Votum
Template:Short description Template:Ancient Roman religion
In ancient Roman religion, a Template:Lang (plural Template:Lang; Template:Ety) is a vow or promise made to a deity. As the result of this verbal action, a Template:Lang is also that which fulfills a vow, that is, the thing promised, such as offerings, a statue, or even a temple building. The Template:Lang is thus an aspect of the contractual nature of Roman religion, a bargaining expressed by Template:Lang, "I give that you might give."[1]
Private vota
In everyday life, individuals might make votive offerings to a deity for private concerns. Vota privata are attested in abundance by inscriptions, particularly for the later Imperial era. These are regularly marked with the letters V.S.L.M., votum solvit libens merito, noting that the person making the dedication "He has fulfilled his vow, willingly, as it should." William Warde Fowler found in these offerings "expressions of … religious feeling" and a gratitude for blessings received that go deeper than contractual formalism.[2]
Military vota
During the Republican era, the votum was a regular part of ceremonies conducted at the Capitoline by a general holding imperium before deploying.[3] The triumph with its dedication of spoils and animal sacrifices at the Capitol was in part a fulfillment of such a vow.[4] A general who faced an uncertain outcome in battle might make a votum in the field promising to build a temple out of gratitude for divine aid in a victory. In 311 BC, Junius Bubulcus became the first plebeian general to vow and oversee the building of a temple; he honored the goddess Salus, "Salvation".[5] A vow would also be made in connection with the ritual of evocatio, negotiations with the enemy's tutelary deity to offer superior cult. An extreme form of votum was the devotio, the ritual by which a general sacrificed himself in battle and asked the chthonic deities to take the enemy as offerings along with him.[6]
Public vota
Template:See also In the Republic, public Template:Lang (Template:Lang) or Template:Lang ("vows for the well-being of the republic") were offered on the day the consuls took office, eventually fixed on 1 January (Template:Lang).[7] These were joined by Template:Lang for Caesar (Template:Lang or Template:Lang) in 44 BC.Template:Sfnp
Under the Empire, the Senate decreed Template:Lang on behalf of Octavian (later Augustus) as Template:Lang in 30 BC.[8]Template:Sfnp These vows for the well-being of the emperor (Template:Lang, Template:Lang,[9] or Template:Lang)[10] were moved to 3 JanuaryTemplate:Mdashthe usual date of the CompitaliaTemplate:Mdashunder Caligula in AD 38.Template:Sfnp Template:Lang for the state continued to be held on January 1st, while the vows for the emperor came to include his family as well.
During these public vows, offerings were made to Jupiter, Juno, Salus, and sometimes other deities.[11] In Rome, these ceremonies were conducted by the consuls and pontiffs, and in the provinces probably by governors and local priests and officials.[12] For the Template:Lang for the emperor and his family, the people of the capital were assembled to offer collective vows;[13] it was refusal to take part in these events and similar rituals that sometimes led to persecution of Christians.
Subsequently, the anniversary day of each emperor's acclamation (Template:Lang) were celebrated with similar rituals; larger rituals marked the 5 year (Template:Lang) and 10 year anniversaries (Template:Lang). Incomplete records have led scholars to debate whether particular Template:Lang and Template:Lang were celebrated at the beginning of the year, on the Template:Lang, or at some other time for specific reasons in each case.
Template:Lang continued in Rome even after Christianity had become the official religion of the Empire, possibly as late as the 6th century.[14] Because the vows were as much affirmations of political loyalty as religious expressions, they were difficult to abolish without undermining the sacral aura of the emperor's authority.[15]
In the Eastern Roman Empire, this festival was known as the Vóta (Template:Lang). The emperors Arcadius and Honorius banned the sacrifices associated with the festival. In 692 the Quinisext Council forbade Christians from celebrating, but it remained on the court calendar at least until the reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (r, 905–959).[16]
See also
References
Citations
- ↑ John Scheid, "Sacrifices for Gods and Ancestors", in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 270; William Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People (London, 1922), pp. 200–202.
- ↑ Fowler, Religious Experience, pp. 201–202.
- ↑ J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A History (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 15.
- ↑ Friederike Fless and Katja Moede, "Music and Dance: Forms of Representation in Pictorial and Written Sources", in A Companion to Roman Religion, pp. 259–260.
- ↑ Anna Clark, Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome (Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 50; Richard D. Weigel, "Roman Generals and the Vowing of Temples, 500–100 B.C.", Classica et Mediaevalia (Museum Tusculanum Press, 1998), p. 122; Eric M. Orlin, Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic (Brill, 1997), pp. 179–180.
- ↑ Fowler, Religious Experience, pp. 206–207.
- ↑ Frances Hickson-Hahn, "The Politics of Thanksgiving", in Augusto augurio: rerum humanarum et divinarum commentationes in honorem Jerzy Linderski (Franz Steiner, 2004), pp. 35–36.
- ↑ Duncan Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West (Brill, 1987), vol. I,1, p. 89.
- ↑ Template:Citation.
- ↑ Template:Citation.
- ↑ J. Rufus Fears, "The Cult of Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology", Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II.17.2 (1981), p. 98.
- ↑ Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, pp. 89–90.
- ↑ Peter Herz, "Emperors: Caring for the Empire and Their Successors", in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 312; Fowler, Religious Experience, p. 200.
- ↑ Fritz Graf, "Roman Festivals in Syria Palaestina", in The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture (Mohr Siebeck, 2002), vol. 3, p. 441.
- ↑ Fears, "The Cult of Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology", pp. 99–105, 119–122. Fears explores the question through the transition from the cult of Jupiter to that of the Christian god: "Appropriating the central role of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the theology of victory, the Christian god passed easily into his pre-eminent position in the imperial ideology of the Christian Empire. … Like the theology of victory, the theme of the royal office as an imitatio Dei was easily Christianized. … It is precisely in this association of emperor with the high god that we observe most clearly that continuity between pagan and Christian imperial ideology" (pp. 121–122).
- ↑ {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=book }}