by Horatius Piscinus on Wed Oct 29, 2003 11:57 am
Salvete
Another long one I'm afraid. It can't be helped, but the good news, I think I may have only one more though before completing this commentary on Cicero's De Legibus.
Consecrating Land
NE QUIS AGRUM CONSECRATO. AURI, ARGENTI, EBORIS SACRANDI MODUS ESTO.
No one shall consecrate a field; the consecration of gold, silver, and ivory shall be confined to reasonable limits.
De Leg. II 18, 45: In my prohibition of the consecration of land I am in complete agreement with Plato, who expresses his opinion in about the following words, if I can translate the passage, "The earth, therefore, like the hearth in a dwelling, is sacred to all the gods; wherefore no one should consecrate it a second time."
Earlier Cicero said that there should be shrines in the cities and sacred groves in the countryside. There he was referring to communities. Here he is referring to individuals who should be prohibited from consecrating land. There is a political aspect in this measure since the land in question would no longer be available to communities or others. Resistance to the Gracchan land distribution and of those that followed included this ploy of dedicating and consecrating land as shrines. And one is also led to think of Clodius? consecration of Cicero?s city property to Libertia. Here we will forego the "why?s" and look at the steps need to be taken in consecrating land that has already been designated and marked out by augures as sanctified.
The consecration of land took several ritual steps. Romans of the Late Republic attributed the entire rite to the Etruscans (Plut. Rom. 11.1-4). This may have been due primarily to Caecina?s account of the Etruscan founding of Mantua. The founding ritual extended back to a much earlier period. The rite was certainly not limited to the Etruscans alone, but was found throughout central Italy (Varro L. L. 5.143). The same basic rite is used to establish an estate, any religious shrine, a military camp, an oppidium or colonia, and also of course a city such as Mantua or Rome.
The foundation ritual consists of three basic parts, each of which would in itself involve a series of rituals. First is the establishment of the central point, or umbilicus. In establishing a city or town it would be here that the mundus was constructed. Pliny discusses the establishment of an estate by first marking out the cardinal directions (Nat. Hist. 18.76, 77). The process he describes is the initial phase of establishing a templum by the augures. A stick, called a gruma, is held vertically at the center of the land. Lines are drawn in accordance with the position of the sun on the horizon at its equinoctial rising; that is, due east. This establishes the east-west line called the cardo. It is not until midday, with the sun at its highest point, that the decumanus is then drawn along the axis of a person?s shadow to establish the north-south axis. At the center of the cross thus formed is made a pile of stone, called the umbilicus. Other lines are then drawn to form an eight-pointed star, giving the directions of the winds. According to Pliny, these also give the rising and setting points of the sun at the solstices. (There is another step, using Euclidean geometry that he neglected to mention.) From what Pliny says, the exercise would take place over several hours, performed in a precise manner, and capable of being performed only on specific days of the annual cycle. Varro, too, says that the marking off of shrines was made "in accordance with the celestial auspices that indicate their boundaries (L. L. 6.53)." That refers to the taking of auspices, a rite that began shortly after midnight so that observation of star positions aligned any templum. This is further indicated by Festus where he said, "From the sky above, like the stars, are the inaugurated places (locis inauguratis) fixed (351a)." We may note too that the Roman annual cycle began near either of those two equinoctial points. Tradition held the early civil calendar to begin with the Full Moon of March immediately preceding the vernal equinox. The ceremony of hammering a nail in the lintel of Minerva?s sacellum, said to have been first made by Marcus Horatius at the dedication of the Capitolium, is recalled on the Ides of September, or the Full Moon preceding just before the autumnal equinox. The same rite, according to Cincius, was performed at Volsinii, Etruria (Livy 7.3.5sq). At Rome and Volsinii the rite of hammering the nail marked the passage of the year. In contrast the rites conducted under Vespasian to consecrate the Capitolium anew took place 21 June, preceding the summer solstice by a few days. Whether you are speaking of an estate as did Pliny, or of a city, the orientation rite places the designated parcel of land into a context of celestial time and space.
