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171-591: The altar reflects the Augustan vision of Roman civil religion . The lower register of its frieze depicts agricultural work meant to communicate the abundance and prosperity of the Roman Peace ( Latin : Pax Romana ). The monument as a whole serves a dual civic ritual and propaganda function for Augustus and his regime, easing notions of autocracy and dynastic succession that might otherwise be unpalatable to traditional Roman culture . The monument consists of

342-591: A bulla (but has lost his head) is also the right size, and therefore a better guess. For Gaius to appear in public without his bulla would invite the evil eye. This same figure in Hellenistic dress has also been interpreted as Ptolemy of Mauretania representing Africa , along with the German boy (Europe) and the Parthian prince ( Asia ). A foreign prince would not wear a bulla . The South Wall has seen

513-505: A piaculum before entering their sacred grove with an iron implement, which was forbidden, as well as after. The pig was a common victim for a piaculum . The same divine agencies who caused disease or harm also had the power to avert it, and so might be placated in advance. Divine consideration might be sought to avoid the inconvenient delays of a journey, or encounters with banditry, piracy and shipwreck, with due gratitude to be rendered on safe arrival or return. In times of great crisis,

684-539: A "Trojan" costume for the Troy Game held in 13 BC (see below). Many scholars, realizing by 1935 that Lucius was too young to be the boy beside Agrippa, preferred to identify him as Gaius . They named the smallest child on the North Frieze "Lucius," even though he is a mere toddler (Lucius was four in 13 BC). The Tiberius figure was identified as such by Milani, an identification that was rarely questioned until

855-474: A Republican style similar to the so-called " Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus ", in sharp contrast with the style on the exterior of the precinct walls. What remains of the altar is otherwise fragmentary, but it appears to have been largely functional with less emphasis on art and decoration. The interior of the precinct walls are carved with bucrania , ox skulls, from which carved garlands hang. The garlands bear fruits from various types of plants, all displayed on

1026-421: A broad, inclusive and flexible network of lawful cults. At different times and in different places, the sphere of influence, character and functions of a divine being could expand, overlap with those of others, and be redefined as Roman. Change was embedded within existing traditions. Several versions of a semi-official, structured pantheon were developed during the political, social and religious instability of

1197-643: A busy road along the Tiber river. The city plans to build a wide pedestrian area along the river and run the road underneath it. "It's an improvement," says Meier, adding that "the reason that wall was there has to do with traffic and noise. Once that is eliminated, the idea of opening the piazza to the river is a good one." The mayor's office said Alemanno hopes to complete the project before the end of his term in 2013. Religion in ancient Rome Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by

1368-548: A cautiously ambiguous relation" with Nouvelle Droite figures like de Benoist and Haudry, "both of whom courted him avidly". During the 1930s, Dumézil supported the far-right, royalist, anti-democratic, and anti-German Action Française. While he held for a while Benito Mussolini in high regard, he steadfastly opposed Nazism and voiced as a journalist his opposition to the growing danger posed by German nationalism. However, Dumézil never joined Action Française, contending that "too many things separated [him] from them. The credo of

1539-463: A form of imperial propaganda. The Ara Pacis is seen to embody without conscious effort the deep-rooted ideological connections among cosmic sovereignty, military force, and fertility that were first outlined by Georges Dumézil , connections which are attested in early Roman culture and more broadly in the substructure of Indo-European culture at large. Peter Holliday suggested that the Altar's imagery of

1710-639: A great deal of scholarship and the greatest number of academic debates. Unlike the North Wall, where most of the heads are new (not authentic ancient heads, but modern creations), the heads of the figures on the South Wall are mostly original. Some half dozen figures are recognizable from looking at other surviving statues of members of the imperial family. Nevertheless, much debate has taken place over many of these figures, including Augustus, Agrippa, Tiberius , Julia, and Antonia . The figure of Augustus

1881-426: A lawful oath ( sacramentum ) and breaking a sworn oath carried much the same penalty: both repudiated the fundamental bonds between the human and divine. A votum or vow was a promise made to a deity, usually an offer of sacrifices or a votive offering in exchange for benefits received. In Latin, the word sacrificium means the performance of an act that renders something sacer , sacred. Sacrifice reinforced

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2052-556: A long series of arguments and criticisms of the Ara Pacis project. These arguments are ongoing despite the original pavilion being replaced by a new one in 2006, known as the " Ara Pacis museum ". The historic Fascist style building around the Altar, locally known as "teca del Morpurgo ", was pulled down in 2006, and replaced by a glass and steel structure in modern style, designed by architect Richard Meier . The new cover building, which has been named " Ara Pacis museum ", now stands on

2223-399: A long-form poem covering Roman holidays from January to June, Ovid presents a unique look at Roman antiquarian lore, popular customs, and religious practice that is by turns imaginative, entertaining, high-minded, and scurrilous; not a priestly account, despite the speaker's pose as a vates or inspired poet-prophet, but a work of description, imagination and poetic etymology that reflects

2394-650: A major influence on the fields of comparative mythology and Indo-European studies . Georges Dumézil was born in Paris, France, on 4 March 1898, the son of Jean Anatole Jean Dumézil and Marguerite Dutier. His father was a highly educated general in the French Army . Dumézil received an elite education in Paris at the Collège de Neufchâteau, Lycée de Troyes, Lycée Louis-le-Grand and Lycée de Tarbes. He came to master Ancient Greek and Latin at an early age. Through

2565-399: A majority of scholars in 2000 preferred to see this figure as Livia. The tide has possibly turned back in favor of Julia by 2024. In 1894, and again in 1902 and 1903, Eugen Petersen suggested that Lucius Caesar appears with Agrippa. Later, it was argued that this figure is too small to be Lucius, so the consensus switched to Gaius Caesar. In 1954, Heinz Kähler claimed Gaius is dressed in

2736-742: A memoir, believing that the legacy of his work should stand on its scholarly merits alone. However, shortly before his death, Dumézil made a series of in-depth interviews with his defender Eribon, which were subsequently published in Entretiens avec Georges Dumézil (1987). This book remains the closest Dumézil ever came to writing a memoir. Upon his death, Dumézil left a number of unfishined works on Indo-European mythology, some of which were subsequently edited by his friends and published. Accusations of Fascist sympathies continued after Dumézil's death. Eribon's Faut-il brûler Dumézil? (1992) has been credited with permanently debunking accusations that Dumézil

2907-446: A pig on behalf of the community. Their supposed underworld relatives, the malicious and vagrant Lemures , might be placated with midnight offerings of black beans and spring water. The most potent offering was animal sacrifice , typically of domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs. Each was the best specimen of its kind, cleansed, clad in sacrificial regalia and garlanded; the horns of oxen might be gilded. Sacrifice sought

3078-503: A point of some controversy over the years, relying heavily on interpretation of fragmentary remains, discussed below. The sculpture of the Ara Pacis is primarily symbolic rather than decorative, and its iconography has several levels of significance. Studies of the Ara Pacis and similar public Roman monuments traditionally address the potent political symbolism of their decorative programs, and their emphasis and promulgation of dynastic and other imperial policies; they are usually studied as

3249-423: A poorly preserved scene of a female warrior ( bellatrix ), possibly Roma , apparently sitting on a pile of weapons confiscated from the enemy ( war trophy ), thus forcing peace upon them by rendering them unable to make war. This scene has been reconstructed, based on coins that depict such a seated Roma. When the monument was being reconstructed at its present site, Edmund Buchner and other scholars sketched what

3420-748: A position in France, and encouraged him to move abroad. From 1925 to 1931, Dumézil was Professor of the History of Religions at Istanbul University . During his years in Istanbul, Dumézil acquired proficiency in Armenian and Ossetian , and many non-Indo-European languages of the Caucasus . This enabled him to study the Nart saga , on which he published a number of influential monographs . Dumézil developed

3591-453: A priest on behalf of the community. Public religious ritual had to be enacted by specialists and professionals faultlessly; a mistake might require that the action, or even the entire festival, be repeated from the start. The historian Livy reports an occasion when the presiding magistrate at the Latin festival forgot to include the "Roman people" among the list of beneficiaries in his prayer;

