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

WebRomans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. Aldrete counts at least fifty-six sculptural reliefs dating from the seventh century b.c.e. WebThe ancient Greeks and Romans performed many rituals in the observance of their religion. The issue remains active in religious studies, as it does in cultural anthropology more widely. 286L and 287L, s.v. 24 But in reality, the relative silence of our sources about a ritual form that seems to have been available to the poor is not unique. 97 Ankarloo and Clark Reference Ankarloo and Clark1999: 756; Wilburn Reference Wilburn2012: 8790. View all Google Scholar citations 67 WebThe gods, heroes, and humans of Greek mythology were flawed. Yet to limit the consideration of immolatio to the moment of killing is to overlook the other actions (running a knife along the animal's back, cutting a few hairs from it) that Scheid has identified as being part of that stage of sacrificium The modern assumption that sacrifice requires an animal victim obfuscates the full range of sacrificium among the Romans. 35 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. 24 Now, the Romans did not eat people, so how does their performance of human sacrifice reinforce the link between sacrifice and dining? 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. WebThe first way that Roman is different than Christian is because of there believe in gods. Plaut., Stich 233; Cato, Agr. 44 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 81, Here we have two rituals that look, to an outsider, almost identical, but Livy takes pains to distinguish between them. 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. 47 91 Furthermore, although all of these rites were performed on foodstuffs at altars or at least in sanctuaries, there are some critical differences among them and the ways they are discussed by the Romans. As an example, I offer Var., R. 1.2.19: Itaque propterea institutum diversa de causa ut ex caprino genere ad alii dei aram hostia adduceretur, ad alii non sacrificaretur, cum ab eodem odio alter videre nollet, alter etiam videre pereuntem vellet. 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. 233; CIL 12.1531=ILLRP 136=ILS 3411 (from Sora). 22.57.26; Cass. 69a). 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. There is a small amount of evidence for a form of auspicium performed with beans: Fest. noun. 44 73 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 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. In this way, the native, or emic, Roman view of sacrifice is more expansive than ours. Val. 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. WebIn Greek mythology the king of gods is known as Zeus, whereas Romans call the king of gods Jupiter. that contain scenes of ritual slaughter where the implements can be clearly discerned.Footnote The equation of sacrifice with the offering of an animal is not completely divorced from the ancient sources. 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. Were they used in some form of divination?Footnote differences between Roman The Romans performed at least four forms of ritual killing, only one of which was sacrifice. 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. For a treatment of this methodological issue on a broader scale, see the rather pointed critique in Hopkins Reference Hopkins1978: 1808. 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 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). WebIn Greek mythology the king of gods is known as Zeus, whereas Romans call the king of gods Jupiter. 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. Was a portion consumed later? In overlooking the differences between the Roman idea of sacrificium and the modern idea of sacrifice, we lose some of the details of how the Romans perceived a core element of their own experience of the divine. for young animals (including foetal and neonatal specimens),Footnote In Greek and Roman religion, the gods and The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. Nor, in broader terms, do I think that internal, or emic, categories should automatically be privileged over external, or etic, ones.Footnote 3 78 2013: The Fragments of the Roman Historians, 3 vols, Oxford, Hornblower, S., and Spawforth, A. 95 Bottom line: The Greeks tended towards greater personification of their gods; the Romans tended towards their religion being a series of quid pro quo transactions with 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. 83 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. 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. 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? 101 77L, s.v. WebOne major difference between Greek and Roman religion and Christianity is their understanding of the concept of deity. 101. Braga, Cristina Max. A brief survey of the bone assemblages from sites in west-central Italy is offered by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.22841. Burkert Reference Burkert and Bing1983: 3; Girard Reference Girard and Gregory1977: 1. Pollucere is an old word, appearing mostly in literature of the second century b.c.e.,Footnote Ernout and Meillet Reference Ernout and Meillet1979: 376 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. Create. 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. In both the passages from Pliny and Apuleius, the ritual implements are of diminutive size. magmentum; Serv., A. There is also a queen of gods in Greek and Roman mythologies. 5 17ac) and the Cancellaria relief (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. Scheid Reference Scheid1998: nn. 80 49 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. Reference Morris, Leung, Ames and Lickel1999 and Berry Reference Berry, Headland, Pike and Harris1990. The elder Cato instructs his reader to pollucere a cup of wine and a daps (ritual meal) to Jupiter Dapalis (Agr. Greek Gods and Religious Practices | Essay | The Metropolitan 11213L, s.v. "useRatesEcommerce": false and Paul. 83 ), 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. 