Latin Ritual Terminology #1

(First part of a selection of excerpts from Sextus Pomponius Festus/his medieval Christian epitomator Paulus Diaconus; my translations and order. As I use only one source, and that an incompletely preserved one, this is only a partial overview of what is known of the terminology today.

When the text is confusing, the Latin is probably nearly as bad, although I will not claim that my translation is impeccable.)

A. Types of sacred rites (sacra)

‘Public sacra’: those which are held at public expense for the people, and those which are for mountains, districts, curias, or sacella (see below). And ‘private’ ones are those which are held for individual people, families, or clans.

‘Popular sacra’: those, as (Antistius) Labeo says, which all citizens hold, and which are not attributed to specific families: (e.g.) Forcanalia, Parilia, Laralia, the praecidian sow (on which in a future post).

‘Solemn sacra’: those which are habitually held at fixed times and in fixed years.

‘Secluded sacra’: what the Greeks call mysteries.

‘Curionia sacra’: those which used to take place in curias.

‘Consentia sacra’: those which are established from the consent of many.

B. Sacred things (sacra)

The ‘Sacred’ Mount (is the mountain) across the (river) Anio, a little beyond the third milestone (from Rome); when the common people, who had seceded from the patricians (to this mountain), scattered again after the plebeian tribunes had been established to be a help for them, they consecrated it to Jupiter.

     But a ‘sacred’ human is one whom the people have condemned because of a crime; it is not permitted (fas) for him to be killed (immolari), but, if someone does kill them, they are not convicted of parricide; because it is cautioned in the first tribunician law: “If someone has killed him who by plebiscite is sacred, he shall not be a parricide.” From which it is usual for any evil and vile person to be called sacred.

     Gallus Aetius says that ‘sacred’ is what is consecratum in whatever way and ordinance of the polity (civitatis), whether a temple (aedis), an alter (ara), a military banner (signum), a place, money, or whatever else that is dedicated and consecrated to the gods; but what private people dedicate of their things to a god because of their own piety (religionis), this the Roman pontiffs do not consider sacred. But when private sacra which by the pontiffs' ordinance are to be held on a certain day or in a certain place are somehow undertaken, these are called sacra in the sense of sacrifice (not sacred in the legal sense). The place where these private sacra are held hardly seems to be ‘sacred’.

‘Profane’: what is not sacred (sacrum). Plautus (frag. inc. 38): “Something sacred, if you keep it profane, is little regarded.”

‘Profane’: what is not bound by the religio of a shrine (fanum).

‘Religious’ is also (the same as) sacred, as all temples (templa), and ‘houses’ (aedes), which are also called consecrated (sacratae); […]

C. Religious attitude

‘Religious’: those who are conscientious in what divine things are to be done and to be omitted according to the usage (mos) of their society, and do not become entangled in superstitions.

‘Religious’ is someone who not only values the sanctity of the gods highly, but is also dutiful in respect to humans.

     But ‘religious days’ are those on which it used to be forbidden (nefas) to do anything (facere) that is not necessary; of this nature are the 36 so-called black (atri) days*, and the day of Allia (Alliensis)**, as well as those on which the mundus is open***.

     [The topic shifts back to religio in general:] Gallus Aelius says that it is not allowed to a human to do anything where, if they did do it, they would seem to do it against the will of the gods. Of this kind are the following: for a man to enter the temple of Bona Dea; to bring something to (the awareness of) the people (at large) against the rule of the mysteries; to bring a lawsuit to the praetor on a dies nefastus****.

     But between sacred and holy (sanctum) and religious, he most agreeably adduces (the following) distinctions: sacred is a building consecrated to a god; holy is a wall which is around a town; religious is a sepulchre where a dead person is interred or burief - he says this is quite certain. [unintelligible] but at times (?) they can be seen as the same: if something is indeed sacred, he believes the same to be holy by the law or ordinance of the ancestors (maiorum), so that it cannot be violated without punishment; and that the same is also religious, [unintelligible] which it is not allowed for a human to do there; which, if they did do it, they would seem to do it against the will of the gods. Similarly it must be said about the wall and the sepulchre that they become sacred, holy, as well as religious, but in the manner that was expounded above, when we talked about the sacred.

