#roman syncretism

[ramblings-of-a-christian-mystic]

Various Houses of Worship Throughout England

[creature-wizard]

New Age is basically just repackaged Roman syncretism.

[ramblings-of-a-christian-mystic]

anyone out there in tumblr land a sulis / sulis minerva follower?? i've been reading up on her and her roman syncretism and with my celtic ancestry + athena devotion it seems like a nice fit for me

[hearthglow]

Graeco Ritu

Ritus is not equivalent to sacra, but to mos, the way of doing something. The ritus was the special posture and prescription which gave public celebrations a special, recognizable tonality.

The earliest mention of the graeco ritu occurs in the 2nd century BCE. It was not a universal classification for the cults of "Greek" gods, as it was attached only to a seemingly arbitrary handful of cults. (Note that earlier hellenization of these cults/traditions in Latium does not factor into their 'origin' here, only whence they came to Rome.)

Sacra celebrated according to the graeco ritu include:

Hercules (preexisting Latin tradition)

Saturn (preexisting Latin tradition)

Apollo (actually Greek!)

Ceres (preexisting Latin tradition, only partly changed to graeco ritu)

Lectisternia ceremonies

Ludi saeculares

Sacra for imported Greek deities that were NOT by the graeco ritu:

Aesculapius

Magna Mater

Bacchus

Hecate

Nemesis

Bona Dea

Castor and Pollux

To sacrifice during a festival Graeco ritu means that you make sacrifices which are mainly very Roman, but sometimes include the ritual of the Greek prothusia, the use of Greek words, and maybe the Greek procedure of dividing the victim. The only permanent mark of these rituals are the uncovered heads of the priests, the occasional wearing of the laurel wreath and of a fringed tunica. There is no evidence of a different religious feeling in these services. And according to all the evidence, they were part of the patrius mos of the Romans.

The confusion and paradoxes are attributed to Rome's desire not only to claim membership in the Greek world, but to legitimize the tradition of Rome as an open city. The presence of foreign elements inside the Roman culture or people was necessary, it was the sign of merit and strength. It was used to stress the presence of foreigners and of the world inside Roman culture and the city of Rome, in order to legitimate Roman imperialism and the Roman civic model. However, once the empire took formation, it lost its symbolic force and was upstaged by the Trojan Aeneas mythos.

Scheid, John. "Graeco Ritu: A Typically Roman Way of Honoring the Gods." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 97 (1995), pp. 15-31. {hic}