SACRIFICES FOR GODS AND ANCESTORS IN ANCIENT ROME

Sacrifice was at the heart of most acts of cult worship. Depending on the context and on the divinities being honored, there was great variety in the way a sacrifice was performed, in its use of incense, liquid libations, vegetal offerings, or animal victims. The particulars of a sacrifice were equally influenced by the ritual context of all the great religious ceremonies.

The Sacrificial Rite

Sacrifices took place in an open space, in front of the community concerned. In the realms of civic worship, it was celebrated in front of the temple, near a raised altar within the cult space. In the domestic setting, this altar, either permanent or temporary, was installed in one of the communal spaces of the house, the atrium or the peristyle. By contrast, for sacrifices of divination and defixiones, which were intended to be secret, more isolated, unfrequented surroundings were sought, either a remote area or a burial site. The sacrifice was offered by those who held authority within that particular community: the father, as head of the family, in the domestic sphere, the head (magister) of a college, the annual magistrates, or the public priests within a city. The sacrificer was assisted by freeborn young men, porters, and slaves who took charge of the practical arrangements.

Whether it concerned the public religion or private cults, the sacrifice usually began at the start of the civic day, at sunrise, on the edge of the cult area. By contrast, sacrifices considered “magic” were celebrated at night, far from all civic participation. The sacrificers and assistants bathed or washed themselves beforehand. In the “Roman,” that is, “traditional,” version of the rite, the official dress was the toga, which indicated a citizen, draped in such a way as to leave the arms free and forma kind of hood or veil covering the head (cinctus Gabinus; see Dubourdieu 1986). In the “Greek” ritual, the sacrificer was bare-headed and often wore a laurel wreath. The animal victims, always domestic animals (cattle, sheep, swine, more rarely goats), were washed, dressed with ribbons and bands of wool in either white or scarlet, their horns gilded and sometimes decorated with a disc (in the case of cattle), while the backs of pigs and cattle were covered with a fringed coverlet.

In the Roman ritual, the male gods received castrated male animals (with the exception of Mars, Neptune, Janus, and the Genius), and the goddesses received female victims (see Krause 1931). The age of the victim varied according to the social status of those making the sacrifice and the hierarchy among the divinities. In principle, adult victims were more suitable for public worship. The gods above received white victims, those below or connected with the night received victims with dark hides, while Vulcan and Robigo received red. In certain sacrifices to Tellus or Ceres, pregnant cows were offered. Sows were generally used in cases of expiation or funerary rituals. Other animals were used for special rites, like the horse in the October equus (October 15), the dog in the Robigo sacrifice (April 25), or the white cockerel in the cult of Aesculapius. Remains found on altars in Pompeii and some scholarly records tell us that birds and fish were equally likely. In the domestic context, other kinds of victims could be used according to family custom. Finally, for sacrifices associated with ritual spells, the ingredients varied according to the aim and the particulars of the rite, in which exoticism always played a part.

Fruit, grain, or dairy offerings were carried by assistants in baskets, liquid offerings in jugs, and incense in boxes. We do not know how the offerings of produce were selected and prepared. They could include, for example, spelt (far), barley-meal porridge (polenta), leavened bread, dry figs, cheeses, spelt porridge (alica), sesame, and oil. A salted flour called mola salsa, which was used in most public sacrifices, was prepared by the Vestal Virgins for the Lupercalia (February 15), the Vestalia (June 9) and the Ides of September (September 13; see C. Koch 1932). We do not know if the mola prepared by the Vestals was used in all sacrifices, or just in the public sacrifices in Rome. We know almost nothing about the particulars of public sacrifice in the colonies and municipia, since texts on this topic, describing the precise manner of the rites, are few. Therefore, the presumption that the ritual there was the same as that in Rome is pure conjecture. The gradual elucidation of this question now rests with archaeological study.

