, sacrifices. The insider-outsider problem has had little impact on the study of religion in pre-Christian Rome. Were they always burnt on an altar or brazier? 58 3 85 50, From all this, it is reasonable to conclude that the poor could substitute small vessels for more expensive, edible sacrificial offerings. 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. Through the outsider point of view, we can interpret it in light of comparable behaviours in other cultures. 9.641. There is also a queen of gods in Greek and Roman mythologies. One relatively well documented example is the collection of bones dating to the seventh and sixth centuries b.c.e. 41 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 Reed, Kelly 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. sacrima. 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. 10 It is possible that this genus-species relationship in fact existed in the Roman mind, as is perhaps suggested by the fact that sacrificare means to make sacred, and these other rituals seem to be different ways of doing the same work, namely transferring items from human to divine ownership. History of Europe - Greeks, Romans, and barbarians | Britannica 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 Greek gods had heavy emphasis placed on their and for his old-fashioned frugality and incorruptibility.Footnote 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. The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. Cic., Red. 358L. milk,Footnote 81, Here we have two rituals that look, to an outsider, almost identical, but Livy takes pains to distinguish between them. Our author makes clear that the sacrifice of two Gauls and two Greeks happened alongside another ritual: the punishment of an unchaste Vestal Virgin.

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