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3762-781: A provincial Roman citizen who made the long journey from Bordeaux to Italy to consult the Sibyl at Tibur did not neglect his devotion to his own goddess from home: I wander, never ceasing to pass through the whole world, but I am first and foremost a faithful worshiper of Onuava . I am at the ends of the earth, but the distance cannot tempt me to make my vows to another goddess. Love of the truth brought me to Tibur, but Onuava's favourable powers came with me. Thus, divine mother, far from my home-land, exiled in Italy, I address my vows and prayers to you no less. Roman calendars show roughly forty annual religious festivals. Some lasted several days, others

3933-415: A sacred duty and privilege of office. Additional festivals and games celebrated Imperial accessions and anniversaries. Others, such as the traditional Republican Secular Games to mark a new era ( saeculum ), became imperially funded to maintain traditional values and a common Roman identity. That the spectacles retained something of their sacral aura even in late antiquity is indicated by the admonitions of

4104-459: A series of miraculous events. Romulus and Remus regained their grandfather's throne and set out to build a new city, consulting with the gods through augury , a characteristic religious institution of Rome that is portrayed as existing from earliest times. The brothers quarrel while building the city walls, and Romulus kills Remus, an act that is sometimes seen as sacrificial. Fratricide thus became an integral part of Rome's founding myth. Romulus

4275-524: A single day or less: sacred days ( dies fasti ) outnumbered "non-sacred" days ( dies nefasti ). A comparison of surviving Roman religious calendars suggests that official festivals were organized according to broad seasonal groups that allowed for different local traditions. Some of the most ancient and popular festivals incorporated ludi ("games", such as chariot races and theatrical performances ), with examples including those held at Palestrina in honour of Fortuna Primigenia during Compitalia , and

4446-450: A single garland as allegorical representations of plenty and abundance. The bucrania in turn evoke the idea of sacrificial piety, appropriate motifs for the interior of the altar precinct. The lower register of the interior walls imitate the appearance of traditionally wooden altar precincts, which were meant to bring to mind other such altars in Rome and the tradition of constructing altars at

4617-503: A small altar for incense or libations . It might also display art works looted in war and rededicated to the gods. It is not clear how accessible the interiors of temples were to the general public. The Latin word templum originally referred not to the temple building itself, but to a sacred space surveyed and plotted ritually through augury: "The architecture of the ancient Romans was, from first to last, an art of shaping space around ritual." The Roman architect Vitruvius always uses

4788-708: A strong interest in the Ossetians and their mythology , which was to prove indispensable for his future research. For the rest of his life, Dumézil would make yearly visits to Istanbul to conduct field research among Ossetians in Turkey . During this time he also published his Le problème des centaures (1929), which examined similarities in Greek and Indo-Iranian. It was inspired by Elard Hugo Meyer . Together with Le festin d'immortalité (1924) and Le crime des Lemniennes (1924), Le problème des centaures would form part of

4959-418: A temple or shrine, where a ritual object might be stored and brought out for use, or where an offering would be deposited. Sacrifices , chiefly of animals , would take place at an open-air altar within the templum or precinct, often to the side of the steps leading up to the raised portico. The main room (cella) inside a temple housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple was dedicated, and often

5130-542: A traditional open-air altar at its centre surrounded by precinct walls which are pierced on the eastern and western ends (so called today because of the modern layout) by openings and elaborately and finely sculpted entirely in Luna marble . Within the enclosing precinct walls, the altar itself was carved with images illustrating the lex aria , the law governing the ritual performed at the altar. The sacrificial procession depicts animals being led to sacrifice by figures carved in

5301-655: A trifunctional hierarchy respectively composed of priests, warriors and producers. In Dumézil's trifunctional model, the priests were responsible for the "maintenance of cosmic and juridical sovereignty", while warriors were tasked with the "exercise of physical prowess", and the commoners were responsible for "the promotion of physical well-being, fertility, wealth, and so on". In Norse mythology , these functions were according to Dumézil represented by Týr and Odin , Thor , and Njörðr and Freyr , while in Vedic mythology, they were represented by Varuna and Mitra , Indra , and

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5472-399: A very mixed record on identifying figures, in part because he insisted the procession dates to 9 BC, not 13 BC. Furthermore, Livia has no bond to Agrippa, whereas Julia was his wife and should be at his side, expected and expecting to be the unofficial empress of Rome for decades, during and beyond Augustus' lifetime. It is odd that the late Diana Kleiner, who advanced the grouping of people on

5643-640: A visiting professor at UCLA in 1971. He was elected to the highly prestigious Académie Française in 1975. His election to Académie Française was sponsored by Lévi-Strauss, who gave him the welcoming address. Dumézil was also an Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium , Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences , Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy , Honorary Fellow of

5814-462: A white cow); Jupiter a white, castrated ox ( bos mas ) for the annual oath-taking by the consuls . Di superi with strong connections to the earth, such as Mars, Janus, Neptune and various genii – including the Emperor's – were offered fertile victims. After the sacrifice, a banquet was held; in state cults, the images of honoured deities took pride of place on banqueting couches and by means of

5985-558: Is certainly too young (six or seven was the minimum age). If this toddler were Lucius, he would be too young and in the wrong costume for the Troy Games. The best guess is that he is a Germanic tribal prince, but he is certainly not a dressed as a Trojan. As Charles Brian Rose has noted, "The variable value of the Eastern costume and the uneasy interaction of Trojan and Parthian iconography can make it difficult to determine whether one

6156-569: Is credited with having saved the Ubykh language from extinction. His magnum opus , Mythe et epopee , provides a thorough overview of the trifunctional ideology of Indo-European mythology, and was published in three volumes in (1968–1973). In 1974, Dumézil would earn the Prix Paul Valery for this work. Dumézil research has been credited with being largely responsible for the revival of Indo-European studies and comparative mythology in

6327-419: Is exceptionally detailed. All due care would be taken of the animals. If any died or were stolen before the scheduled sacrifice, they would count as already sacrificed, since they had already been consecrated. Normally, if the gods failed to keep their side of the bargain, the offered sacrifice would be withheld. In the imperial period, sacrifice was withheld following Trajan 's death because the gods had not kept

6498-479: Is known to have begun in 2 BC, it means that Gnaeus must have been of mature age by that time, therefore requiring a birth year of at least 17 BC, which would, in turn, make him sufficiently old to be the boy on the Ara Pacis. Pollini also reasons that the delay in Gnaeus' career (only reaching the consulship in 32 AD) resulted from his documented unpleasant character and points out that the careers of other members of

6669-472: Is that of the father of the emperor Nero (born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus). This identification remains widespread today. John Pollini provides the best summary of this viewpoint in his article, "Ahenobarbi, Appuleii and Some Others on the Ara Pacis", where he points out that the writer Suetonius specifically mentions that Nero's father went "to the East on the staff of the young Gaius Caesar". As this campaign

6840-669: Is viewing the founders of the Romans or their fiercest opponents." Despite many flaws in Kähler's theory, it is still accepted by some scholars even today. The youth wearing Hellenistic Greek clothing suited to a Hellenistic prince has been identified as Gaius in the guise of a camillus , an adolescent attendant of the Flamen Dialis . The Gaius identification is best supported by his size, however an additional boy in Roman dress who has

7011-494: The spolia opima , the prime spoils taken in war, in the celebration of the first Roman triumph . Spared a mortal's death, Romulus was mysteriously spirited away and deified. His Sabine successor Numa was pious and peaceable, and credited with numerous political and religious foundations, including the first Roman calendar ; the priesthoods of the Salii , flamines , and Vestals; the cults of Jupiter , Mars, and Quirinus ; and

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7182-510: The Aśvins . Dumézil's trifunctional hypothesis would come to revolutionize modern research on ancient civilizations. In the prelude to World War II, Dumézil returned to military service as a captain of the reserves in the French Army . He was subsequently posted at Liège as a liaison officer with the Belgian Army . Through the assistance of Maxime Weygand , a friend of his father, Dumézil