At the center is the umbilicus that symbolizes the center of the world. Next would be to establish the mundus beneath this position so that it would become the center of the city. The mundus was an underground vaulted chamber.. "It was, so to speak, the gateway of the fateful and infernal gods that was opened. That was why religion banned not only engaging in combat, but raising troops, making them set out, weighing anchor, or marrying to have children (Macrob. Sat. 1.16.18, citing Varro)." Raising troops at one time took place in the comitia centuriata. Thus Festus mentions that no comitia could assemble, or any public business be conducted, on the days when the mundus was opened (p. 146.1). It was opened on 24 Aug., 5 Oct., and 8 Nov. of each year. Placed in the mundus on those days were the first fruits of the earth. It was thus similar to the underground altar of Consus in the Circus Maximus. Festus, however, associated the mundus with Ceres (p. 126.4). It had once been assumed that the mundus and the altar of Consus represented underground silos for storing grain. However no such underground storage facilities were ever used anywhere in Italy. It was assumed that offerings were placed at the end of harvest season in anticipation of the coming lean months of winter. However in the older calendar, when the year was reckoned to begin in September, the opening of the mundus would have been associated with the beginning of a growing cycle based on winter wheat production. Rather than an association with agriculture and grain storage, the mundus is always identified with the Underworld. That is affirmed further in Plutarch?s description, where the ritual concluded by each participant tossing a handful of their native soil over the offerings. The ritual was like a mock funeral, and the mundus itself became a collective shrine to the Manes of the City. On the days it is opened afterward the Manes are thought to walk the earth. The association of the mundus with Ceres may likewise point to a very early identification with the Underworld rather than with grain production. Ceres never quite lost Her identity as a goddess receiving the dead, although under Greek influence it became more closely identified with Proserpina as an aspect of Ceres. The mundus perhaps takes us back to the early development of Rome when the great houses had as their central shrine the tomb of an ancestor. Prior to the exclusion of tombs inside the city, burials took place near or under the front doorway of houses. We will see later with the pomerium wall how this comes into play.
The first mundus was said to have been established by Romulus on the Palatine Hill (Germalus locus). Later when the city was refounded by Servius Tullius the mundus was rebuilt in the Forum as the new center of the City. Plutarch confused the Romulan mundus with that of the Servian located in the comitium area in front of the Republican Senate House. During the imperial period this mundus was monumentalized into a small round shrine, and was possibly moved, behind the Rostrum and next to the Arch of Septimus Severus. Plutarch described the mundus as a round pit, which may again refer to its later version. Very similar to the mundus was the quadrata Romana. This is a simple sanctuary, similar to one found at Cosa, near ancient Vulci in southern Etruria. The better known one is that of Augustus, built in front of his house on the Palatine. Only a few meters from it is the archaic quadrata that possibly represented Romulus? original mundus. As its name implies, it is square in shape rather than round. At the center is a stone slab, two meters square. Augustus posed himself as founding a new city, thus becoming a new Romulus. He returned to the old practice of having a tomb-like structure placed near the front door of his house on the Palatine. The sides of the shrine were marked out and oriented in the same manner as a templum auguralis. This too identified Augustus with Romulus who took the auspices on the Palatine rather than on the Capitolium (Livy 1.6.4). The quadrata Romana represents the terrestrial templum from which the augur would call out to designate the boundaries of a city.
The next step was to establish the sulcus primordialis or sacred circle. This involved the plowing of a furrow around the plot of land, performed in a ritual manner. The plowman was dressed in the Gabii manner without a toga and with his tunic pulled off his right shoulder. What that implies is that the rite was among the Latins prior to the founding of Rome, and indeed all Roman accounts recall Romulus performing the rite as it was used among the Latins of Alba Mount. The plow was harnessed to an ox on the outside and a heifer on the inside, following the course of the sun in a clockwise manner. The plow was turned to a sharp angle so that as the furrow was made a mound would build up to the inside. The future positions of the gates were not plowed. Instead the plow was lifted out of the earth and carried over these spaces. As usual, the rite of plowing began with a prayer. Ovid places such a prayer into the mouth of Romulus that may have been based on one used for colonies.
As I found this city, be present, Jupiter, Father Mars, and Mother Vesta, and all gods who it is pious to summon, join together to attend. Grant that my work may rise with Your auspices. Grant that it may for many years hold dominion on earth, and assert its power over the east and west (Fasti 4.827-32)
Tacitus describes the course of Rome?s sulcus primordialis. It began in the Forum Boarium. "A furrow was drawn to mark out the town, so as to embrace the Ara Maxima of Hercules; then, at regular intervals stones were placed along the foot of the Palatine Hill to the altar of Consus, soon afterwards, to the old Courts, and then to the sacellum of Larunda and the Forum Romanorum. The Forum Romanorum and the Capitolium were not, it was supposed, added to the city by Romulus, but by Titus Tatius (Annales 12.24)." Tacitus? route beside the Palatine is thought to be that of the later day Luperci. It travels from the south-west to the north-east without completing the circuit around the Palatine. Varro however was quite clear that a circuit was once made fully around the antiquum oppidium Palatinum (L. L. 6.34). On the opposite side of the Palatine Carandini has discovered a pomerium wall that, if extended, would meet with the route described by Tacitus, and thus would confirm what Varro wrote (see below).
