Sacrifice

Sacer – sacred Facere- to make A sacrifice was an organic object which had been made sacred or holy to the god. The sacrifice needed to be something valued by the giver to be a genuine sacrifice. Reasons for making a sacrifice as a routine part of prayer and to keep the god going as in most prayers on the farm. In the hope that the particular request might be granted – putting pressure on the god. as a thank you for the god granting a previous wish. to replenish the gods strength.

What was offered? Animals Small cakes – strues – made of spelt, a kind of wheat. Mola salsa – flour mixed with salt Flowers Honey Cheese Fruit Wine Milk

What offered?Where? Simple household sacrifices Blood of a small animal Agricultural sacrifices State occasions Flowers and food. Cereal – mola salsa Spelt Flowers, honey fruit, milk and wine Important family festivals Pigs, sheep and ox (suovetaurilia) One or large numbers of animals

When was the offering made? Daily in households and special occasions. Agricultural festivals on farms. On festival dates in Rome – at public expense. Generally by priests only Out on hunts Individual requests that also involved the need of a priest to ensure all went correctly. Where did they take place? At the family altar in the home. At an altar outside a temple for state sacrifices. Wherever a sacrifice was needed – an altar could be made out of turf

What about the animals? 1. Colour mattered: white for Juno and Jupiter ( deities of the upper air) black for the underworld gods. 2. Size varied according to the nature of the occasion – sucking (lactentes) through to grown (maiores). 3. Range of type comes from state festival evidence: goats at the Lupercalia. Two pregnant cows to Earth on April 15. ( note pregnant to life giving gods and sterile to gods of death) Red dog to Robigus on April 25 – blight god. Horse to Mars on October 15. Bull, ram and boar at the conclusion of the census. 4. Meat – entrails to the gods and the rest of the meat cooked and shared with the people involved in the ceremony. In state sacrifices where there were a number of animals sacrificed then it became part of the festival food. If a mistake occurred then the whole thing would have to start over and it would also include a further offering as an apology.

Collect a copy of the 17 steps of a sacrifice from the front of the room. Have a go at putting them in the correct order – cut them out and attach into your notes. It has been put up on PukekoheNet for those using computers.

Correct Sacrifice steps Go to temple to fix a convenient day with the custodian (aedituus), arrange for the professional officiators ( the people who actually cut the throats and dissect the animals – popae and vitimarii) to be in attendance. Hire a flute player. There were standard fees for these. Go to cattle market and buy a suitable beast – no deformities. On the day he dressed in a toga, then tied ribbons to the horns of the animal or gild them if he was rich, and its tail and lead it through the streets to the temple. A good sign if it went willingly to the slaughter. If it struggled he would need to return it to the market and get a more suitable one.

He would hand it over to the priests who would perform the actual sacrifice. A stone altar was set up at the front of the temple, either at the foot of the steps leading to it or at the entrance of the ante-room. In primitive times, a fresh altar was constructed from turfs for each sacrifice and a memory of this survived into Augustan times and beyond in the practice of putting a single turf on top of the altar before the sacrifice. Roman temples which had to cope with a constant succession of sacrifices would have had large permanent altars made of stone. The victim was led before this altar on which a good fire had been lit and the ritual began.

Firstly a precaution that no intruder was present who might contaminate the proceedings – women, dogs and slaves for some sacrifices. Strangers as well. The priests and those offering the sacrifice wash their hands with holy water from a special stoup and dry them on linen cloths. Cleanliness was very important. Silence is now commanded (in state sacrifices a herald uttered an age-old cry favete linguis, ‘check your tongues’), except for the steady music of the flute-player who is employed.

The priests cover their heads with the folds of their togas and take up a square wooden platter heaped with sacred flour mixed with salt (mola salsa). They sprinkle the flour between the horns of the animal, as the attendants hold it, and onto the sacred knife. This action was called immolare. They might also – although this seems optional – pour wine which was kept for the purpose. ( Dido in The Aeneid did this) The animal is now stripped of its ribbons and decorations while an attendant symbolically draws a knife along its back from head to tail. The prayer is now made. The suppliant, standing and turning to the right, delivered in the direction of the cult-statue within the temple.

The climax was now at hand. The popa, standing on the right of the animal, asked ‘do I strike?’ (agone) and, on receiving an affirmative answer, struck a well aimed blow with a hammer at the animal’s head which stunned it so that it sank on its knees to the ground. A knife-man (cultrarius), holding its head upwards if it was being offered to a heavenly god and downwards to a god of the underground, slit its throat. It is unclear how they coped with all of the blood although it is obvious that it was expected to run freely. Some may have been caught in containers for later ritual use (Aenied book 6). The moment of death was a tense one and a clean kill was anxiously sort. A half-killed beast or a beast that ran away before it could be dispatched meant that the sacrifice was ruined.

If all had gone well the animal was now dismembered and dissected. The internal organs were removed for careful examination to ensure that the inside was as perfect as the outside of the victim. Any fault would invalidate the ceremony, especially since these organs were the most vital parts of the animal, the parts for the gods consumption. It could also be an awful warning. When Caligula sacrificed on 1 January 41AD, part of the victim’s liver was missing: he was assassinated later that year. These organs, called exta, together sometimes with portions of the rest of the carcase, were cut into small pieces (prosecta) and put on the altar for the gods to consume (porricere). They were dissolved in flames. At most sacrifices the meat must have been eaten on the spot by the priest and the man who offered the sacrifice and his friends. We frequently hear of a kitchen in the vicinity of a temple where it could have been cooked, since the altar was too small, and also of a dining room (cenaculum) attached to the temple where a meal could be eaten. At state sacrifices, the priest and the magistrates or even, if it was a great occasion, the Senate and the whole people as well were invited to the feast.