differences between greek and roman sacrifice

Plut., RQ 52=Mor. 65 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. The ancient Greek and Roman gods did not become incarnate the way Jesus was, did not enter the stream of real human history the way Jesus did, did not die as a 68 25 68 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 11213L, s.v. 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. 91 Cornell, T. J. 90 The skeletal remains of dogs sometimes found interred with human remains or inside city walls are often interpreted as sacrifice by archaeologists.Footnote On a wider scale, the arguments made here about the nature of Roman sacrificium further undermine the increasingly discredited idea that sacrifice as a universal human behaviour is primarily, if not exclusively, about the violence of killing an animal victim. Goats: Var., R. 1.2.19; Liv. Plutarch is the only source for dog sacrifice at the Lupercalia (RQ 68 and 111=Mor. 72 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). 69 71. In Greek and Roman religion, the gods and pecunia sacrificium makes clear that, despite its name, this ritual did not involve money. 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. D. 6.9 (which probably draws on Varro) and possibly Paul. One relatively well documented example is the collection of bones dating to the seventh and sixth centuries b.c.e. and first fruits.Footnote In both the passages from Pliny and Apuleius, the ritual implements are of diminutive size. 37 If we allow only items explicitly identified as sacrificia in Roman sources, our list includes beans,Footnote 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. But we can no longer recover indeed it appears that Romans of the early Empire could no longer recover what was the difference between a monstrum, a prodigium, a portentum, and an ostentum.Footnote 62. from the archaic temple at the site of S. Omobono in Rome.Footnote 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 ex Fest. 93 This meant that 32 132; Cass. 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 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. 12 88 The same two interment rituals would be performed alongside one another again just about a century later, in 113 b.c.e. At her birth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, sprang directly from the head of Zeus. sacrifice, Roman in OCD 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 1). 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 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 Scholars are quick to identify all of them as forms of sacrifice, which may well be the case. Working with the two of them together, we can get a more nuanced understanding of a cultural habit. The Romans, however, developed a more naturalistic approach to their art. 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. Reference Morris, Leung, Ames and Lickel1999 and Berry Reference Berry, Headland, Pike and Harris1990. 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 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. 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 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. Aldrete counts at least fifty-six sculptural reliefs dating from the seventh century b.c.e. The basic argument transfers well to the Roman context. Despite the fact that the S. Omobono assemblage dates to several centuries before the Classical period, the range of faunal remains from the site are primarily what one would expect from a sanctuary based on what we know from literary texts. 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 favisae. 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. 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 Plu., RQ 83=Mor. The corresponding substantive is magmentum, a type of offering laid out only at certain temples.Footnote Render date: 2023-03-04T10:22:59.089Z The lack of interest in vegetal sacrifice is widespread in the field of religious studies (McClymond Reference McClymond2008: 65). 45 MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon2004: 5974. Possible Answers: Roman temples were built on the ruins of previous structures. As is implied in all the relevant entries in the OLD. Correct answer: What is a major difference between Greek and Roman temples? 3, 13456; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 1225; Rpke Reference Rpke and Gordon2007: 1378. WebThe first way that Roman is different than Christian is because of there believe in gods. 59 See, for example, citations from Pomponius and Afranius in Non. 2.47.10 (M)=2.44.10 McGushin. 59 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. Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 22441 and, arriving at the same conclusion by a different path, Schultz Reference Schultz2012: 1323. 7 344L, s.v. 14 3.763829. Roman sacrificium is both less and more than the typical etic notion of sacrifice. 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 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. That we cannot fully recover what were the critical differences among these rites is frustrating, but the situation is certainly not unique in the study of Roman religion. These two passages from Pliny and Apuleius may provide an explanation for the hundreds of thousands of miniature fictile vessels (plates, cups, etc.) Greeks call the queen Hera, whereas Romans queen of gods is Juno. 47 I have tried to respond to them all. While the attention of our Roman sources is drawn most frequently to blood sacrifice, there is good reason to think that, if there was indeed a climax to the ritual,Footnote Ov., F. 4.90142 with Fest. 13 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 Has data issue: true 423L s.v. The relationship between magmentum and augmentum (Paul. 40 Burkert Reference Burkert and Bing1983: 3; Girard Reference Girard and Gregory1977: 1. ex Fest. 69 8.10.)). 