7353-582: The First Jewish–Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt . In the wake of the Republic's collapse , state religion had adapted to support the new regime of the emperors . Augustus , the first Roman emperor, justified the novelty of one-man rule with a vast program of religious revivalism and reform. Public vows formerly made for the security of the republic now were directed at the well-being of

7524-548: The Golden Age , usually discussed as mere poetic allusion, appealed to a significant component of the Roman populace. The program of the Ara Pacis addressed this group's very real fears of cyclical history, and promised that the rule of Augustus would avert the cataclysmic destruction of the world predicted by contemporary models of historical thought. The East and West walls each contain two panels, one well preserved and one represented only in fragments. The East Wall contains

7695-665: The Grande Loge de France , a pro-Jewish masonic lodge, for which he would later be persecuted by the Nazis. In the late 1930s, Dumézil broadened his research to include the study of Germanic religion. His research on Germanic religion was greatly influenced by the renowned Dutch philologist Jan de Vries , and also by Höfler. It was while lecturing on the Indo-European component in Germanic religion at Uppsala University in

7866-594: The Greek Olympians , and promoted a sense that the two cultures had a shared heritage. The impressive, costly, and centralised rites to the deities of the Roman state were vastly outnumbered in everyday life by commonplace religious observances pertaining to an individual's domestic and personal deities, the patron divinities of Rome's various neighbourhoods and communities, and the often idiosyncratic blends of official, unofficial, local and personal cults that characterised lawful Roman religion. In this spirit,

8037-526: The Ludi Romani in honour of Liber . Other festivals may have required only the presence and rites of their priests and acolytes, or particular groups, such as women at the Bona Dea rites. Other public festivals were not required by the calendar, but occasioned by events. The triumph of a Roman general was celebrated as the fulfillment of religious vows , though these tended to be overshadowed by

8208-576: The Palladium , Lares and Penates from Troy to Italy. These objects were believed in historical times to remain in the keeping of the Vestals , Rome's female priesthood. Aeneas, according to classical authors, had been given refuge by King Evander , a Greek exile from Arcadia , to whom were attributed other religious foundations: he established the Ara Maxima , "Greatest Altar", to Hercules at

8379-665: The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland , and the recipient of honorary doctorates from the universities of Uppsala, Istanbul, Berne and Liège . He was an Officer of the Legion of Honor . In the 1970s and 1980s, Dumézil vigorously continued with research and publishing, and devoted himself particularly to the study of the Indo-European components in Ossetian and Scythian mythology . The much awaited third edition of his Mitra-Varuna

8550-528: The Scythians , maintained a caste system which had been established before the Indo-Iranian migrations into South Asia. This article eventually caught the attention of French linguist Émile Benveniste , with whom Dumézil entered a fruitful correspondence. From 1931 to 1933, Dumézil taught French at Uppsala University . Here he became acquainted with the influential professor Henrik Samuel Nyberg and

8721-572: The Senate 's efforts to restrict the Bacchanals in 186 BC. Because Romans had never been obligated to cultivate one god or one cult only, religious tolerance was not an issue in the sense that it is for monotheistic systems. The monotheistic rigor of Judaism posed difficulties for Roman policy that led at times to compromise and the granting of special exemptions, but sometimes to intractable conflict. For example, religious disputes helped cause

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8892-475: The University of Warsaw in 1920–1921. While lecturing at Warsaw, Dumézil was struck by striking similarities between Sanskrit literature and the works of Ovid , which suggested to him that these pieces of literature contained traces of a common Indo-European heritage. Dumézil gained his PhD in comparative religion in 1924 with the thesis Le festin d'immortalité . Inspired by the works of Ernst Kuhn ,

9063-692: The druids as a positive consequence of the conquest of Gaul and Britain. Despite an empire-wide ban under Hadrian , human sacrifice may have continued covertly in North Africa and elsewhere. The mos maiorum established the dynastic authority and obligations of the citizen- paterfamilias ("the father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate"). He had priestly duties to his lares , domestic penates , ancestral Genius and any other deities with whom he or his family held an interdependent relationship. His own dependents, who included his slaves and freedmen, owed cult to his Genius . Genius

9234-544: The fetial priests. The first "outsider" Etruscan king, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus , founded a Capitoline temple to the triad Jupiter, Juno and Minerva which served as the model for the highest official cult throughout the Roman world. The benevolent, divinely fathered Servius Tullius established the Latin League , its Aventine Temple to Diana , and the Compitalia to mark his social reforms. Servius Tullius

9405-421: The harmonisation of the earthly and divine , so the victim must seem willing to offer its own life on behalf of the community; it must remain calm and be quickly and cleanly dispatched. Sacrifice to deities of the heavens ( di superi , "gods above") was performed in daylight, and under the public gaze. Deities of the upper heavens required white, infertile victims of their own sex: Juno a white heifer (possibly

9576-941: The "exposure" of Dumézil's alleged political Fascist sympathies may lead to the abolishment (" Ragnarök ") of the concept of Indo-European mythology . Throughout his career, Dumézil published more than seventy-five books and hundreds of scholarly articles. His research continues to have a strong influence among Indo-Europeanists, classicists , Celticists , Germanicists , and Indologists. Prominent scholars heavily influenced by Dumézil include Emile Benveniste, Stig Wikander, Jan de Vries, Gabriel Turville-Petre , Werner Betz , Edgar C. Polomé, Jaan Puvhvel, Joël Grisward , Nicholas Allen , Georges Charachidzé , François-Xavier Dillmann , Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin , Daniel Dubuisson  [ fr ] , Lucien Gerschel , Emily Lyle , Dean A. Miller, Alwyn Rees , Brinley Rees , Robert Schilling , Bernard Sergent , Udo Strutynski , Donald J. Ward and Atsuhiko Yoshida . Along with Marija Gimbutas ,

9747-414: The 1920s as more and more scholars decided the scene dates to 13 BC, Loewy proposed that this boy was too young to be Lucius. He proposed Gaius. After Loewy's 1926 article, consensus shifted to Gaius Caesar . Gaius, seven years old in 13 BC, fit better. Kähler canonized the idea that Gaius was dressed in a "Trojan" costume for the equestrian boys event called the Troy Game , which was also held in 13 for

9918-544: The 1930s was Ludwig Curtius ), the rest of the academy concluded that this figure is Agrippa. Ryberg's 1949 article gave further weight to that conclusion. With Agrippa appear a majestic woman, a child of about seven, and a teenaged girl leaning forwards from the background, putting her hand on the boy's head. Together they are a partial family group, though many of Agrippa's children are not present. In 13 BC, Agrippa had at least five daughters varying from one to 22 years old and two sons (already adopted by Augustus). A third son

10089-609: The 1930s. They also accused Dumézil's trifunctional hypothesis of similarity with Fascism, and wrote that his reconstruction of Indo-European society was motivated by a desire to abolish " Judeo-Christian " values. Momigliano had himself been a member of the National Fascist Party in the 1930s, but was not open about this. Dumézil was also defended by many colleagues, including C. Scott Littleton, Jaan Puhvel, Edgar C. Polomé , Dean A. Miller, Udo Strutynski, and most notably by Didier Eribon . Polomé and Miller saw

10260-399: The 1940s. Moretti, in making the glass museum for the Ara Pacis at Mussolini's command, guessed that the two consuls (Tiberius and Varus) of 13 flank Augustus, so he saw this figure as M. Valerius Messalla. V. H. von Poulsen and Toynbee proposed Iullus Antonius. But as has been well established, Augustus is flanked by priests, and this figure is Tiberius. Boschung and Bonanno have both matched

10431-425: The 19th century, philologists such as Franz Felix Adalbert Kuhn , Max Müller and Elard Hugo Meyer (who had influenced Bréal) had conducted notable work on comparative mythology, but their theories had since been found to be mostly untenable. Dumézil became determined to restore the field of comparative mythology from its contemporary discredit. Dumézil lectured at Lycee de Beauvais in 1920, and taught French at

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10602-808: The Action Française was a block: it forbade both appreciating Edmond Rostand and believing in the innocence of Captain Dreyfus ." Furthermore, Dumézil joined the Free Masonry in the early 1930s as a member of the Portique lodge of the Grande Loge de France of the Scottish Rite , and was consequently dismissed from his teaching positions and from the civil service by the collaborationist Vichy State during World War II. Some critics, particularly adherents of Lévi-Strauss, contended that