*The dies atri are those after the Kalends, Nones and Ides of each month.

**The anniversary of a disastrous battle at Allia, on the 18th of July.

***A kind of pit, opened on August 24, October 5, November 8.

****Days that are nefasti are somewhat similar to the religious days, but in the case of the former, the reason for the prohibitions are public festivals taking place on those days, in that of the latter, a tradition that the days are intrinsically of bad luck.

D. Synonyms for sacred rites (sacra)

‘Rite’: approved usage in the regulation of sacrifices.

‘Rite’: usage or habit. […]

‘Ceremonies’ some believe to be so called because of the city of Caere; others judge them to be named from care (caritas).

E. Some types of ritual actors

‘Armata’: a maiden who sacrifices, the edges of whose toga was thrown back on her shoulder (=armi). By laws, (the city of) Laurentum is holy (sanctum), so that fruit from a stranger may not be gathered on the armus, that is, what is the work of the shoulders*.

     *I have honestly no idea what this sentence means.

‘Ieiucanus’ (male): an assistant at sacrifice (victimarius).

‘Piatrix’ (female): a priest (sacerdos), who used to expiate*, whom some call a simulatrix**, others a saga, others an expiatrix. Piamenta, (i.e.) what they employ in expiation, others called purgamenta.

     *I.e. perform rituals of atonement/purification.

     **A woman who transforms people into animals, like Circe in the Odyssey.

‘Saga’: a woman expert in sacra (perita sacrorum), and ‘sagus’, a wise man; the first syllable is lengthened (when compared to sagax), perhaps to avoid ambiguity.

‘To presage’ is to divine (praedivinare), to foreknow. For sagax means sharp and skilfull.

‘Presagition’: what is called to presage and to sense acutely; wherefore old women (ănūs) who know much are called ‘sagae’, and dogs which have presentiments of the dens of wild beasts, ‘sagaces’.

F. Locales of sacrifice

A ‘curia’ is a place where they used to manage public concens (curas). They used to call the curia where the ordering of all sacra was manged (the curia) Calabra. Furthermore, they called curias those (buildings) in which each anything of each respective part of the Roman people was managed, like those (parts) into which Romulus divided the people, to the number of thirty, to which five were added later, so that each (part) used to hold public sacra and observe festivals (ferias) in their curia, and names of the Curian maidens are said to have been given to each of these curias. These maidens did the Romans once kidnap from the Sabines.

‘Accepted’ (captus): a place fit for legitimate sacrifices.

‘Temple’ (delubrum): they (originally) called a delibrated stick (this), that is, one with the bark (=liber) off, which they venerated as a god (pro deo).

‘Shrine’ (fanum): so called from Faunus, or from speaking (fando), because the pontiff speaks certain words when he dedicates it.

‘Sacella’: places without roofs consecrated to the gods.

G. Altars and Tables

‘Altars’ (altaria) are that on which sacrifice is made (adoletur) by fire.

‘Altars’ (altaria) are named from altitude, because of old they used to make sacra for the gods above on structures elevated from the earth; for the earthly gods on the earth, for the infernal gods in dug-out earth.

‘Acerra’: an altar (ara), which used to be placed before a dead person, on which fragrances used to be burnt. Others say that an arcula is an incense-box (turaria), that is, where incense used to be put.

‘Tables’: can be used in place of altars in temples (aedibus sacris). […]

‘Eating tables’ (escariae): (what) square tables on which people dine are called. An ‘anclabris’ (pl. anclabria) table is one which is anclatur in sacrificing to the gods, that is, which is taken and served upon.