Another instance of drawing the siculus primordialis furrow is found with the sanctuary of Hercules at Avellanus. In 183 BCE Q. Fabius Labeinus settled a dispute over this sanctuary between Nola and Avellanus. The inscription recording his decision, written in Oscan, held that the sanctuary was originally established by Hercules performing the same rite made by Romulus in founding Rome. Hercules "built up the land" by plowing a circuit around the sanctuary. After the settlement both cities were to circuit the sanctuary in a "rite of fructification", supposedly in a joint rite, that was to provide for their mutual benefit "ensuring the fertility of the land." The rite described for this sanctuary is similar to the lustratio conducted at Rome, and to the lustratio described in the Iguvium Tablets. These relate to Cicero?s "inaugurations both for the vineyards and the orchards and the public safety of the people (Legibus II.21)." Indeed, Tacitus tells of the route of the luperci and of Rome?s siculus primordialis in conjunction with Claudius? reinstating the augury of the public safety. Of a similar nature but in private rites is that described by Cato for his estate (De Agri. 141). This may relate to a rural rite mentioned by both Tibullus and Virgil named an ambularia by modern historians (Georgic I.338-350). Cato?s lustratio makes use of a special sacrifice of a piglet, a lamb and a calf. This relates to the sacrifice known as a suovetaurilia that is depicted for use in state lustrationes and used for the foundation rite of colonies and military camps.
From Nola in northern Campania we can travel to Val Camonica in northern Italy. One rock painting from that region, at Doscui, appears to show the rite of plowing the first furrow. The scene shows a naked man plowing with a team of animals. To the side is shown a woman with upraised arms in a gesture of prayer that is described among Romans. This is not just a simple plowing scene; the figure of the woman indicates some rite was being depicted. It may well be a rite for the first plowing of the year. It could also be a foundation rite being depicted since it is a unique scene in the Val Camonica. The providence of this particular painting is probably the early Iron Age, although other scenes from the area would date back to the Bronze Age. It establishes that the whole complex of the Roman foundation rites was based on some much earlier rite involving plowing. It also shows that such rites extended throughout western Italy, beyond Etruria, at a very early date. The Doscui painting is possibly contemporaneous with the Villanova, possibly earlier, and either way would predate the emergence of the Etruscans as a distinct cultural group.
The third and final stage of the foundation rites was the setting up of the pomerium wall itself and laying out markers that extended out from the wall on either side. Livy tells of Servius Tullius expanding the pomerium:
He surrounded the city with a mound, moats and a wall; in this way he extended the pomerium. Looking only at the etymology of the word, they explain pomerium as postmoerium, but it is rather a circamoerium, for the space which the Etruscans of old consecrated, when founding their cities, in accordance with auguries, and marked off by boundary stones at intervals on each side, as the part where the wall on the inside and on the outside, which ground they leave virgin soil untouched by cultivation. This space, in which it is forbidden either to build upon or plough, and which could not be said to be behind the wall anymore than the wall could be said to be behind it, the Romans called the pomoerium. As the City grew, the sacred boundary stones were always moved forward as far as the walls advanced (Livy 1.44.3-5).
A shrine might be set off from its surroundings by a short wall, by hedges, by linen wrapped between trees, or simply by the placement of markers around the boundaries set for its templum. The pomerium designated the sacred center of a city or town, and was in a sense like a templum. Aelius Gallus stipulated that the wall around a city was sanctum. It was more than religiosum as would be tombs lying outside a city. It was less than sacrum as are any edifice dedicated to a god or goddess. Instead the wall was on a par with that of templum. It is holy and inviolable. This brings us for the moment to the story of Remus whose death concerns the inviolability of the pomerium. Among the twenty-four stories told of the founding of Rome and of Remus? death, one has him as a willing sacrifice, offered up to consecrate the pomerium wall. Even in the barest version, given by Livy, there is this suggestion with Romulus saying, "Thus shall perish whosoever else would leap over my walls (Livy 1.7.2-3)." Part of the consecration rite may have included a mock violation of the pomerium and the death of the violator. It was not always though just a mock performance.