10773-437: The Ara Pacis in families in her 1978 article, failed to recognize this woman as Julia until late in her career, having for 25 years called her Livia. Julia also better personified Augustus' pro-natalist program, having already given birth to four surviving children (and was pregnant with a fifth), another issue Kleiner associated with the Ara Pacis women and children. Livia failed to have any children with Augustus. Surprisingly,

10944-495: The Church Fathers that Christians should not take part. The meaning and origin of many archaic festivals baffled even Rome's intellectual elite, but the more obscure they were, the greater the opportunity for reinvention and reinterpretation – a fact lost neither on Augustus in his program of religious reform, which often cloaked autocratic innovation, nor on his only rival as mythmaker of the era, Ovid . In his Fasti ,

11115-554: The Compitalia shrines, were thought a symbolic replacement for child-sacrifice to Mania, as Mother of the Lares . The Junii took credit for its abolition by their ancestor L. Junius Brutus , traditionally Rome's Republican founder and first consul. Political or military executions were sometimes conducted in such a way that they evoked human sacrifice, whether deliberately or in the perception of witnesses; Marcus Marius Gratidianus

11286-565: The Elder declared that "a sacrifice without prayer is thought to be useless and not a proper consultation of the gods." Prayer by itself, however, had independent power. The spoken word was thus the single most potent religious action, and knowledge of the correct verbal formulas the key to efficacy. Accurate naming was vital for tapping into the desired powers of the deity invoked, hence the proliferation of cult epithets among Roman deities. Public prayers ( prex ) were offered loudly and clearly by

11457-660: The Emperor safe for the stipulated period. In Pompeii , the Genius of the living emperor was offered a bull: presumably a standard practise in Imperial cult, though minor offerings (incense and wine) were also made. The exta were the entrails of a sacrificed animal , comprising in Cicero 's enumeration the gall bladder ( fel ), liver ( iecur ), heart ( cor ), and lungs ( pulmones ). The exta were exposed for litatio (divine approval) as part of Roman liturgy, but were "read" in

11628-607: The Late Republican era. Jupiter , the most powerful of all gods and "the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested", consistently personified the divine authority of Rome's highest offices, internal organization and external relations. During the archaic and early Republican eras, he shared his temple , some aspects of cult and several divine characteristics with Mars and Quirinus , who were later replaced by Juno and Minerva . A conceptual tendency toward triads may be indicated by

11799-612: The Senate could decree collective public rites, in which Rome's citizens, including women and children, moved in procession from one temple to the next, supplicating the gods. Extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary sacrifice: in one of the many crises of the Second Punic War , Jupiter Capitolinus was promised every animal born that spring (see ver sacrum ), to be rendered after five more years of protection from Hannibal and his allies. The "contract" with Jupiter

11970-499: The South Frieze. The other twenty-one members are present here. Two very badly damaged figures in the middle are split by a gap. From photos, the gap appears to affect a single figure, but as Koeppel, Conlin, and Stern have proven, in-site examination reveals that one is a foreground and the other a background figure. The last portion of the North Frieze consists of members of the imperial family. Many scholars used to identify

12141-512: The Temple of Janus , whose doors stayed open in times of war but in Numa's time remained closed. After Numa's death, the doors to the Temple of Janus were supposed to have remained open until the reign of Augustus. Each of Rome's legendary or semi-legendary kings was associated with one or more religious institutions still known to the later Republic. Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius instituted

12312-572: The United States by scholars such as Jaan Puhvel , C. Scott Littleton , Donald J. Ward , Udo Strutynski and Dean A. Miller . Many of these scholars were associated with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dumézil was made an Honorary Professor of the College de France in 1969, and became a Member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1970. Dumézil was

12483-745: The West, who participate in a state of thanksgiving to celebrate the Peace created by Augustus. These figures fall into four categories: lictors (men carrying fasces , bodyguards of magistrates); priests (three of the four major collegia  – Pontifices , Septemviri , and Quindecimviri ): women and children (generally from the imperial family, represented in portraiture); and attendants (a few anonymous figures necessary for religious purposes). In addition there are two or three non-Roman children, who may be guests (or hostages) in Rome. Their identification by their non-Roman costume and their participation in

12654-506: The afterlife, were a matter of personal choice for an individual, practiced in addition to carrying on one's family rites and participating in public religion. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, conditions that conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of " magic ", conspiratorial ( coniuratio ), or subversive activity. Sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists who seemed to threaten traditional morality and unity, as with

12825-555: The altar, although the interior would only have been accessed by a stairway on the western side. The entryways were flanked by panels depicting allegorical or mythological scenes evocative of peace, piety and tradition. On the eastern wall, panels depicted the seated figures of Roma and Pax , while the western side depicts the discovery of the twins and she-wolf and the sacrifice of a figure traditionally identified as Aeneas , but increasingly believed to be Rome's second king, Numa Pompilius . The identity of these various figures has been

12996-517: The assistance of Sylvain Lévi , a friend of Meillet, was able to gain a position at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). From 1935 to 1968, Dumézil was Director of Studies at the Department of Comparative Religion at EPHE. In this capacity he was responsible for teaching and research on Indo-European religions. Students of Dumézil during this time include Roger Caillois . At EPHE, through

13167-545: The best introductory work on Dumézil's core ideas. Dumézil retired from teaching in 1968, but nevertheless continued a vigorous program of research and writing which continued until his death. He would eventually become proficient in more than 40 languages, including all branches of the Indo-European languages , most languages of the Caucasus, and indigenous languages of the Americas (most notably Quechuan ). Dumézil

13338-415: The boundary of the city's pomerium. The exterior walls of the Ara Pacis are divided between allegorical and pseudo-historical relief panels on the upper register while the lower register comprises scenes of nature: harmonic, intertwined vines that contain wildlife and connote nature under control. The upper register of the northern and southern walls depict scenes of the emperor, his family, and members of

13509-472: The boy of the family, was born after the monument's completion. Syme had also argued that Gnaeus was born after the monument's completion, but accepted the identification of the Ahenobarbus family, preferring to identify the boy as an otherwise unknown elder brother and the girl figure as an otherwise unknown elder sister of Gnaeus—both of whom died young. Syme also proved somewhat unintentionally, based on

13680-539: The broad humor and burlesque spirit of such venerable festivals as the Saturnalia , Consualia , and feast of Anna Perenna on the Ides of March , where Ovid treats the assassination of the newly deified Julius Caesar as utterly incidental to the festivities among the Roman people. But official calendars preserved from different times and places also show a flexibility in omitting or expanding events, indicating that there

13851-521: The ceremony advertises to all that Rome is the centre of the world, and that other nations send their young to Rome to learn Roman ways, so great is Rome's reputation. The ceremony took place in the summer of 13 BC, but not necessarily on 4 July, when the Senate voted to build the Ara Pacis. The north wall has about 46 extant or partially extant figures. The first two foreground figures are lictors , carrying fasces (bundles of rods symbolizing Roman authority). The next set of figures consists of priests from

14022-524: The college of the Septemviri epulones , so identified by an incense box they carry with special symbols. One member of this college is missing in a gap. After them follows the collegium of the quindecimviri sacris faciundis , also identified by the incense box carried by a public slave among them. Although the name suggests this college has exactly fifteen members, the size of the college has grown to 23, including Augustus and Agrippa , who appear on

14193-465: The context of the disciplina Etrusca . As a product of Roman sacrifice, the exta and blood are reserved for the gods, while the meat (viscera) is shared among human beings in a communal meal. The exta of bovine victims were usually stewed in a pot ( olla or aula ), while those of sheep or pigs were grilled on skewers. When the deity's portion was cooked, it was sprinkled with mola salsa (ritually prepared salted flour) and wine, then placed in

