Gods and Cult
1. Divinities
Nature of the divine
in Greaco-Roman Culture
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Variety of divinities – major (Mars, Jupiter, June etc)
and minor
some had many responsibilities other one narrowly
defined:
Some more popular than others, i.e. god Silvanus, a
rural god appears in over 1100 inscriptions from
Western Roman Empire
Often many versions: Juno Lacina, goddess of
childbirth - very different from the martial Juno
worshipped in Rome. Wearing goatskin cloak, spear
and shield
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Some deities are aspects of the physical world; not
anthropomorphised
Categories: perceptible by intellect or perceptible by
senses: Neptune/Poseidon – represented as both: The
actual sea itself - it can be touched,
And the god Neptune/Poseidon – the god of the sea
Some gods – shade into abstractions, i.e.
Aphrodite/Venus; Fortuna (Fortune),
Some just abstract concepts: Spes (Hope), Pietas
(Piety), etc.
terms for divinities
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Greek Theos/thea - theoi
Latin deus/dea
- di
Often ancient writers do not distinguish between the gods
and god in the same passage
Other terms: Greek - daimon, heros
Heros (hero, heroes) intermediary between divine and human
- Romans very little evidence of this category (perhaps to
some extent the manes or divi parentes (gods Manes/spirits
of the underworld or deified ancestors)
some characters from Roman myths associated with already
existing Italian Gods: Aeneas = Indiges; Romulus = Quirinus
Latin: numen, genius
daimones
Many uses of term - includes gods, guardian
Spirits, spirits of the dead, sometimes even souls
of living; Socrates: gods – daimones
 Christians reserved – theos or deus for what
they regarded the one and true god
 Christian used of daimon (daemon) for the
Graeco-Roman deities – whom they considered
malevolent spirits
 Hence the English ‘demon’ - acquired a negative
connotation
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Heros (hero)
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Poetry - the great heroes of myth (i.e. Achilles,
Odysseus), legends – hence English hero, heroes
A hero (heros) – of worship = denotes a human being
who continues to exert power after death and has to be
propitiated through prayers and offerings.
A hero commonly has a divine and a human parent and
is mortal – he dies
Traditionally: founders of cities, and some figures from
myth
Hero more important in Greek mythology and religion
than in Roman
numen
Divine power
 Divine will
 Some writers used it as almost a synonym
for deus especially when referring to deity
of somewhat uncertain identity
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genius
Originally the divine alter-ego or guardian
spirit of an individual (usually male)
 Guardian spirit of female often – iuno
 Over time genius used more widely and
was applied to any locality or institution
 i.e. particular buildings, mountains,
springs, woods, etc., - became guardian
spirits of places
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Cult (cultus) – religious action
Any religious action – form of communication with the
divine
 Cultus central to Roman religion
 English term cult - negative overtones
 Latin cultus – worship (the various practices and rituals
employed in worship)
 Enormous range of practices in Rome
 Emphasis on correct repetitions of formulae
 Main forms: 1. request for benefits from gods, i.e. in
prayers, sacrifices and other offerings
 2. Divinations or interpretation of messages from the
gods
 3. rituals – such as purifications and initiations which in
various ways transformed a person’s situation with
respect to the divine
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Prayers
Oral, often improvised to fit occasion,
 Best sources – literary, poems written in
form of prayers, or descriptive narratives
 Most traditional prayers for public cults
lost
 Evidence suggests the following format:
began with invocation that detailed god’s
name, functions, qualities.
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Ritual continued
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Followed by central section: reasons why deity should
grant request: i.e. evidence of person’s devotion, piety,
appeals to god’s beneficence, or reminder of his past
blessings, etc.,
This Section also contained the vow: the promise of
offering
Final part – the petition, ranging from specific request
such as – please help my child recover from illness – to
general appeal - look at us favourably,
Often focus on first part - expressed in lengthy hymns
(Greek hymnos) focus of hymns to praise more than on
the petition i.e. Homeric hymns to Dionysios, Demeter,
reciprocity
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Do ut des -” I grant you this, so that you will give me
that in exchange.”