Between 1862-66 there were discovered four pillars buried beneath Augustus? pomerium. They date to the first century BCE but were written in archaic Latin. One of these, column B, is inscribed with the single word Remureine indicating it may represent Remus. The four pillars were found in the Clivio, located near the house of M. Aemilius Scaurus, where the pomerium is crossed and where tradition held was the place where Remus had leaped over the wall. Then in the late 1990?s excavation conducted by Carandini discovered a pomerium wall near the Arch of Constantinus heading in the direction from southeast to northwest towards the Arch of Nerva. Extended onward towards the Arch of Titu, it would come to the house of Aemilius Scaurus. The wall, if it does extends further, would connect to the course given by Tacitus and may indeed fully circumscribe the Palatine Hill. Its lack of footers indicates it is indeed a pomerium wall rather than a defensive wall. This lack of footers may also attest to the wall?s very ancient origin. Beneath the wall was then discovered four interred graves dating to the time of Servius Tullius. Two are located inside the pomerium itself, the other two lying just outside the wall but still in the pomerium area on either side of the wall. It is suggested that the four pillars of the Augustan era represent these four individuals sacrificed when Servius expanded the pomerium wall.
The counterpoint to the mundus at the center of the city was the altar of Consus that lay in the Circus Maximus and thus outside the pomerium. Between them lay the pomerium that had been sanctified in Augustus? time by interring objects representative of human sacrifices. These burials sanctified the land in which they were made. With templa precincts there are similar deposits. Favissae have been found on the Viminal at S. Maria della Vittoria, another dispersed over an area on the Quirinal at the Villa Hofner, a third. on the right bank of the Tiber. In the Comitium, beneath the Lapis Niger, the ancient fanum was filled in with material that likely came from an earlier and unknown favissa. Two other favissae are of special import. One favissa was found at the foot of the Capitoline Hill near the Temple of Concord. This may suggest a pomerium of sorts, setting off the Capitoline Hill as a sacred district separated from the rest of the city. The other favissa Capitolina is associated with the Capitolium itself. Its material included miniature vessels of a type used as votives in gravesites, especially with cremations, of the mid 7th century and earlier. There were also terracotta representations of bread, and Italo-Corinthian pottery. Along with these were placed tiny figurines cut out from bronze sheeting. These human figurines possibly were offered in lieu of human sacrifices. Because of the number of them I would suggest that rather than human sacrifices they represent the Lares of the various Roman gentes. The favissa near the Temple of Concord likewise had bronze objects but too small to identify, and the bronze objects found in the favissa on the Viminal, over six hundred, no longer exist. We know something of the favissae from Varro?s reply to the jurist Servius Sulpicius
These are cells or cisterns found underground in that location (the Capitolium), in which it has been customary to place old decorational elements which have come off that temple and other things that have been consecrated by dedication (Gellius II 10).
Varro indicates that favissae resulted presumably when a temple was being renovated or reconstructed. Building material has never been found in favissae that would constitute a structure, only antefixes from temple roofs, bearing images of gods and goddesses. In the case of the rebuilding of the Capitolium under Vespasian the augurs instructed L. Vestinius to deposit the remains of the old temple in the marshes (Tacitus Hist. 4.53). This presumably did not include the sacred items that had previously been dedicated. Temple debris, old statues, ritual tools and votives could neither be discarded nor disturbed, and they could not leave the templum precinct in which they had been dedicated. This Q. Catulus discovered when he was instructed not to violate the favissa Capitlina when he sought to excavate the Capitoline in order to enlarge the Capitolium. Instead sacred objects had to be burned or buried, just as with the strictures placed on the pontifex maximus. But the favissae imply more than just that they were debris; they sanctified the land in which a templum was designated and were used to sanctify and temple or other structure that was to be built at the site.