14364-555: The criticism of Dumézil as an expression of political correctness and Marxist ideology, and questioned the scholarly credentials of the critics. Dumézil himself responded vigorously to these accusations, pointing out that he had never been a member of a Fascist organization, never been sympathetic to Fascist ideology, and that the ancient Indo-European hierarchical social structure never appealed to him. In order to clarify his political position, he declared to Éribon in 1987: "the principle, not simply monarchical, but dynastic, which protects

14535-461: The dedication of the Theater of Marcellus but on a different occasion. This theory won universal acceptance for many decades, even though the evidence is overwhelmingly against. The boy is clearly not a Roman, given his clothing, lack of bulla , and hair style. So ingrained was Kähler's theory, however, that when the distinguished scholar Erika Simon (1968, 18) suggested the boy is a barbarian, she

14706-546: The deities and cults of other peoples rather than try to eradicate them, since they believed that preserving tradition promoted social stability. One way that Rome incorporated diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within the hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the side-by-side worship of local and Roman deities, including dedications made by Romans to local gods. By

14877-451: The emperor. So-called "emperor worship" expanded on a grand scale the traditional Roman veneration of the ancestral dead and of the Genius , the divine tutelary of every individual. The Imperial cult became one of the major ways in which Rome advertised its presence in the provinces and cultivated shared cultural identity and loyalty throughout the Empire. Rejection of the state religion

15048-506: The existence of a distinct priestly class among the Proto-Indo-Europeans . In the early 1930s, under the pseudonym "Georges Marcenay", he wrote some articles for the right-wing newspapers Candide and Le Jour , where he advocated an alliance between France and Italy against Nazi Germany . Dumézil's opposition to Nazism figures prominently in several of his later works on Germanic religion. At this time Dumézil joined

15219-407: The face to early period Tiberius statuary. In relation to Antonia, Drusus, and Germanicus, H. Dütschke proposed in 1880 the correct identity for Antonia and Drusus, but incorrectly saw the toddler as Claudius. A. von Domaszewski amended this family identification and correctly saw the child as Germanicus. He also suggested that the Ara Pacis is arranged in family groups. He correctly determined that

15390-660: The fall of 1943. During the war, Dumézil significantly reformulated his theories, and applied his trifunctional hypothesis to the study of Indo-Iranians, most notably in his work Mitra-Varuna (1940). In this work, Dumézil suggested that the Indo-Iranian gods Mitra and Varuna represented juridical and religious sovereignty respectively, and that these functions were relics of an earlier Indo-European tradition also manifested in Roman and Norse mythology. In works such as Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus (1941), Horace et les Curiaces (1942), Servius et la Fortune (1943) and Naissance de Rome (1944), Dumézil applied his trifunctional hypothesis to

15561-518: The family with undesirable traits also suffered similar delays, notably Augustus ' youngest grandson, Agrippa Postumus , who had no career, and Germanicus ' brother, the later emperor, Claudius , whose career started late. However, there are some dissenters from this theory. Stern claims that these figures cannot possibly be the Domitii Ahenobarbi, on the basis of the belief that Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus , whom von Domaszewski saw as

15732-399: The family's domestic deities were offered. Neighbourhood shrines and sacred places such as springs and groves dotted the city. The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances. Women , slaves , and children all participated in a range of religious activities. Some public rituals could be conducted only by women, and women formed what is perhaps Rome's most famous priesthood,

15903-404: The festival had to be started over. Even private prayer by an individual was formulaic, a recitation rather than a personal expression, though selected by the individual for a particular purpose or occasion. Oaths—sworn for the purposes of business, clientage and service, patronage and protection , state office, treaty and loyalty—appealed to the witness and sanction of deities. Refusal to swear

16074-539: The finally reconstructed Ara was placed near the Mausoleum of Augustus , and a big pavilion was built around it by architect Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo as part of Benito Mussolini 's attempt to create an ancient Roman "theme park" to glorify Fascist Italy . Several dozen buildings surrounding the Mausoleum were levelled to free up space around the monument. This led to a great number of complaints from locals, starting

16245-523: The fire on the altar for the offering; the technical verb for this action was porricere . Human sacrifice in ancient Rome was rare but documented. After the Roman defeat at Cannae two Gauls and two Greeks were buried under the Forum Boarium , in a stone chamber "which had on a previous occasion [228 BC] also been polluted by human victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings". Livy avoids

16416-458: The form of a holocaust or burnt offering, and there was no shared banquet, as "the living cannot share a meal with the dead". Ceres and other underworld goddesses of fruitfulness were sometimes offered pregnant female animals; Tellus was given a pregnant cow at the Fordicidia festival. Color had a general symbolic value for sacrifices. Demigods and heroes, who belonged to the heavens and

16587-487: The foundation and rise of the city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities but a pervasive sense of divinely ordered destiny. For Rome's earliest period, history and myth are difficult to distinguish. According to mythology, Rome had a semi-divine ancestor in the Trojan refugee Aeneas , son of Venus , who was said to have established the basis of Roman religion when he brought

16758-589: The founding of the Latin League under Servius Tullius. Many temples in the Republican era were built as the fulfillment of a vow made by a general in exchange for a victory: Rome's first known temple to Venus was vowed by the consul Q. Fabius Gurges in the heat of battle against the Samnites , and dedicated in 295 BC. All sacrifices and offerings required an accompanying prayer to be effective. Pliny

16929-519: The gods, especially Jupiter , who embodied just rule. As a result of the Punic Wars (264–146 BC), when Rome struggled to establish itself as a dominant power, many new temples were built by magistrates in fulfillment of a vow to a deity for assuring their military success. As the Romans extended their dominance throughout the Mediterranean world, their policy in general was to absorb

17100-475: The height of the Empire, numerous international deities were cultivated at Rome and had been carried to even the most remote provinces , among them Cybele , Isis , Epona , and gods of solar monism such as Mithras and Sol Invictus , found as far north as Roman Britain . Foreign religions increasingly attracted devotees among Romans, who increasingly had ancestry from elsewhere in the Empire. Imported mystery religions , which offered initiates salvation in

17271-566: The highest office of the State from caprices and ambitions, seemed to me, and still seems to me, preferable to the generalized election in which we have been living since Danton and Bonaparte. The example of the [constitutional] monarchies of the North (of Europe) confirmed to me this feeling. Of course, the formula is not applicable in France." Dumézil died in Paris from a massive stroke on 11 October 1986. He had deliberately refrained from writing

17442-540: The historical period influenced Roman culture , introducing some religious practices that became fundamental, such as the cultus of Apollo . The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks ( interpretatio graeca ), adapting Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature and Roman art , as the Etruscans had. Etruscan religion was also a major influence, particularly on

17613-403: The histories of Rome's leading families , and oral and ritual traditions. According to Cicero, the Romans considered themselves the most religious of all peoples, and their rise to dominance was proof they received divine favor in return. Rome offers no native creation myth , and little mythography to explain the character of its deities, their mutual relationships or their interactions with

17784-438: The human world, but Roman theology acknowledged that di immortales (immortal gods) ruled all realms of the heavens and earth. There were gods of the upper heavens, gods of the underworld and a myriad of lesser deities between. Some evidently favoured Rome because Rome honoured them, but none were intrinsically, irredeemably foreign or alien. The political, cultural and religious coherence of an emergent Roman super-state required

17955-540: The influence of Michel Bréal , who was a student of Franz Bopp and the grandfather of one of Dumézil's friends, Dumézil came to master Sanskrit , and developed a strong interest in Indo-European mythology and religion . He began studying at École normale supérieure (ENS) in 1916. During World War I , Dumézil served as an artillery officer in the French Army, for which he received the Croix de Guerre . His father

18126-432: The inscription ILS 6095 that Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus was governor of Africa in 13 BC and could not be in Rome for the Ara Pacis ceremony. Starting in 1894, Eugen Petersen suggested that Lucius Caesar appears between Augustus (his veiled Augustus is actually Agrippa) and Livia (actually Julia). Petersen had a good idea about families grouping together, but he identified none of the figures correctly in this place. In