94 57 What are the differences between the Greek Hestia and the 58 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 Dogs had other ritual uses as well. 58 Those details, once recovered, can in turn subtly reshape our own idea of what sacrifice is and what it does. Footnote 39 The literary evidence for this is slender but persuasive. 14 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. and again in 114 or 113 b.c.e. Chr. 40 To my knowledge, the sole exception is a phrase preserved twice in the Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium (Scheid Reference Scheid1998: nn. 82 This assertion is based on a search of sacrific* on the Brepolis Library of Latin Texts A. 3.2.16. Other forms of ritual killing do not receive the same sort of negative judgement by Roman authors, and one form, devotio, even has strongly positive associations. 67 Liv. 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). Fest. 77 The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, 64 100 12 93L, s.v. The skeletal remains of dogs sometimes found interred with human remains or inside city walls are often interpreted as sacrifice by archaeologists.Footnote frag. and Paul. There are many other non-meat sacrifices the Romans could offer. Finally, both ancient societies have twelve main gods and goddesses. Emic and etic, terms drawn originally from the field of linguistics (Pike Reference Pike1967: 3744; reprinted in McCutcheon Reference McCutcheon1999: 2836), are one of several pairs of words used to present the insider-outsider distinction. What are the differences between Greek and Roman heroes? 59 52 . 3.763829. WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. For example, the apparent contradiction between Roman abhorrence of ritual killing and the frequency with which Romans performed various forms of it is, to a large extent, explicable once it is recognized that the Romans objected only to the performance (by themselves as much as by others) of sacrificium on human victims. 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 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. Beavers, too, had curative properties for example, a mixture of honey wine, anise seed, and beaver oil was thought to cure flatulence (Plin., N.H. 20.193) and their anal scent glands (mistaken for testicles) were part of the Roman trade in luxury goods.Footnote 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 favisae. 6.34. 283F284C; Liv., Per. 89 9.641. 86 Match. History of Europe - Greeks, Romans, and barbarians | Britannica hasContentIssue true, Copyright The Author(s) 2016. 15 more because the Romans sacrificed things that are not animals, and less because sacrificium is not a term that encompasses every Roman ritual that involves the death of a living being. CIL 6.32323.13940=ILS 5050.13940=Pighi Reference Pighi1965: 117 (from Rome). 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 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 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. 2 This is the insider-outsider problem in nuce. WebGreeks Romans Lived in small rural communities Polis functioned as the city-states religious center Greek Gods Sense of identity Polis isolated from one another and independent Sanctuaries to share music, religion, poetry, and athletics Classical Greek Orders basic design elements for architecture (sense of order, predictability, and mactus. 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. mactus; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 357 s.v. 280 BC and 290D; Rom. ex Fest. 25 There is a difference, however. While there has been tentative speculation that the reason behind a preference for procession scenes in Greek representations of sacrifice in the Archaic and Classical periods is due to a growing squeamishness inside Greek culture,Footnote 5401L. This meant that The corresponding substantive is magmentum, a type of offering laid out only at certain temples.Footnote milk,Footnote Foundational is the collection of essays on Greek sacrifice in Detienne and Vernant Reference Detienne, Vernant and Wissing1989. There is growing consensus that the answer is affirmative. For example, think about the Roman and Greek mythologies about gods. 2.10.34, quoting a letter of Varro, and Paul. 14 Or the chastity of women and the safety of the state, Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, La vittima non un'ostia: Riflessioni storiche e linguistiche su un termine di uso corrente, Etruscan animal bones and their implications for sacrificial studies, Gste der Gtter Gtter als Gste: zur Konstrucktion des rmischen Opferbanketts, La Cuisine et l'autel: les sacrifices en questions dans les socits de la Mditerrane ancienne, Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium Qui Supersunt: les copies pigraphiques des protocoles annuels de la confrrie Arvale (21 av.304 ap. 99 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. Other than the range of items that can be polluctum, the only other thing we know about the ritual is that it involved an altar, which is, of course, the proper locus of sacrifice. 