Once the preparations were in order, a procession made its way toward the altar of the divinity to be honored. Surrounded by his assistants, the sacrificer approached the altar. The sacrifice began with the sound of a flute, sometimes also a lyre. It started with the offering of incense and wine in the fire of a circular, portable hearth. The hearth used to transmit the offering to the deity represented, to some extent, the identity of the person performing the sacrifice, and so too the community involved. We do not know what the rituals were for lighting the altar fires. On the whole, the sources do not specify which divinities were honored in this opening ritual (the verb used is praefari). In the sacrificial instructions of Cato, the preliminary libation is addressed to Jupiter, Janus, and Vesta while in other cases, we see that the divinity concerned with the sacrifice is also included. The rite was doubtless addressed to a number of interested divinities, from which those sacrificing sometimes extracted a particular figure that was more directly relevant. We might suppose that it involved a summary of the rites which were to follow, by which the intention was also expressed. As such, libation is one of the key subjects in images of sacrifice, and comes to signify “pietas.”

After this introductory ritual, the sacrificer proceeded to the immolation (immolatio) of the victim (see Latte 1914). In the “Roman” rite, he scattered the back of the victim with salted flour (mola salsa, from which the term in-molatio is derived), pouring a small amount of wine on the animal’s forehead, and, finally, passed the knife over its back. From the prayers that accompanied immolation and the comments of Roman scholars, we can conclude that this ritual signified the consecrationof the victim. In the “Greek” variant of the ritual, the sacrificer sprinkled water over the victim, cut a hair from its brow, and scattered the animal with cereal grains (ritus Graecus; Scheid 1995, 2005c: 87–122). With these exchanges complete, the sacrificer gave the order to a ritual executioner to “act” (agere). In the case of cattle, this meant stunning the animal then bleeding it. Smaller animals simply had their throats cut. In theory, the victim was required to show its consent, usually by nodding its head, and it was often attached to a halter running through a ring at the base of the altar, so its head could make, with the aid of the sacrificer, the gesture of acquiescence. All signs of fear and panic by the victim, as well as any disturbance, were not allowed during the ceremony, since they were regarded as unfavorable omina.

With their throats cut, the animals were turned onto their backs and opened up. With the help of his assistants, especially the haruspex, the sacrificer confirmed that the offering had been accepted by the divinity (see Bouché-Leclercq 1882: 862, 893ff.). The god’s approval (litatio) was signified by the normal appearance of the exta, which, at the end of the republican period, were seen as comprised of five internal organs: the liver, the lungs, the gall-bladder, the peritoneum, and the heart. If the sacrifice was approved, the rites continued. If the exta contained any abnormalities, the sacrifice was annulled and the rites had to start over again with other victims (instaurare), and possibly repeated until approval was obtained (usque ad litationem). In certain types of sacrifice, the exta were inspected, following the Etruscan practice, in order to make predictions of the future (haruspicatio).

The Offering and the Banquet

Once this stage was completed, the victim was divided up. The parts due to the divinity (the exta, the vital organs) were set aside to cook in a pot (in the case of cattle victims) or roasted on a spit (sheep and pigs). It was for this reason that the temples always contained a kitchen area. After cooking, the sacrificer turned out the divine portion, duly sprinkled with mola salsa and wine, onto the sacrificial fire which burned on the altar. Offerings to aquatic deities were plunged in water. Those for chthonic deities (for example, the Lares) or those connected with the Underworld, were thrown onto the ground, where they were cooked on the earth or in a ditch. All of these gestures were accompanied by prayers which explicitly stated who was making the offering, who was receiving it, and who would reap the reward for the ritual; thus, in public sacrifices, the prayer always contained the formula “for the Roman people” (Paul. Fest. 59 L).

Sacrificial rites were often much more complicated than these basic gestures. The offering could include other parts of the victim; and some of the offering could be cooked in a more elaborate way and laid out on a table inside the temple. These additional elements should be seen in relation to the ritual of lectisternium (Nouilhan 1989). In this ritual, the statues of the gods or of their attributes were placed on dining couches in order to “consume” the ritual offerings on the table before them, while the goddesses “dined” seated in chairs (sellisternium; see Schnegg-Köhler 2002: 34–42 and commentaries). This method of celebration became morewidespread, and from around the first century AD appeared in a more simplified form as the permanent display of padded couches (puluinaria) in the majority of public temples. It is from this period that we also find in temples the tables on which the additional offerings were made.