18297-567: The later agricultural or plebeian triad of Ceres , Liber and Libera , and by some of the complementary threefold deity-groupings of Imperial cult. Other major and minor deities could be single, coupled, or linked retrospectively through myths of divine marriage and sexual adventure. These later Roman pantheistic hierarchies are part literary and mythographic, part philosophical creations, and often Greek in origin. The Hellenization of Latin literature and culture supplied literary and artistic models for reinterpreting Roman deities in light of

18468-435: The latter parth of the 20th century. He was generally regarded as the world's foremost expert on the comparative study of Indo-European mythology. From the late 1960s towards the end of his life, Dumézil's research came to be widely celebrated in the United States, where many of his works on Indo-European mythology were translated into English and published. Additional works inspired by Dumézil's theories were also published in

18639-627: The latter's favourite students, Stig Wikander and Geo Widengren . Through Wikander and Widengren, Dumézil further became acquainted with Otto Höfler . Wikander, Widengren and Höfler would remain lifelong friends and intellectual collaborators of Dumézil. Throughout their careers, these scholars would have a strong influence on each other's research. Most notably, Höflers research on the Germanic comitatus , and Wikander's subsequent research on related warrior fraternities among early Indo-Iranians, would have enormous influence on Dumézil's later research. Dumézil returned to France in 1933, where he through

18810-415: The moment when Aeneas , newly arrived in Italy, sacrificed a sow and her 30 piglets to Juno, as told by Virgil and others, even though the scene differs greatly from Vergil's description. In the 1960s, Stephan Weinstock challenged this identification (and the very identity of the entire monument), citing numerous discrepancies that Sieveking and his followers had failed to notice between Vergil's version and

18981-505: The most influential mythographers of all time. Notable works published by Dumézil in the late 1940s include Tarpeia (1947), Loki (1948), L'Héritage Indo-Européen à Rome (1949) and Le Troisième souverain (1949). The latter work examined the role of Aryaman and his Indo-European counterparts, such the Norse god Heimdallr , in wider Indo-European mythology. Through several influential works of his friend Wikander, Dumézil came to doubt

19152-535: The mythological and social structures Dumézil identified with Indo-Europeans were not distinctly Indo-European, but rather characteristic of all humanity. Among those were Colin Renfrew , who doubts that Indo-Europeans had anything distinctly in common beyond speaking Indo-European languages. The harshest critics of Dumézil were Arnaldo Momigliano and Carlo Ginzburg , who charged Dumézil with having "sympathy for Nazi culture" due to his writings on Germanic religion in

19323-452: The naked beauty of the dense and richly textured city around it." Former mayor Gianni Alemanno , backed in July 2008 by culture undersecretary Francesco Maria Giro, pledged to tear down the new structure. He later changed his stance on the building and has agreed with Mr. Meier to modifications including drastically reducing the height of the wall between an open-air space outside the museum and

19494-473: The panel may have looked like. This interpretation, although widely accepted, can not be proved correct, as so little of the original panel survives. The other panel is more controversial in its subject, but far better preserved. A goddess sits amid a scene of fertility and prosperity with twins on her lap. Scholars have variously suggested that the goddess is Italia, Tellus (Earth), Venus Genetrix or Pax (Peace), although other views also circulate. Due to

19665-487: The panel. Subsequently, the suggestion was made that the scene shows Numa Pompilius , the Roman king associated with Peace and the Gates of Janus . Paul Rehak later published an article with this proposal, confirmed in a chapter of his posthumous book. This theory has won over many scholars, despite considerable initial resistance. The long friezes of the Ara Pacis (the North and South Walls) contain figures advancing towards

19836-660: The pantheon of the Mitanni was derived from an earlier pantheon shared by all Indo-Iranians, and that the main deities in the Indo-Iranian pantheon represented the three functions of Indo-European society. According to Dumézil, it was only during the rise of Zoroaster that Ahura Mazda became the chief deity in Iranian mythology. In the years immediately after World War II, Dumézil recruited Claude Lévi-Strauss and Mircea Eliade to EPHE, and both became close friends whom he strongly influenced. These three men are widely considered

20007-463: The people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety ( pietas ) in maintaining good relations with the gods . Their polytheistic religion is known for having honoured many deities . The presence of Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of

20178-406: The political right , but always presented his works as apolitical, and had many friends and admirers on the left , such as Michel Foucault . Defunct Defunct In the 1980–1990s, Dumézil came under heavy criticism from certain scholars, particularly left-wing historians, who accused Dumézil of being a crypto-Fascist and a neo-traditionalist, by implicitly defending in his scholarly writings

20349-466: The political and social significance of the event. During the late Republic, the political elite competed to outdo each other in public display, and the ludi attendant on a triumph were expanded to include gladiator contests. Under the Principate , all such spectacular displays came under Imperial control: the most lavish were subsidised by emperors, and lesser events were provided by magistrates as

20520-431: The powers and attributes of divine beings, and inclined them to render benefits in return (the principle of do ut des ). Offerings to household deities were part of daily life. Lares might be offered spelt wheat and grain-garlands, grapes and first fruits in due season, honey cakes and honeycombs, wine and incense, food that fell to the floor during any family meal, or at their Compitalia festival, honey-cakes and

20691-502: The practice of augury , used by the state to seek the will of the gods. According to legends , most of Rome's religious institutions could be traced to its founders , particularly Numa Pompilius , the Sabine second king of Rome , who negotiated directly with the gods . This archaic religion was the foundation of the mos maiorum , "the way of the ancestors" or simply "tradition", viewed as central to Roman identity. Roman religion

20862-403: The pre-existing pavilion and to the visual impact of the new pavilion, which in the opinion of many is in stark contrast with surrounding historical buildings. Nicolai Ouroussoff , of The New York Times called the building "a contemporary expression of what can happen when an architect fetishizes his own style out of a sense of self-aggrandizement. Absurdly over-scale, it seems indifferent to

21033-511: The procession; the depiction of children in Roman sculpture would have been novel at the time of the Altar's construction, evoking themes of moral and familial piety, as well as easing concerns over dynastic intentions while simultaneously introducing potential heirs to the public eye. However, despite the emphasis on family values, the anonymity of many of the women depicted enforces the male retention of power within this new age of peace. The western and eastern walls are both pierced by entryways to

21204-465: The recommendation of Lévi, Dumézil also attended lectures by sinologist Marcel Granet , whose methodology for the study of religions was to have a strong influence on Dumézil. Seeking to acquire knowledge of non-Indo-European cultures, Dumézil became proficient in Chinese and gained a deep understanding of Chinese mythology . In his research on the social structure of ancient Indo-Iranians, Dumézil

21375-496: The regime in the act of processing to or performing a sacrifice. Various figures in togas are shown with their heads covered ( capite velato ), signifying their role as both priests and sacrificiants. Other figures wear laurel crowns , traditional Roman symbols of victory. Members of individual priestly colleges are depicted in traditional garb appropriate to their office, while lictors can be identified by their iconographic fasces . Women and children are also included among

21546-504: The research of Dumézil continues to form the basis for modern Indo-European studies. His formulation of the trifunctional hypothesis has been described by C. Scott Littleton as one of the most important scholarly achievements of the 20th century. Since 1995, the Académie Française awards the annual Prix Georges Dumézil  [ fr ] for a work of philology. Dumézil married Madeleine Legrand in 1925, with whom he had

21717-738: The restoration of a traditional hierarchical order in Europe (e.g. the three estates ). Many of these critics pointed out that Dumézil's lifelong close friend Pierre Gaxotte had been the secretary of Action Française leader Charles Maurras , and that his work had been influential on members of the European New Right , including Alain de Benoist , Jean Haudry , or Roger Pearson , who used his theories to support far-right political positions, with an "Indo-European race" (conflated with white people ) being seen as superior to all other peoples. Bruce Lincoln has argued that Dumézil "maintained

21888-431: The sacrificial fire consumed their proper portion ( exta , the innards). Rome's officials and priests reclined in order of precedence alongside and ate the meat; lesser citizens may have had to provide their own. Chthonic gods such as Dis pater , the di inferi ("gods below"), and the collective shades of the departed ( di Manes ) were given dark, fertile victims in nighttime rituals. Animal sacrifice usually took