1). ex Fest. 63 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. Scholars are quick to identify all of them as forms of sacrifice, which may well be the case. 59 and indeed it certainly fits the modern notion of an act by which one suffers great loss for the benefit of others. mactus; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.4 s.v. They were rewarded for their endeavors with the position of judge in the Underworld. As in a relief from the Forum of Trajan now in the Louvre (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. If the devotio was not successful (i.e., the devotus somehow survived), expiatory steps had to be taken: the burial of a larger-than-life-sized statue and piaculum hostia caedi. Greek Zeus to the Roman Jupiter: The Complete Guide (2022) Livy, however, treats each burial in a distinct way. Terms in this set (7) Which one 74 Tereso, Joo Pedro Sacrificare is frequently accompanied by an instrumental ablative, but in almost all cases it is clear that the ablative is the object of sacrifice, as in the phrase maioribus hostiis sacrificaverant.Footnote rutilae canes; Var., L. 6.16. The other rite observed by the Romans that required a human death was called devotio, and it seems to have been restricted to a single family father, son, and grandson (it is possible our sources have multiplied a single occasion), all of whom, as commanders-in-the-field, vowed to commit themselves and the enemy troops to the gods of the underworld in order to ensure a Roman victory. pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. Douglas Reference Douglas and Douglas1982: 117. 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. This has repercussions for our understanding of some elements of Roman religious thought. 90 More Greek words for sacrifice. J. Dog corpses were sometimes deposited with tablets that contained curses, and dog figurines are among the required items for performing some spells.Footnote The most famous instance occurred annually at the festival of the Robigalia in June when a red dog and a sheep were sacrificed by the Flamen Quirinalis to ward off rust from the crops.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. 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 As in the Greek world, sacrifice was the central ritual of religion. 08 June 2016. 358L, s.v. The numerous sources for this event are collected and analysed in Engels Reference Engels2007: 41618, 4438. Test. 12 Decline was interrupted by the short-lived Restoration under the emperor Augustus (reign 27 BC AD 14), then it resumed. 93 30 34 Ioppolo Reference Ioppolo1972; Tagliacozzo Reference Tagliacozzo1989. I follow Elsner Reference Elsner2012: 121 in setting aside the plethora of images of the tauroctony of Mithras and the taurobolium of Cybele and Attis. 62. 29 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. At 8.10.1112, Livy notes that a commander could devote one of his soldiers rather than himself. Classicists generally assume that the modern idea of sacrifice as the ritual killing of an animal applies to the Roman context. Another major difference between Greek gods and Roman gods is in the physical appearance of the deities. Plu., RQ 83=Mor. 32 Peter=FRH F33. 89 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. Moses, Reference Moses, Brocato and Terrenatoforthcoming, table 8. 87 Greek See, for example, Wilkens Reference Wilkens2006 and De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti Reference De Grossi Mazzorin and Minniti2006. 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. But upon further reflection, in fact, the use of cruets and plates actually emphasizes the importance of the meal that concluded a Roman sacrifice. 7 See Oakley Reference Oakley1998: 481 and Sacco Reference Sacco2004: 316. Unlike sacrificare, which remained solely in the divine realm, mactare did not need to involve the gods: mactare is something that one Roman could do to another, both literally (one can mactare someone else with a golden cup, for example) and metaphorically (with misfortune or expense). 75 Published online by Cambridge University Press: refriva faba. there is a relative dearth of published studies that deal in any serious way with the collections of bones found on various sites from Roman Italy.Footnote 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. 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 27 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. Var., L 5.122. 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. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments, suggestions and objections that have greatly improved this piece. 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. WebComparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. a more expensive offering that dominates in literary accounts of sacrifice. The prominence of animal victims in Roman accounts overshadows a substantial number of passages that make it absolutely clear that Roman gods received sacrifices of inanimate edibles. 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. e.g., Liv. 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. 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 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 Modern etymologists disagree on the origin of the term. Home. 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. 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. Some rituals, such as the recitation of prayers, were simple. Greek and Roman The answers to these questions might reshape our understanding of what were the crucial elements of sacrificium. 62 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 WebRoman sacrificial practices were not functionally different from Greek, although the Roman rite was distinguishable from the Greek and Etruscan. Sorted by: 6. 76. 46 176 and Serv., A. 31; Plin., N.H. 36.39; Tac., Ann. Despite the fact that the Romans buried broken or superfluous gifts to the gods in deposits for hundreds of years, there are to my knowledge only two references to the practice in all of Latin literature.Footnote Greek Gods vs Roman Gods. Roman sacrifice The errors and flaws that remain are all my own. He does not use the language of sacrifice, that is, he does not call the ritual a sacrificium nor does he identify the Vestal as a victim.Footnote Roman Gods vs. Greek Gods: Know the Difference As in the Greek world, sacrifice was the central ritual of religion. 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 7 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.)