SACRA
SACRA (the plural of
sacrum==anything dedicated
to the gods) is the general Roman term for worship, including the ritual
observed in it, the utensils used in it (
Ov. Am.
3.13,
28), and even the documents which
preserved the memory of the ritualistic usages prescribed for it (cf. e.g.
Cic.
de Legibus, 2.8, 19 and 20; Varro,
L. L. 5.50, “in sacris Argeorum scriptum est
sic” ).
Roman writers distinguish two kinds of
sacra
within their own state, viz.
sacra publica and
sacra privata. As the limits of the state
became extended, many foreign worships were introduced into Rome, while the
inhabitants of
municipia retained their own
sacra under Roman protection (Festus, s.
vv.
peregrina sacra and
municipalia sacra); but as all these were included in the
sacra publica, the rapid growth of the
Empire and the social changes accompanying it did not affect the validity of
the main distinction, which may be recognised as holding good for all
periods of Roman religious history. It may be succinctly explained in the
words of Festus (p. 245 a), which were probably themselves drawn by Verrius
Flaccus from the books of the
pontifices:
“Publica sacra quae publico sumptu pro populo fiunt, quaeque pro
montibus, pagis, curiis, sacellis. At privata quae pro singulis
hominibus, familiis, gentibus fiunt.” From this definition it
seems probable that under the head of public worship were reckoned all rites
undertaken by the state as a collective whole, or by such divisions of the
state as worshipped collectively (Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung, iii.2 120, note 1 and
reff.); while private worship was understood as including all other rites,
whether on behalf of individuals, households, or even
gentes. The
sacra gentilicia
have indeed by some been considered to belong to the public worship
(Savigny,
Vermischte Schriften, i. p. 173 foll.; but cf. p.
203, where this view is retracted); but the worship of the
gens must undoubtedly be taken as analogous to that
of the
familia (
Liv.
5.52,
4), as in neither case was there any
rite in which the whole number of familiae or gentes took part at one and
the same time. It will be sufficient to give some illustrations of the
nature of the rites included under the two main divisions, following the
indications afforded by the passage of Festua quoted above. We begin with
the
sacra privata, as first in time, though not
in importance.
SACRA PRIVATA.
Festus distinguishes three kinds:
pro singulis
hominibus, pro familiis, and
pro
gentibus.
It is by no means clear what rites are to be reckoned under this
category. All
sacra solennia would naturally
in early times have as their object the welfare, not of the
individual, but of some organic group of individuals. Of prayers and
sacrifices however, performed by an individual for his own benefit,
we have examples (e. g. in
Verg. A.
6.51,
8.71;
Plin. Nat. 28.10; cf. Arnobius,
adv, Nat. 3.43); but these as a rule refer to
worship in the field or under peculiar circumstances, in which the
individual was temporarily separated from his family, gens, or
state, and the remarkable prayer of Scipio in
Liv. 29.26 is of this kind; yet it is to be noticed that
he is here representing not only himself, but his army and the whole
Roman people. With prayers are constantly associated
vota, as in
Aen. 6.56-75:
these are more natural to the individual, and may be illustrated
abundantly by the votive tablets of the later Roman age (see
Wilmanns,
Exempla Inscr. Lat. vol. ii. p. 498
foll.).
Each family was a religious unit of which the paterfamilias was the
priest, and the special gods were the Lares (or more properly the
singular Lar) and the Penates; the former probably representing the
primeval ancestor of the family, and the latter being the protecting
deities of the
penus or store-room of
the household. To these daily invocations were offered and also
libations at meals; and on all
feriae
privatae, such as the anniversaries of births, the
kalends, nones, and ides, and on the Saturnalia, their images were
adorned with garlands. The family also had its festivals of
mourning, such as the Caristia and the Parentalia in February,
[p. 2.578]when the tombs of deceased members were
visited and certain rites performed there. Lastly, for the benefit
of the family and its property, the greater gods were invoked, as
may be seen in the form of domestic field lustration preserved in
Cato (
de Re Rustica, 141), where Janus,
Jupiter, and Mars, especially the latter, are besought to protect
the crops and herds.
All
sacra pro familiis were imperishable
except by the extinction of the family: hence in Roman law the
inheritance of a dead man's property involved the acceptance of his
sacra, and the phrase
hereditas sine
sacris became a proverb for extraordinary good luck.
Accurate rules were supplied in the
jus
pontificium for the devolution of the sacra to heirs
of various degrees under various circumstances (see
Cic. de Legibas, 2.1.
9-21; Savigny,
op. cit. p. 153
foll.). The general principle of their succession is thus stated by
Cicero (
Legg. 2.19): “De sacris autem . . . .
haec sit una sententia, ut conserventur semper et deinceps
familiis prodantur, et, ut in lege posui, perpetua sint
sacra.”
Though familia and gens are words loosely used and often interchanged
in Roman literature (cf. Marquardt,
Staatsverw. vol.
iii. ed. 2, p. 130), it is not difficult to distinguish the
sacra gentilicia from those of the family.
They belonged, however, only to patrician gentes (
Liv. 10.8,
9),
which were the only groups properly so called; and as these
gradually died out, their sacra disappeared with them. Thus Gaius
(3.17) writes of the whole jus gentilicium as obsolete in his day.