22059-420: The same site as Mussolini's structure. This new structure is much bigger than the previous one and it is divided into multiple rooms and sections besides the main one containing the altar. Meier's building construction caused new arguments and criticism, after the ones which accompanied the first building construction, both from Roman inhabitants and foreign observers, probably due both to political memory tied to

22230-623: The site that would become the Forum Boarium , and, so the legend went, he was the first to celebrate the Lupercalia , an archaic festival in February that was celebrated as late as the 5th century of the Christian era. The myth of a Trojan founding with Greek influence was reconciled through an elaborate genealogy (the Latin kings of Alba Longa ) with the well-known legend of Rome's founding by Romulus and Remus . The most common version of

22401-429: The spring of 1938 that Dumézil made a major discovery which was to revolutionize his future research. In his subsequent Mythes et dieux des Germains (1939), Dumézil found that early Germanic society was characterized by the same social divisions as those among the early Indo-Iranians. On this basis, Dumézil formulated his trifunctional hypothesis , which argued that ancient Indo-European societies were characterized by

22572-614: The state-supported Vestals , who tended Rome's sacred hearth for centuries, until disbanded under Christian domination. The priesthoods of most state religions were held by members of the elite classes . There was no principle analogous to separation of church and state in ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), the same men who were elected public officials might also serve as augurs and pontiffs . Priests married, raised families, and led politically active lives. Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus before he

22743-423: The study of the Indo-European heritage of ancient Rome . From the late 1940s onwards, the comparative study of Vedic, Roman and Norse mythology and society would constitute the main focus of Dumézil's research. Iranian and Greek mythology played less conspicuous roles in his research. Naissance des archanges (1945) is his sole book on Iranian and Zoroastrian material. In this work, Dumézil suggests that

22914-619: The thesis examined ritual drinks in Indo-Iranian , Germanic , Celtic , Slavic and Italic religion. Dumézil's early writings were also inspired by the research of James George Frazer , whose views were however becoming discredited due to advances in the field of anthropology. At ENS, Dumézil became a close friend of Pierre Gaxotte . Gaxotte was a follower of Charles Maurras , leader of the nationalist Action Française movement. Though some have accused Dumézil of being in sympathy with Action Française, this has been denied by Dumézil, who

23085-420: The tree and the head and shoulder of Mars (if it is Mars) and part of a second individual (thought to be Faustulus) survive, but the addition of the she-wolf , Romulus, and Remus is entirely speculative. The better preserved scene depicts the sacrifice of a pig (the standard sacrifice when Romans made a peace treaty) by an old priest and two attendants. In 1907, this scene was identified by Johannes Sieveking as

23256-466: The trifunctional Indo-European social structure, which he now regarded more as an ideology than an established system. In 1955, Dumézil spent several months as a visiting professor at the University of Lima , during which he dedicated much time the study of the language and mythology of the Quechua people . During the 1950s, Dumézil conducted much research on what he hypothesised to be a war between

23427-407: The twins' story displays several aspects of hero myth. Their mother, Rhea Silvia , had been ordered by her uncle the king to remain a virgin, in order to preserve the throne he had usurped from her father. Through divine intervention, the rightful line was restored when Rhea Silvia was impregnated by the god Mars . She gave birth to twins, who were duly exposed by order of the king but saved through

23598-413: The two-year-old child could be only Germanicus, whose exact birth on 24 May 15 BC is known. This helps prove that the ceremony is an event in 13, although a few scholars continued to argue the ceremony was that of 9 BC (until definitive proof in favor of 13 came out in 1939). In relation to the Domitii Ahenobarbi, von Domaszewski also proposed in the same 1903 article that the last family on the South Wall

23769-555: The underworld, were sometimes given black-and-white victims. Robigo (or Robigus ) was given red dogs and libations of red wine at the Robigalia for the protection of crops from blight and red mildew. A sacrifice might be made in thanksgiving or as an expiation of a sacrilege or potential sacrilege ( piaculum ); a piaculum might also be offered as a sort of advance payment; the Arval Brethren , for instance, offered

23940-556: The universalist theories of Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss, and thus contended that the trinfuctional structure of Indo-European society was a distinct characteristic of the Indo-Europeans. Dumézil had studied the languages and mythology of several indigenous peoples of the Americas , and contended that trifunctionalism was not prevalent among those peoples. Dumézil was elected to the Collège de France in 1949, where he until 1968

24111-556: The various functions in Indo-European mythology, which he suggested culminated in the incorporation of the third function into the first and second function. Dumézil's ideas on this topic were published in Aspects de la fonction guerrière chez les Indo-Européens (1956). Other notable works published by Dumézil in the 1950s include Hadingus (1953), and several works on Roman, Celtic and Germanic religion. His L'Idéologie tripartie des Indo-Européens , published in 1958, has been described as

24282-437: The veiled, leading figure as Julia, daughter of Augustus , but since Julia appears on the South Frieze, it is more likely that this figure is Octavia Minor . Other figures in the entourage might include Marcella Major (a daughter of Octavia), Iullus Antonius (a son of Mark Antony), and two boys and a girl of the imperial family. The smallest boy on the North Frieze used to be identified (in error) as Lucius Caesar. Lucius

24453-443: The widespread depiction around the sculpture of scenes of peace, and because the altar is named for "peace", the favoured conclusion is that the goddess is Pax. The West Wall also contains two panels. The fragmentary " Lupercal Panel" apparently preserves the moment when Romulus and Remus were discovered by Faustulus the shepherd, while Mars looks on. Again this panel is a modern drawing without much evidence. Marble fragments of

24624-470: The word templum to refer to this sacred precinct, and the more common Latin words aedes , delubrum , or fanum for a temple or shrine as a building. The ruins of temples are among the most visible monuments of ancient Roman culture. Temple buildings and shrines within the city commemorated significant political settlements in its development: the Aventine Temple of Diana supposedly marked

24795-510: The word "sacrifice" in connection with this bloodless human life-offering; Plutarch does not. The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BC, preparatory to an invasion of Gaul. Its religious dimensions and purpose remain uncertain. In the early stages of the First Punic War (264 BC) the first known Roman gladiatorial munus was held, described as a funeral blood-rite to the manes of a Roman military aristocrat. The gladiator munus

24966-453: The works Dumézil referred to as his "Ambrosia cycle". Dumézil's work in Istanbul would be of enormous importance to his future research, and he would later consider his years in Istanbul as the happiest of his life. In 1930, Dumézil published his important La préhistoire indo-iranienne des castes . Drawing upon evidence from Avestan , Persian , Greek , Ossetian and Arabic sources, Dumézil suggested that ancient Indo-Iranians, including

25137-836: Was Augustus or Agrippa or Lepidus . In 1907, Sieveking proposed that this figure was Lepidus, the Pontifex Maximus in 13 BC. Sieveking later reversed his position with a series of peculiar suggestions. In 1926, Loewy compared the Ara Pacis Agrippa to the Louvre Agrippa and the Agrippa in Copenhagen (and elsewhere) in order to demonstrate the iconographical similarity. Aside from a very small minority of scholars (most vehemently defensive of Lepidus in Rom. Mitt in

25308-491: Was Chair of Indo-European Civilization. This position was specifically created for him. In the 1950s and 1960s, Dumézil's theories gained increasing acceptance among scholars. The spread of Dumézil's theories was greatly aided by support he received from friends such as Émile Benveniste, Stig Wikander, Otto Höfler and Jan de Vries. Notable Iranologists who adopted Dumézil's theories include Benveniste, Wikander, Geo Widengren, Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin and Marijan Mole . Dumézil

25479-499: Was a French philologist , linguist , and religious studies scholar who specialized in comparative linguistics and mythology . He was a professor at Istanbul University , École pratique des hautes études and the Collège de France , and a member of the Académie Française . Dumézil is well known for his formulation of the trifunctional hypothesis on Proto-Indo-European mythology and society . His research has had

25650-500: Was a crypto-Fascist. Charges of Fascist sympathies have nevertheless continued to be leveled, most notably by Eliade's former student Bruce Lincoln . Inspired by the critique of Momigliano and Ginzburg, Lincoln has criticized Dumézil from a Marxist perspective, and suggested that Dumézil was a Germanophobic Fascist. Similar accusations have also been leveled by the Swedish Marxist historian Stefan Arvidsson , who hopes that