Quid pro quo - idea - I offer you a benefit and ask for
one in return
Concept must be understood in the context of a culture
(Graeco-Roman) where social relationships are based on
reciprocal benefits
See this already in Homer’s epics – gift-giving and giftreceiving central to relationships
Rome: when benefit given, the person who receives the
benefit owes - gratia - and can be called upon to return
the benefit
Forms of offerings
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wide range – flowers, cakes, incense,
Libations = liquids – wine most common,
Milk, oil, honey, even water
Blood sacrifice – very common: the ritual slaughter of an
animal - domestic (sheep, pig, cow) = symbol of piety
Emperors often shown making sacrifices, displaying their
pietas (duty and affection for the gods)
Neither the emperor or any other magistrate/priest
carried out the actual slaughter of a victim which was
considered a pollution – that was done by the victiarius ,
normally a slave – an individual who stood outside
society.
Marcus Aurelius (161-180 CE)
performing a sacrifice
The Sacrifice
Elaborate ritual
Procession – victim led to the altar
 Altar normally outdoors in front of a temple
 Symbolic purification of space around altar
 Call for ritual silence
 Musicians played pipes to drown out unwanted noises
 Preliminary offer of grain (Greeks), incense (Roman). In
the previous image – emperor throws grains of incense
onto small brazier next to big altar
 Followed by the actual killing of animal – performed by a
professional victiarius who also carved up carcass
 A portion offered to the deity, rest cooked on spot and
all had a feast
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Communicating with the gods
Basic elements of sacrifice same in Greece
and Rome
 Romans covered heads when sacrificing to
express piety
 Prayers and sacrifice – the two ways
people communicated with the gods
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Divination
Believed gods communicated with humans
Divination – interpretation of divine communication
 Wide variety of forms:
 Oracles were consulted – Romans went to Delphi just
like the Greeks
 interpretation of dreams;
 observation of the flight of birds;
 interpretation of prodigies (unusual events seen as
significant) and as messages from the gods that needed
to be interpreted – i.e. by haruspices or Sybilline books
 Christians and Muslims consider practice of divination as
mere fortune telling
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Divination
not an attempt to see into the future
 Romans believed divination would give
people insight into the will and mood of
gods
 Whether gods opposed an action or
supported it
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The Function of Ordinary Roman
Sacrifice
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pietas – a combination of duty and affection to the
gods ( also to family members, friends, patrons, etc.)
 Sacrifice demonstrates pietas
 Sacrifice cleanses both vitium (intended
transgression) and impietas (unintended
transgression)
 Pietas legitimized the right of individuals to govern;
Role of magistrates: to maintain the pax deorum
(peace of the gods)
 pietas as expressed in (expressed in public acts of
sacrificial devotion) of Rome’s magistrates
guaranteed the favor of the gods and therefore the
welfare of the state
Roman Blood Sacrifice
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Roman religious ritual turned on offering the
blood of sacrificial victims in exchange for
goodwill of the gods
Under exceptional circumstances this could
include human victims - devotio
devotio could be a self-sacrifice – a vow made
by a commander before a campaign in return for
a victory.
Three times in the late Republic 228, 216, 113
BCE, Romans buried two Gauls and two Greeks
alive in the Forum Boarium
Executions in the arena including those of
conclusions
These three cult practices: prayer,
sacrifice, divination – common to almost
all religious traditions in Roman empire
 2 other common practices:
 Purification - rituals to remove pollution
(i.e. Blood crimes)
 Initiation – ritual which put individual into
privileged relationship with deity
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conclusions
Cult activities not restricted to specific times or
places
 People incorporated prayers and sacrifices into
wide variety of daily activities
 Basic beliefs implied by practices: belief in
the existence of superhuman forces that were
concerned with human behaviour and
responded to human intervention and
communicated with human world
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