A few things are brought together in Tacitus? description of the rededication of the new templum Capitolium. Previously the various steps had been taken to establish the templum itself. "The sacred enclosure was encompassed with chaplets and garlands." This would indicate the stone makers of the precinct?s boundaries were so decorated. A procession was then made within the precinct by soldiers with "auspicious names" and carrying boughs from sacred trees. The Vestal Virgins and a choir of children then "sprinkled the whole space with water drawn from the fountains and rivers." The "usual sacrifice of the suovetaurilia (consisting of a boar, ram, and bull)" was performed by the praetor, using prayers dictated to him by the pontifex maximus, that called upon "Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and the tutelary deities of the place, to prosper the undertaking and to lend their divine help to raise the abodes which the piety of men had founded for them." The foundation stone of the new temple was itself wreathed and presumably dedicated. Tacitus says that the praetor touched it wreathes and wound ropes on the stone. This was to profane it before it was dragged into place. At that point Tacitus describes what would be comparable to the favissa. "Contributions of gold and silver and virgin ores, never smelted in the furnace, but still in their natural state, were showered on the foundations. The augurs had previously directed that no stone or gold which had been intended for any other purpose should profane the work." (Note the second part to Cicero?s proposed law above on consecrating gold, silver and ivory.) Much later, after construction of the temple building itself, the ades, another procession around the boundaries of the templum would be made with all the attendant rites as in a lustratio. The dedication would be made with the hand placed on the doorpost of the main entrance (Livy II 8.6-8). The dedicator?s hand could not be removed while pronouncing the dedication.. For a fanum or similar shrine the gatepost would have been used to signify the entire structure. In the following years rites would be conducted on the anniversary of the site; these would repeat certain aspects of the dedication rites around the boundaries. The dies natalis recorded on the various fasti was an anniversary of a templum dedication (not necessarily of a temple building) when a lustratio of the precinct?s boundaries would be made. With Cato we read of the annual lustratio of an estate, where a portion of the estate, representing the whole, is circled in a family procession. Then too was the lustratio of the city?s boundaries, performed annually as at Iguvium and mentioned for Rome by Tacitus, or in times of crisis as Livy records for Rome.
Moving from one stage to the next we see similar rites being performed to designate the boundaries of a site. In the process the land?s sanctity is increased with every stage. Burial of certain objects would make the land first religiosum. Its boundaries designated by augurs, marked out as the sulcus primordialis and then the plowing of the circuit to form the site?s first pomerium transformed the locus to sanctum. Then with the pontifices conducting a lustratio on the boundaries and the dedication of the site, it was finally consecrated into sacrum. The series of rites built upon one another, and each emphasized the partitioning off of the site from the surrounding land. While the city?s pomerium designated the holy portion of the city from the rest, within Rome?s pomerium were areas regarded as holier still. The Capitoline Hill and Palatine Hill were two such districts. Within those districts were dedicated precincts, the templa, and there could be within these still other templa separating them from the rest of the holy precinct. Thus within the precinct that was the templum Capitolina there would be a separate area designated off from the rest of the precinct as the Capitolium itself, that is the aedes or temple building. The templum Capitolina is sanctified as holy, the Capitolium is consecrated as sacred. Also within the templum Capitolina would be an altar standing before the Capitolium. As at other sites an altar was dedicated separately and thus could have its own templum within the wider templum Capitolina. Likewise there could be other buildings constructed in a templum that would not be consecrated as an aedes or domus. Libraries, storage facilities, theater areas, dining facilities, some precincts served as hostels as well, none of which would have been consecrated.. Each of these buildings though would need to have had its own templum designated to partition it off from the rest of the precinct. Then too at times a lesser shrine to a different deity might be erected in the precinct of one of the great temples. A sacellum might be a small room or niche in the main temple building, or a small building by itself. Since it was an area being separated off from the rest of the main templum precinct it too would have its own templum, and since it was being dedicated to a specific deity it, too, could be consecrated
The same ideas contained here for public consecrations should be employed today in designating places of worship by a community of practitioners or by individuals for private use. A private dwelling can be sanctified and within it there should be little shrines in most if not all rooms, each passing through its own rite of dedication. The "hearth" of a private house is dedicated to the household Lares and is consecrated to all the Gods, acting as the private mundus. The boundaries of the family plot can likewise be sanctified, as can shrines on the property, each with their own dedication rite like the one made by Horace of a tree, or the shrine for Terminus and the one for the garden Priapus as every yard would have. Today's communities of practitioners should begin by dedicating a locus with its own templum. Inside this templum should then be dedicated a separate templum for open air altar precinct with its rules allowing for offerings being made for all Roman deities (and perhaps specifically excluding other deities). Within the greater templum of the locus can be dedicated other templa for various purposes, and eventually one for the construction of a temple edifice. That is, the individual practitioner and/or a community of practitioners should consider the process of dedicating land to religious purposes, keeping in mind how the sanctity of a site is built up over time and through a series of dedication rites.
M Horatius Piscinus
Sapere aude!