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V. Rituals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
Extract
Nobody can doubt that rituals of various kinds were a crucial part of the interactions between men and women and gods and goddesses in the religion of Rome. Rituals marked all public events and celebrations: some of these we would classify as religious occasions – annual festivals, the taking and fulfilling of vows, the anniversaries of temple foundations; others as secular – elections, the assembly of legions for warfare, the census of Roman citizens; still others challenge our own criteria – the games, or dramatic performances, which certainly had ritual elements in the programme, even though we are inclined to regard entertainment as their primary purpose. It is important to see that these are our problems of interpretation: we have no reason to believe that the Romans made such distinctions or found the existence of different types of ritual in itself problematic.
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References
1 Hopkins (1991).
2 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 7.72.15-18.
3 Arnobius, Against the Gentiles 7, on whom see Liebeschuetz (1979), 254–60.
4 For these stages: Warde Fowler (1911), 179–91; RoR ii. 148–50 (including some visual evidence, on which see further Ryberg (1955)).
5 RoR i.36; ii.7.4b & d.
6 I Corinthians 8.10; Pliny, Letters 10.96.10= RoR ii.11.11b.
7 For a missing heart, see Cicero, On Divination 1.119.
8 For an occasion on which the sacrifice went wrong and never was successfully completed, see Livy 41.14.7 and 15.1-4 = RoR ii.7.4c.
9 Wallace-Hadrill (1987). For a discussion of the individual festivals Scullard (1981), useful as a collection of evidence but not to be trusted in its interpretations. For the month of April, RoR ii.60-77.
10 Varro, On the Latin Language 6.19, says that the name of Furrina, who had a festival in her honour (25th July), was almost unknown in his day.
11 See the list of festivals Table 5; omitted from the capital-letter list are some major deities (Jupiter, Mars, Juno and many others); but they do often receive honours at festivals not dedicated to them as Jupiter at the Vinalia (23rd April) or Mars at the Equus October (the October Horse) (15th October).
12 The distinction is clear from the reproduction of the calendar from Antium under RoR ii.3.2.
13 Beard (1987).
14 For Gelasius: Holleman (1974); Hopkins (1991); RoR ii.5.2e.
15 Ovid, Fasti 2.425-52.
16 Weinstock (1971), 331–40; RoR ii.5.2b.
17 Wiseman (1995), 77–88. Though it is surprising and not satisfactorily explained that the winner in this race should be Remus, not Romulus.
18 Ampolo (1988).
19 For the route: RoR ii.5.2d.
20 For this view: Plutarch, Life of Romulus 21.
21 Purification: Varro, On the Latin Language 6.34.
22 Fasti 2.267-452; see Feeney (1998), 120; 132.
23 Above n. 20.
24 Scullard (1981), 74–6 (13-22 February).
25 Scullard (1981), 205–7 (17-23 December).
26 The population of Rome is generally agreed to have reached one million by the time of Augustus. Much of this population must represent a constant flow of immigration from the countryside, and freed slaves.
27 RoR i.263.
28 Ludi: Scullard (1981), 183–6; Bernstein (1998); RoR i.66-7; 100–1.
29 They had to be repeated if there was the slightest error: Cicero, On the Response of the Haruspices 23; Bernstein (1998), 84–95.
30 The epulones, see Table 1; their creation MRR i.336; 338 (196 BC).
31 Hanson (1959).
32 Wooden theatres: Bernstein (1998), 301–3; at the Secular Games, RoR ii.5.7b.
33 For Pompey’s theatre: Hanson (1959), 43–55; Weinstock (1971), 80–7; RoR i.122-3.
34 Price (1987).
35 RoR ii.9.3b.
36 For the temples of the Divi, see above, p. 43.