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. 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. 26. "useRatesEcommerce": false 233; CIL 12.1531=ILLRP 136=ILS 3411 (from Sora). More Greek words for sacrifice. Home. As suggested by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.23841. Cato's instruction to pollucere to Jupiter an assaria pecunia refers to produce valued at one as (Agr. Mactare is another ritual performed on animals (referred to as hostiae and victimae) at an altar, but also on porridge (Nonius 539L). You would do well to remember that there were very few similarities between Roman and Greek religion until the Romans began borrowing from the Gree 5 69a). 14.30; Sil. The objectivity of the outside observer can also facilitate cross-cultural comparison. 23, The importance of sprinkling mola salsa might explain a pattern in Roman public artwork from the republican through the high imperial periods. Of these, three-fourths come from the first and second centuries c.e. 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. 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. For this same poverty is, among the Greeks, just in Aristides, kind in Phocion, vigorous in Epaminondas, wise in Socrates, and eloquent in Homer. While vegetal and meat offerings were on a par, inedible gifts could be sacrificed only as substitutes for edible offerings when money was a concern. 91 J. Somewhat surprising is the considerably smaller presence of bovines,Footnote 52 413=Macr., Sat. 22.57.26; Cass. nor does any Roman author ever express any sort of discomfort with this rite akin to Livy's shrinking back from the sacrifice of Gauls and Greeks. The distinction between sacrificare and mactare was lost by Late Antiquity, but it was still active in the Republic and early Empire.Footnote 94 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). Those details, once recovered, can in turn subtly reshape our own idea of what sacrifice is and what it does. magmentum; Serv., A. 73 There is also a queen of gods in Greek and Roman mythologies. 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. Sacrificium included vegetal and inedible offerings, and it was not the only Roman ritual that had living victims. Hemina fr. Cf., n. 89 below. 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). 44 33 But upon further reflection, in fact, the use of cruets and plates actually emphasizes the importance of the meal that concluded a Roman sacrifice. 4 The ancients derived the term from magis auctus and understood it to mean to increase and by extension to honour with.Footnote 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. Columella 2.21.4 might also refer to dog sacrifice, but the verb (feceris) leaves it ambiguous as to which ritual was being performed. 43 Test. 75 Expert solutions. Mar. e.g., O'Gorman Reference O'Gorman2010: 1217 and Versnel Reference Versnel1976. The burial of Gauls and Greeks was a sacrifice, but one that Romans ought not to have performed. 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. Macr., Sat. 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 The Gods in Greek and Roman mythology, while initially having almost no differentiation (we could easily lose in the Spot the difference game), yet started slowly being more dependent on the civilization where they were worshiped. 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 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. 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. 10 450 Krenkel; Hor., Sat. 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. 4 18 176 and Serv., A. Paul. 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. See also Scheid Reference Scheid2012: 901. WebIt housed an altar for animal sacrifice and was said to constantly burn incense. 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. 25 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. 1 Answer. Our author makes clear that the sacrifice of two Gauls and two Greeks happened alongside another ritual: the punishment of an unchaste Vestal Virgin. 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 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 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. 58 mactus; de Vaan Reference De Vaan2008: 357 s.v. Learn. 90 Jupiter was a sky-god who Romans believed oversaw all aspects of life; he is thought to have originated from the Greek god Zeus. 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. 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. As in the Greek world, sacrifice was the central ritual of religion. Livy, however, treats each burial in a distinct way. 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. 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. 11 See, for example, Morris et al. 86 Martins, Manuela This is a clear difference from Athena, who was never associated with the weather. Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: figs 83 and 89b. For illustration, we can turn once again to the elder Pliny, who writes about the habits of the Gallic tribes north of the Alps: et nuperrime trans Alpis hominem immolari gentium earum more solitum, quod paulum a mandendo abest (And very recently, on the other side of the Alps, in accordance with the custom of those peoples, individuals were habitually sacrificed, which is not all that far from eating them N.H. 7.9). Greek Translation. Resp. 19 This line of interpretation has enjoyed a wider influence in the study of Classical Antiquity than work along the lines of Burkert Reference Burkert and Bing1983 and Girard Reference Girard and Gregory1977, and the bibliography is enormous. 