25821-606: Was a fervent Dreyfusard known for his philosemitism , republicanism , anti-racism and Germanophobia . Dumézil had deliberately avoided attending Hubert's lectures, and had to be convinced by Meillet to provide Hubert with a copy of his PhD thesis, which Hubert subsequently bitterly criticized. The refusal of Mauss and Hubert to provide Dumézil with a position may have been motivated by suspicions that Dumézil did not agree with them politically. The rejection by Hubert led to Dumézil losing support from Meillet as well. Meilett informed Dumézil that it would be impossible for him to acquire

25992-492: Was a gruesome example. Officially, human sacrifice was obnoxious "to the laws of gods and men". The practice was a mark of the barbarians , attributed to Rome's traditional enemies such as the Carthaginians and Gauls. Rome banned it on several occasions under extreme penalty. A law passed in 81 BC characterised human sacrifice as murder committed for magical purposes. Pliny saw the ending of human sacrifice conducted by

26163-490: Was an augur, saw religion as a source of social order. As the Roman Empire expanded, migrants to the capital brought their local cults , many of which became popular among Italians. Christianity was eventually the most successful of these beliefs, and in 380 became the official state religion . For ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life. Each home had a household shrine at which prayers and libations to

26334-481: Was born posthumously. Many scholars continue to see the Julia figure as Livia, having reasoned that Livia has to be on the Ara Pacis. Indeed, Livia does appear somewhere (her exclusion is unlikely), but by 13 BC Julia had politically eclipsed Livia, as has been understood and explained by many scholars. The Julia identification dates back to Dütschke in 1880 and Milani in 1891. The Livia identity owes to Petersen, who has

26505-508: Was credited with several religious institutions. He founded the Consualia festival, inviting the neighbouring Sabines to participate; the ensuing rape of the Sabine women by Romulus's men further embedded both violence and cultural assimilation in Rome's myth of origins. As a successful general, Romulus is also supposed to have founded Rome's first temple to Jupiter Feretrius and offered

26676-421: Was elected consul . The augurs read the will of the gods and supervised the marking of boundaries as a reflection of universal order, thus sanctioning Roman expansionism and foreign wars as a matter of divine destiny. The Roman triumph was at its core a religious procession in which the victorious general displayed his piety and his willingness to serve the public good by dedicating a portion of his spoils to

26847-401: Was four in 13 BC, but this child is far too small for a four year old. He might be two years old, and he is not at all dressed like a Roman. In fact, his rear end is showing. He is a barbarian German hostage. But based on work from the 1890s and 1930s, the identity of Lucius still persists among some scholars. Some scholars assumed this boy also was a participant in the Troy Games, although he

27018-679: Was greatly aided by Benveniste, who had earlier been critical of Dumézil's theories. During his early years at EPHE, Dumézil modified many his theories. Most importantly, he increasingly shifted his focus from linguistic evidence to evidence from ancient social structures. Iranologists who influenced Dumézil in this approach include Arthur Christensen , James Darmesteter , Hermann Güntert and Herman Lommel . Notable works of Dumézil from this period include Ouranos-Varuna (1934) and Flamen-Brahman (1935). Ouranos-Varuna examined similarities in Greek and Vedic mythology , while Flamen-Brahman examined

27189-539: Was however also criticized by certain Indologists , Iranologists and Romanists . Indologist Paul Thieme notably argued that the gods of the Mitanni were distinctly Indo-Aryan rather than Indo-Iranian, and that Dumézil's reconstruction of Indo-Iranian religion was thus mistaken. Dumézil responded vigorously to such criticism, while also continuously refining his theories. Most notably, Dumézil modified his theories on

27360-706: Was in April 1940 posted to the French military mission in Ankara , Turkey, where he remained during the Battle of France . He was repatriated to France in September 1940, and subsequently returned to full-time teaching at EPHE. Because he had been a Freemason as a young man, Dumézil was fired from EPHE by the pro-Nazi Vichy government in early 1941. Through the influence of colleagues, he was however able to regain his position in

27531-404: Was inspector-general of the French artillery corps during the war. Dumézil returned to his studies at ENS in 1919. His most important teacher there was Antoine Meillet , who gave him a rigorous introduction in Iranian and Indo-European linguistics . Meillet was to have a great influence on Dumézil. Unlike other students of Meillet, Dumézil was more interested in mythology than linguistics. In

27702-434: Was murdered and succeeded by the arrogant Tarquinius Superbus , whose expulsion marked the end of Roman kingship and the beginning of the Roman republic, governed by elected magistrates . Roman historians regarded the essentials of Republican religion as complete by the end of Numa's reign, and confirmed as right and lawful by the Senate and people of Rome : the sacred topography of the city , its monuments and temples,

27873-444: Was never a member of the organization. Dumézil's PhD thesis was highly praised by Meillet, who requested Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert , both followers of Émile Durkheim , to assist Dumézil with further studies. For reasons unknown, the request was turned down. Mauss and Hubert were both socialists in the spirit of Jean Jaurès , who actively used their academic influence to advance their own political ideology. Hubert in particular

28044-527: Was never explicitly acknowledged as a human sacrifice, probably because death was not its inevitable outcome or purpose. Even so, the gladiators swore their lives to the gods, and the combat was dedicated as an offering to the Di Manes or the revered souls of deceased human beings. The event was therefore a sacrificium in the strict sense of the term, and Christian writers later condemned it as human sacrifice. The small woollen dolls called Maniae , hung on

28215-457: Was no single static and authoritative calendar of required observances. In the later Empire under Christian rule, the new Christian festivals were incorporated into the existing framework of the Roman calendar, alongside at least some of the traditional festivals. Public religious ceremonies of the official Roman religion took place outdoors, and not within the temple building. Some ceremonies were processions that started at, visited, or ended with

28386-529: Was not discovered until the 1903 excavation, and his head was damaged by the cornerstone of the Renaissance palazzo built on top of the original Ara Pacis site. Although he was identified correctly in 1903, Petersen, Strong, and Stuart-Jones initially saw the figure as the rex sacrorum . Today Augustus is better recognized by his hair style than his face. In the absence of Augustus from the panel, early scholars debated whether Agrippa (the tall veiled priest)

28557-416: Was practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des , "I give that you might give". Religion depended on knowledge and the correct practice of prayer, rite, and sacrifice, not on faith or dogma, although Latin literature preserves learned speculation on the nature of the divine and its relation to human affairs. Even the most skeptical among Rome's intellectual elite such as Cicero , who

28728-499: Was published in 1977. He received the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca in 1984. In his later years, Dumézil became a visible figure in French society, and was frequently interviewed and cited in the public press. His theories on Indo-European society were celebrated by Nouvelle Droite figures such as Alain de Benoist , Michel Poniatowski and Jean Haudry , but Dumézil was careful to distance himself from them. Dumézil openly identified with

28899-410: Was subjected to intense criticism until she retracted it. Subsequently, led by Charles Brian Rose and Ann Kuttner, North American scholars have realized Kähler was wrong: the boy is a foreign prince. Stern adds the costume is wrong for a Trojan (no Phrygian hat) and no bulla – worn by all Roman boys as protection from the evil eye. Many others have contributed to disprove Petersen's theory. In 1938

29070-459: Was tantamount to treason. This was the context for Rome's conflict with Christianity , which Romans variously regarded as a form of atheism and novel superstitio , while Christians considered Roman religion to be paganism . Ultimately, Roman polytheism was brought to an end with the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the empire. The Roman mythological tradition is particularly rich in historical myths, or legends , concerning

29241-492: Was the essential spirit and generative power – depicted as a serpent or as a perennial youth, often winged – within an individual and their clan ( gens (pl. gentes ). A paterfamilias could confer his name, a measure of his genius and a role in his household rites, obligations and honours upon those he fathered or adopted. His freed slaves owed him similar obligations. Georges Dum%C3%A9zil Georges Edmond Raoul Dumézil (4 March 1898 – 11 October 1986)

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