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147
the attendant to slip is compounded when the palm frond he is carrying touches the blood
and is defiled.238
The Sacrificial Banquet
Though the point is not often stressed in studies of sacrifice, tactility was of equal
importance in the portion of the rites that followed the completion of the sacrificial ritual:
consumption. The topic of post-sacrificial feasting in the ancient world is a rich one.
Even if I were to confine my consideration solely to Roman evidence, as John Scheid
says the topic “presents a complex problem, since there was a vast array of different
procedures.”239 For this reason, I will be concerned in this chapter with a few very
specific aspects of the sacrificial banquet that have particular bearing on my analysis of
the roles of touch and taste in sacrifice.
Prior to this point, I have focused on the tactility of sacrifice, especially of ritual
touching involving the animal and its organs. Nowhere in what I have presented thus far
has the taste of the sacrificial offerings been addressed. It was during the feasts that
followed the sacrifices that the sense of taste came to play an important ritual role. As
with touch, the sense of taste is highly ephemeral - one could even call it immediate and
238 Dio Cass. 46.33. τά τε ἱερὰ τὰ προπολέμια οἱ μάντεις οὐκ ἠδυνήθησαν ὑπὸ τοῦ πλήθους τοῦ
αἵματος διαγνῶναι. καί τις ἐν τούτῳ φοίνικα αὐτῷ προσφέρων ἔν τε τῷ αἵματι τῷ προκεχυμένῳ
ὤλισθε καὶ πεσὼν τὸν φοίνικα ἐμίανεν. The same inauspicious prodigy is reported by Obsequens (Prod.
69). This dire sign presaged the fatal wound Pansa was to receive in the battle against Antony. Obsequens
takes the evil omen as applying specifically to Pansa, whereas Dio states that because of his role as consul,
the omen applies to the Roman people in their entirety: “Now if they had befallen him when a private
citizen, they would have pertained to him alone, but since he was consul, they had a bearing on all alike”
(Dio Cass. 46.33) (transl. Cary 1961, LCL). ἀλλ᾽ εἰ μὲν ἰδιωτεύοντί οἱ συνενήνεκτο, ἐς μόνον ἂν αὐτὸν
ἔτεινεν, ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ὑπάτευε, καὶ ἐς πάντας ὁμοίως ἤνεγκεν.
239 Scheid 2007, 267. See V. Huet (2004-06) and Scheid (2007) for selected bibliography on the topic. For
general information on Roman dining, see L. Adkins and R. Adkins 1994, 342-43.
Object Description
| Title | Making sense of sacrifice: Sensory experience in Greco-Roman cult |
| Author | Weddle, Candace Cherie |
| Author email | candaceweddle@gmail.com; weddle@usc.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Art History |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2011-03-04 |
| Date submitted | 2011 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2011-04-27 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Pollini, John |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Yasin, Ann Marie Bitel, Lisa |
| Abstract | Performing a sacrifice was one of the most sensorially full actions undertaken in the Greco-Roman world. The production and control of the correct movements, scents and sounds were prerequisites for summoning, communicating with and propitiating deities. Sacrifice was also ubiquitous, occurring on an almost continual basis as a range of sacrificial activities were celebrated publicly and privately in a variety of locations in urban areas. Cultivating a multi-sensory understanding of the full range of sensory elements that accompanied ancient cult rites – visual and auditory cues, things smelled, tasted and touched - provides a platform for achieving a more thorough knowledge of the meanings of the rites.; This dissertation examines the archaeological, literary and epigraphical evidence for the role of the senses in Greek and Roman sacrifice in order to analyze the social and ritual importance of the senses, the impact of sacrificial rituals within ancient urban spaces, and the sensory experience of the ancient worshiper. Given the ephemeral nature of much of the evidence for sensory elements of worship, as well as the subjectivity inherent in representations of sensory experience in literature and art, this dissertation argues for the necessity of crossing disciplinary boundaries in order to appreciate the sensory impact of ancient sacrifice. Therefore, in addition to utilizing traditional historical and art historical approaches, methodological tools from the field of anthropology and evidence from studies in the animal behavioral sciences and consumer sciences are employed. For example, I suggest that greater understanding of the experience