Thanks to the instructions of the Fratres Arvales, we know that the banquet for the divinity was sometimes more elaborate. It involved, at least on certain occasions, two courses (mensae); a meat course and a second course of sweetened wine and cake, in the manner of a symposium, during which the statue of the divinity was crowned and daubed with perfume (Scheid 1990: 623–30). If it is presumed that, in the cult space and ritual practices, one deity was often associated with other divinities, and that parts of the “banquet,” perhaps those that came from the additional sacrifices (with victims of an inferior status), were offered to the divine guests of the titular deity of the place, then we may also suppose that a sacrifice took a good deal longer than the laconic formulae of the epigraphic or historical documents might often suggest. During this phase of the sacrifice, the officials consumed nothing (Scheid 2004). The divinity was always the first to receive her share of the sacrificial offering and did this either alone or with divine companions. During these proceedings, the sacrificer, his aides, and other assistants had to wait. In certain cases, the communities (for example priests, or even the Roman senate during the votive sacrifices at the beginning of the year) made use of this waiting period by organizing discussions concerning the cult or decisions to be taken within that particular group (for example, the election of the president of the sacerdotal college or the preparation of the formula for new vows to be announced after the completion of the votive sacrifices).

When the sacrificial offering had been consumed by the flames, thrown into a stream, or disposed of in a pit, the rest of the victim was touched by the sacrificer and so rendered fit for human consumption. The same procedure held for liquid offering and, without doubt, for offerings of produce (porridge, cakes, bread, etc.). Through these gestures, the sacrificer announced that he was not consuming a sacred food, but one that the divinity had, in a sense, agreed to share with him, or had granted to him, according to the principle of reciprocal gift-giving between men and gods. We see, however, that in minor sacrifices, offered in the course of a meal, the order was reversed: in such cases, it was the gods who received a share of the mortals’ food.

The victims offered to the gods of the Underworld were burnt up completely (holocaust), since the living could not share food with the patron divinities of the world of the dead. “Magic” sacrifices, offered in order to influence a divinity, often employed holocaust, since they were generally aimed at Underworld gods. In light of the particular results expected from these rites, the offerings and the general context differed from those of the everyday rituals.

The consumption of meat (accompanied by bread and mixed wine), or of liquid offerings, by those performing the sacrifice presents a complex problem, since there was a vast array of different procedures. The single overriding principle which governed sacrificial banquets was that of hierarchy and privilege. Those overseeing and carrying out the sacrifice generally ate their share straightaway, at community expense. During certain festivals, executive groups banqueted at public expense(publice) in particular cult spaces. And so, at the time of the Epulum Iouis, the great sacrifice to the Capitoline triad on September 13 and November 13, the senators took part in a sacrificial banquet on the Capitol, under the gaze of the three divinities of the Capitoline temple. For those participants not in a privileged position, the rules were different. With few exceptions – for example, at the altar of Hercules – most citizens did not take part in “public” sacrificial banquets held at public expense. No doubt they had to buy their share, either during the rite itself or from the butcher, unless a benefactor offered them some of the meat and the bread and wine that went with it. At many of the public sacrifices in Rome, there was room only for a banquet restricted to the celebrants. In smaller communities, for example the immediate neighborhood, the college, or the family, the relationship between sacrifice and banquet was more immediate: the sacrifice that was offered was eaten there and then, or at least divided and distributed in order to be taken away, or its equivalent value in money. Sacrifices at the Great Altar of Hercules, in the Forum Boarum, were unusual. They began, like all sacrifices, in the morning and included a first banquet bringing together the sacrificers, and perhaps also the senators (at least on the major occasion, August 12). In the evening, a second banquet took place, to which all citizens, with the exception of women, were invited. These banquets were famous, since none of the meat from the sacrifice was allowed to remain at the end of the day, and none of it could be removed from the cult precinct.

One particular, but very common type of sacrifice was that offered during a public or private meal. Between the first and second course, incense and wine were offered, along with a share of the banquet or other special offerings. This sacrifice was probably the most common of those performed in the domestic context. At all banquets, a sacrifice of this type was addressed to the Lares, to the Penates, and, from the first century BC onward, to the Genius Augusti. These sacrifices clearly highlight the connection between the ritual and food: the sacrificers reclined on dining couches (triclinia) during the offering, and shared their banquet with the gods.