But there is little doubt that in early times each gens had its own
particular place and day for the performance of its sacra: e. g. the
gens Fabia had a fixed day for a sacrifice on the Quirinal, which
was performed by a leading member of the gens (possibly called
flamen)
in cinctu gabino (
Liv. 5.46,
22.18;
Dionys. A. R. 9,
19;
Cic. Harusp. Resp. 15, 32). Each gens
originally no doubt had also a common burial-place (Cic.
de Legibus, 2.22, 55;
Offic.
1.17, 55;
de Domo, 13, 35). It should
be added that certain gentes had special worships in their charge (
“sacra certis familiis attributa” ; Festus, p. 253,
where
familiis is used for
gentibus): thus the gens Nautia had the care
of the sacrae Minervae, the Potitii and Pinarii of those of
Hercules, the gens Julia of that of Apollo; but these worships were
rather of a public than a private character, i. e. they were state
worships entrusted to a particular gens (Mommsen,
Staatsrecht, 3.19). All sacra privata, it should
be noticed, were under the supervision of the pontifices, who were
the sole referees in all questions arising out of the jus familiare
and the jus gentilicium (Cic.
de
Legibus, 2.12, 30). See
GENS
SACRA PUBLICA.
In the passage of Festus already quoted these are defined as “quae
publico sumptu pro populo fiunt, quaeque pro montibus, pagis,
curiis, sacellis.” In this definition we see a twofold
division: i. e. into 1. The public festivals of the calendar, conducted
on behalf of the state by its priestly colleges; and 2. Those in which
the local communities which had at one time formed divisions of the city
took part as a collective whole, though worshipping independently of
each other. In each case it should be noted that the rites thus called
sacra publica are distinguished from sacra privata, in that they do not
belong to independent groups united by real or supposed kinship, but to
political divisions of the state or to the state as a whole.
Of these, which comprise the whole cycle of the religious festivals
of the year, with the exception of one or two to be mentioned under
the next head, nothing need be said here, and the student is
referred to the various articles which treat of them more
particularly. Their distinctive features as compared with the other
division of sacra publica are--1. That they were maintained at the
expense of the state (
publico sumptu).
2. That they were conducted in the earliest times by the rex or by
the ministers of religion who acted for him, and in later times by
the rex sacrificulus, the flamines, or by one or other of the four
principal religious colleges.
These, as we have seen, are described by Festus as being “pro
montibus, pagis, curiis, sacellis.” A brief account may
be here given of the sacra belonging to each of these divisions, so
far as their nature can be ascertained.
a. Pro montibus.
One of the ancient and obscure local divisions of the early state
was that into Montes and Pagi, i. e. the dwellers in the
original seven hill settlements on the Palatine and Esquiline,
and the dwellers in the open country belonging to the state
(Cic.
de Domo, 28, 74; Mommsen,
Staatsr. 3.112 f.). The common festival of
the former was called Septimontium, or Septimontiale sacrum
(Suet.
Domit. 4), and appears in the ancient
calendars as Agonalia; it took place on Dec. 11 (
C. I.
L. vol. 1.407). Of the sacrum itself we only know that
the flamen Palatualis made an offering on this day, doubtless to
Pales, on the Palatine hill; and according to Plutarch,
Quaest. Rom. 69. that no vehicles were
allowed to be used in the old city during the festival,--a
survival which is doubtless explained by reference to the
crowded and narrow alleys of the town as compared with the open
character of the pagi. As festivals of the Montani may perhaps
be reckoned also the Laralia or feast of the Lares compitales
(cf.
LARES) and the
Parilia of April 21, the festival of the foundation of the
Palatine city: cf. Festus, p. 253.
b. Pro pagis.
These, as might be expected, are of an agricultural character;
but it should be noted that what we know of sacra paganalia is
derived not from the accounts of the ancient Roman pagi, but
from information as to the Italian pagi of later times. To the
sacra of these belong the
Sementivae, varying in date according to the season
(Ovid,
Fasti, 1.657 f.); the
Ambarvalia, at the end of May,
otherwise called Lustratio pagi (cf.
AMBARVALIA and
LUSTRATIO); and
the
Terminalia or feast of
boundaries, at the end of the year (Feb. 23). There can be
little doubt that these festivals or their equivalents were
among the sacra of the ancient Roman pagi, and were presided
over as in Italy generally by a magister pagi, together with his
wife the magistra pagi (cf. Marquardt,
Staatsverw. 3.198).
For the two festivals which specially belong to the Curiae, see
articles FORIDICIDIA and
FORNACALIA
[p. 2.579]
These sacella can hardly be other than the sacella or sacraria
argeorum, which were probably twenty-four or twenty-seven chapels or
shrines situated at various points in the four Servian regions of
the city.
That these sacella were the centres of ancient divisions of the city,
possibly for religious purposes, is highly probable; all we know of
them is in the form of citations by Varro (
L. L. bk.
5.45 foll.) from the “Sacra Argeorum,” which was
apparently a processional itinerary, and probably also a rule of
ritual performance. What was done at the sacella we do not know. a
procession seems to have gone round them on March 16 and 17; but it
had become so obscure by Ovid's time that he could dispose of it in
his
Fasti in two lines, leaving it
somewhat uncertain whether it took place on one day or two. Nor can
we be at all sure as to the relation of these rites to the better
known Argean procession of May 15. (See ARGEI; and Mommsen,
Staatsrecht, 3.122 foll.;
Jordan,
Topographie der Stadt Rom, 2.237 foll.)
[
W.W.F]