of ancient sacrifice may be acquired through an autoethnographic investigation of modern religious sacrifice. To that end, I analyze my experience of the slaughter of large numbers of bovines during the Islamic Kurban Bayram sacrifices in Istanbul to make suggestions concerning certain elements of the sensory experience of ancient blood sacrifice. I focus not only on the sensory experience of humans participating in (or within range of) sacrifices, but also on that of the animal victims. Given the immense ritual importance of the behavior of sacrificial animals in antiquity, I suggest that it is possible to identify some sensory aspects of the sacrificial process that may have been intentionally manipulated in order to control the reactions of the victims as far as possible.; Particular attention is paid to mundane aspects of the process of sacrifice not often addressed in ancient literary sources or represented in art that would have resulted in notable sensory impacts on areas surrounding urban temples, for example the removal of sacrificial refuse. I conclude not only that these elements of sacrifice formed an important part of the sensory experience of Greco-Roman cult, but also that their effects were more far-reaching – in terms both of how great an area they affected and how long they lasted – than has previously been recognized. Using fresh interdisciplinary approaches to well-known examples of texts and images, this dissertation employs a more visceral approach to the study of the sensory experience of ancient sacrifice than is possible when considering textual and archaeological evidence alone. |
| Keyword | archaeology; autoethnography; cult; Greece; religion; Rome; sacrifice; senses |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Rome |
| Geographic subject (country) | Italy; Greece |
| Coverage date | circa -0600/0600 |
| Coverage era | Greco Roman |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m3788 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Weddle, Candace Cherie |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Weddle-4363 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume48/etd-Weddle-4363.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 165 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 147 the attendant to slip is compounded when the palm frond he is carrying touches the blood and is defiled.238 The Sacrificial Banquet Though the point is not often stressed in studies of sacrifice, tactility was of equal importance in the portion of the rites that followed the completion of the sacrificial ritual: consumption. The topic of post-sacrificial feasting in the ancient world is a rich one. Even if I were to confine my consideration solely to Roman evidence, as John Scheid says the topic “presents a complex problem, since there was a vast array of different procedures.”239 For this reason, I will be concerned in this chapter with a few very specific aspects of the sacrificial banquet that have particular bearing on my analysis of the roles of touch and taste in sacrifice. Prior to this point, I have focused on the tactility of sacrifice, especially of ritual touching involving the animal and its organs. Nowhere in what I have presented thus far has the taste of the sacrificial offerings been addressed. It was during the feasts that followed the sacrifices that the sense of taste came to play an important ritual role. As with touch, the sense of taste is highly ephemeral - one could even call it immediate and 238 Dio Cass. 46.33. τά τε ἱερὰ τὰ προπολέμια οἱ μάντεις οὐκ ἠδυνήθησαν ὑπὸ τοῦ πλήθους τοῦ αἵματος διαγνῶναι. καί τις ἐν τούτῳ φοίνικα αὐτῷ προσφέρων ἔν τε τῷ αἵματι τῷ προκεχυμένῳ ὤλισθε καὶ πεσὼν τὸν φοίνικα ἐμίανεν. The same inauspicious prodigy is reported by Obsequens (Prod. 69). This dire sign presaged the fatal wound Pansa was to receive in the battle against Antony. Obsequens takes the evil omen as applying specifically to Pansa, whereas Dio states that because of his role as consul, the omen applies to the Roman people in their entirety: “Now if they had befallen him when a private citizen, they would have pertained to him alone, but since he was consul, they had a bearing on all alike” (Dio Cass. 46.33) (transl. Cary 1961, LCL). ἀλλ᾽ εἰ μὲν ἰδιωτεύοντί οἱ συνενήνεκτο, ἐς μόνον ἂν αὐτὸν ἔτεινεν, ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ὑπάτευε, καὶ ἐς πάντας ὁμοίως ἤνεγκεν. 239 Scheid 2007, 267. See V. Huet (2004-06) and Scheid (2007) for selected bibliography on the topic. For general information on Roman dining, see L. Adkins and R. Adkins 1994, 342-43. |