During certain special rituals like the great lectisternia that were introduced in Rome in 399 BC, all the heads of household would celebrate banquets in their homes, to which they invited neighbors and passers-by: in this way they proclaimed their hospitality, which they also offered to the gods they were intending to thank or appease. A sacrificial meal seems to have been required in the cult of Mithras in the imperial period, because the locations designed for Mithraic cult practice appear in the form of a large triclinium with an altar at the far end. The initiates banqueted, and water and bread were offered as well as wine. The blood sacrifice was almost certainly performed outside the ritual “cavern.” Recent studies of a mithraeum have begun to uncover the first remains of these sacrifices and banquets (see Martens 2004a, 2004b; R. Turcan 1980, 1989: 227–34). From what we know, a part of the public rites celebrated during the Ludi Megalenses, in honor of the Great Mother (April 4–10) consisted of closed banquets: the great families of Rome formed sodalities in order to dine, no doubt with the goddess, on the festival’s high day, April 4, at great banquets called mutitationes (“dinner invitations”). Besides the mutitationes, a magistrate offered a public sacrifice. “Phrygian” sacrifices performed by the goddess’s own priests will not be discussed here.

We know that the cult worship of Syrian gods involved sacrifices, but we do not know how these were performed. In light of certain religious regulations, we might suppose that they included rules for particular levels of purity. Judging from the equipment found in cult spaces sacred to Isis, it appears that sacrifice was performed there too. We also know of libations of water and offerings of incense. But the details of the services are largely unknown. In the case of all the cults imported to Rome, the processions and spectacular rituals of ecstasis and self-mutilation are better attested in the sources than the sacrificial rites are, most probably because these practices did not deviate to any great extent from the traditional Roman sacrifices.

Human sacrifice is not entirely unheard of in Rome. As part of a ritual repeated several times in the course of the last two centuries of the republic, Roman authorities offered to the gods of the Underworld representatives of the enemies of the Roman people: a pair of Greeks and a pair of Gauls, who were buried alive. It was in a similar manner that Romans solemnly dedicated besieged towns to the gods of the Underworld, or even, in the private sphere, with the rituals of defixio, their personal enemies. These examples clearly show that, on occasion, the Romans resorted to human sacrifice in order to shift the balance in the relationship between mortals and immortals, by granting to the latter absolute power over other mortals.

Great sacrificial liturgies often concluded with games (ludi), either theatrical performances or circus races, which often bore the name of the festival. And so the Roman Games or the Plebeian Games were in fact the conclusion to the Epulum Iovis. According to the sources, the epulum of Jupiter was preceded by nine days of theatrical ludi and followed by four days of chariot racing in the Circus Maximus.

Current archaeology has begun to bring to light the remains of sacrificial rituals (Legouilloux 2000 (Hecatomb in Paestum); Jouin and Méniel 2001; M. Robinson 2002; Van Andringa 2003). Interpreting these finds is not always easy, and the difference between the remains of banquets and of sacrificial offerings is still difficult to distinguish on the ground. But already new questions are being raised, and stages of development are becoming apparent, for example in the Celtic provinces where sacrificial practices seem to have changed during the Roman period, from disposing of victims’ remains in pits to burning parts of the animal on an altar.

The Interpretation of Sacrifice

According to ancient sources, the offerings made in the course of the initial libation of a sacrifice, the incense and unmixed wine, were closely connected with the nature of the gods. The act of offering was one of reverence, the incense to the immortality and supremacy of the gods, the wine to their divine sovereignty. By doing so, the sacrificers ritually proclaimed the immortality and superiority of the gods. It was, therefore, primarily a sacrificial ritual which did not involve the sharing of food. In a sense, it involved offering to the gods the food which was reserved for them. Because of this, a libation of incense and wine could constitute an act of worship in itself.

In times of danger or celebration, for example after a victory, Romans, wearing wreaths and carrying laurel branches, made a tour of the cult sites with their wivesand children, in order to “supplicate” the gods. They threw themselves on their knees before them in order to beseech or thank them, in a manner indicating their submission. Incense and wine were offered and matrons knelt down to sweep the steps of the temples with their hair. This supplication dramatized the initial ritual of libation at a sacrifice, which was a solemn address to the gods, extending it, in a spectacular and “realist” way, to all the gods in Rome.

