Roman Sacrificial Altars

This book reorients the study of sacrifice, examining the locus of ritual action - the altars of Republican Rome and Latium.

Excerpt from Roman Sacrificial Altars, an Archaeological Study, of Monuments in Rome In the simple life of early Rome the sacrifices must have been performed in a manner fitting the character and en vironment of the people. For these sacrifices some primi tive form of altar would be required. A few unhewn stones6 or a temporary structure of turf and branches would be sufficient for the Simple ceremonial Of this early worship. Gradually these temporary altars would give place to more permanent structures, where the sacrifices were offered in a manner but little more elaborate than earlier generations had known. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The first general critique of the interpretations of animal sacrifice established by Walter Burkert, the late J.-P. Vernant, and Marcel Detienne.

In the concluding remarks to her 1913 dissertation, Helen Bowerman notes that "[a]lthough the sacrificial altars [sic] form a group of comparatively unimportant monuments." This study is an attempt to both refute Bowerman's conclusion and to replace altars into the dialogue about Roman architecture and political propaganda during the late Republic and early Empire. While I challenge the standard, scholarly categorical definition of Roman altars set forth in the early 20th century, the primary aim of my study is to explore the complex environments in which altars, of all sizes, appear in the Imperial period and the ways in which these altars performed in their political and urban contexts. Furthermore, with an eye to topographical relationships in Rome itself, I trace the use and manipulation of altars by emperors, a type of analysis that has long benefitted our understanding of other manifestations of state, honorific monuments. As monuments, altars were unique in their stylistic and contextual adaptability while simultaneously remaining essentially uniform in their function, the place of ritual sacrifice. Congruently, I explore the role that altars played in the negotiation between an emperor's position as a man and his potential as a divinity. That is, I examine the means by which the emperor--or dictator in the case of Caesar--used the altar form to at once avoid direct assimilation with the gods while simultaneously establishing the veneration of divine powers unequivocally associated with him. In this discussion, I seek to define how the altar form, its imagery, and the honorific system in which it operated conceptualized the new office of the princeps, reconceived the traditional institutions of power, and transformed the role of altar monuments in the early Empire.

Demonstrates the central significance of rhetoric in ancient responses to and receptions of Roman art.

This volume brings together studies on Greek animal sacrifice by foremost experts in Greek language, literature and material culture. Readers will benefit from the synthesis of new evidence and approaches with a re-evaluation of twentieth-century theories on sacrifice. The chapters range across the whole of antiquity and go beyond the Greek world to consider possible influences in Hittite Anatolia and Egypt, while an introduction to the burgeoning science of osteo-archaeology is provided. The twentieth-century emphasis on sacrifice as part of the Classical Greek polis system is challenged through consideration of various ancient perspectives on sacrifice as distinct from specific political or even Greek contexts. Many previously unexplored topics are covered, particularly the type of animals sacrificed and the spectrum of sacrificial ritual, from libations to lasting memorials of the ritual in art.