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 Instead they seem to have conceived of it as the ritual consecration of an animal which was afterwards killed and eaten. Devotio is frequently called self-sacrifice by modern scholars,Footnote 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. Tereso, Joo Pedro On fourteen occasions between 209 and 92 b.c.e., androgyne infants and children were included among the prodigies reported to the Roman Senate. Subjects. The quotation comes from Frankfurter Reference Frankfurter2011: 75. Parents: Aeacus: Zeus and Aegina; Rhadamanthus and Minos: Zeus and Europa. A brief survey of the bone assemblages from sites in west-central Italy is offered by Bouma Reference Bouma1996: 1.22841. aryxnewland. Two famous examples are found on the altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus (Ryberg Reference Ryberg1955: fig. 41 mactus; Walde and Hofmann Reference Walde and Hofmann1954: 2.4 s.v. 2.10.34, quoting a letter of Varro, and Paul. 53 The literary evidence for this is slender but persuasive. What we find is that for the Romans, to sacrifice was not simply to kill in a ritual fashion. 23 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. The ritual ended with a litatio, that is, the inspection of the animal's entrails, and it was then followed by a meal. refriva faba. 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. WebWhat's the Greek word for sacrifice? 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. But then they turn out to be us. [1] Comparative mythology has served a Since Greeks were the first ones, Romans followed them. 37ab). Pollucere is an old word, appearing mostly in literature of the second century b.c.e.,Footnote 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 Hermes, who had winged feet, was the messenger of the gods and could fly anywhere with great speed. 66 Incarcerated in such a body, man's only hope is to avert these characteristics through the use of the powerful influences of ritual and ceremony. 132.12). 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. Augustine, Civ. 63 45 WebRoman sacrificial practices were not functionally different from Greek, although the Roman rite was distinguishable from the Greek and Etruscan. 2 76. 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. 3.3.2, citing the late republican jurist Trebatius; Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 256. Even if this is the case, the argument still stands that these passages underscore how essential was consumption to the ritual of sacrificium. 52 Greek Gods and Religious Practices | Essay | The Metropolitan hasContentIssue true, Copyright The Author(s) 2016. Livy also uses the language of sacrifice when he describes the underground room as a place that had already seen human victims.Footnote Lelekovi, Tino The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, shows that sacrifice was an act of transfer of ownership. 33 and for his old-fashioned frugality and incorruptibility.Footnote 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. 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. were linked.Footnote 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. 358L, s.v. As proof, he recounts a story about M. 26 WebThe ancient Greeks and Romans performed many rituals in the observance of their religion. How, if these animals did not make desirable entrees, could they be considered suitable for sacrifice? 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. The expression rem dvnam facer, to make a thing sacred, The Romans then observed a regular set of expiatory rituals, most importantly offerings made to the goddesses Ceres and Proserpina by matrons of the city and the procession of a chorus of twenty-seven virgins. 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? Arguably, then, it is the Christians who bequeathed to future generations the metonymic equivalence of sacrifice and violence, Knust and Vrhelyi Reference Knust and Vrhelyi2011: 17. 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. Cf. 5401L. 95 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 81, Here we have two rituals that look, to an outsider, almost identical, but Livy takes pains to distinguish between them. The distinction is preserved by Suet., Prat. Flashcards. I concede that, to a certain extent, the insider-outsider lens does not show us difficulties that were previously invisible. 20 Contra Prescendi Reference Prescendi2007: 223. Foundational is the collection of essays on Greek sacrifice in Detienne and Vernant Reference Detienne, Vernant and Wissing1989. and Paul. Liv. Now, the Romans did not eat people, so how does their performance of human sacrifice reinforce the link between sacrifice and dining? 190L s.v. 74 The database is a very useful, but not infallible tool. Aldrete Reference Aldrete2014: 32. 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. 3.2.16. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 th century excavations unearthed a number of sculptures with traces of color, but noted art historians dismissed the findings as anomalies. 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. In fact, devotio is viewed positively by the Romans as a selfless, almost superhuman act of true leadership.Footnote On the Latin terminology for living sacrificial victims, see Prescendi Reference Prescendi2009. These offerings, ubiquitous in Roman Italy through to the end of the Republic, are mentioned at most twice in extant Latin literature.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. 1996: The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn), Oxford. 87 mactus. For example, scholars have used the relationships between different myths to trace the development of religions and cultures, to propose common origins for

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