The study of known rituals (which is generally concerned with public rites), ritual vocabulary, and those comments gleaned from ancient sources show that Roman sacrifice was, to ancient eyes, first and foremost, a banquet. To sacrifice was to eat with the gods, conforming to the principles of reciprocity which governed ancient society. To sacrifice was to divide food into two parts, one of which was returned to the gods, the other given to mortals. A sacrifice established and represented, through the sharing of food between gods and men, the superiority and immortality of the former and the mortality and pious submission of the latter. The traditional Roman sacrifice did not commemorate a particular event (as, for example, some rites of Ceres, Mithraic sacrifice, or the Christian Mass), it did not symbolize complete subjection to the god, nor did it attempt to incarnate the divinity. A sacrifice was a banquet, which offered men the opportunity to become familiar with their divine counterparts, to define their respective qualities and status, and, together, to address the matters in hand. Men could take advantage, for example, of the meeting to apologize for an accidental or unavoidable insult to the protecting role or dignity of the divinity (expiation), to make a request or give thanks (supplications), or even to contract agreements (vota). Epigraphic and archaeological evidence reveal that this practice was widespread and that it consisted, in most cases, of a promise for a sacrifice to a god in return for a favorable outcome. Unless they are themselves the object on which the agreement is recorded, votive offerings generally indicate the fulfillment of a votive promise, and thus divine benevolence.

Funerary Sacrifices

During Roman funerals, the separation between the living and the deceased was also marked by a sacrifice, and even, from the beginning of the first century AD, about which we have the most information, by several sacrifices. According to the sources, it appears that as soon as the body of the deceased was carried to the necropolis, the funeral rites proper began with a sacrifice (see Scheid 2005c, forthcoming a). Up to the time of Cicero, a sacrifice of a sow was made to Ceres in the presence of the corpse, and then divided between the goddess, the bereaved family, and the deceased. The portion assigned to the deceased was placed on a stake and cremated along with the body. The portion allotted to Ceres was burned on an altar and the family ate theirs on the spot. The offering was, in principle, a sow, but customs varied according to the date, the particular region in Italy, or the social milieu. For more modest funerals, a simple libation of wine, incense, and fruit or crops was sufficient. How these libations were divided between the participants is not known. However, the principle of the sacrifice was no doubt the same: the deceased had notyet entirely left his earthly community, and so could receive a share of a sacrificial victim with Ceres, who was not a goddess of the Underworld, and with his family.

Once the ashes or the body of the deceased were laid in the tomb, and as soon as the eight days of mourning were complete, the family gathered near the tomb to celebrate a second sacrifice. This one was addressed to the Manes of the deceased. As a consequence, the victim was burnt in its entirety on the ground. It appears that the family offered another sacrifice, to the Penates, which then gave way to a large sacrificial banquet at home, to which all the family, neighbors, and, in the case of grand funerals, the people of the local district or even the whole citizen body were invited. Whereas the first sacrifice established the first degree of separation between the deceased and the living, and because it ritually stated that the deceased could no longer eat his share around a table alongside the living, the second sacrifice was the definitive mark of their separation. From this point on, the living and the domestic gods could no longer share a sacrifice or food with him, and moreover, the deceased had now himself become the beneficiary of a sacrifice, in as much as he now formed part of the collective divinity, the Manes. And it was doubtless this sacrifice of separation and the sacrifice to the Penates that were repeated during the annual festival of the dead.

From archaeological study, more is known about funerary sacrificial rites than other kinds of sacrifice, since the remains of these rites are easier to identify than those in a temple or banqueting space. These remains reveal the great variety in these practices (see Fasold et al. 1998; Fasold and Witteyer 2001; Heinzelmann et al. 2001; Ortalli 2001). Some communities continued to perform animal sacrifices at funerals and the subsequent periodic funerary rites, while others seem to have replaced them with libations. Many things are still uncertain, but progress in current research should, in the not too distant future, provide a clearer picture of the variations between Rome, Italy, and the provinces.

By John Scheid in "A Companion to Roman Religion", edited by Jörg Rüpke, Wiley-Blackwell,UK, 2011, excerpts chapter 19. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.