Blessings and curses in Virgil's Eclogues

In Virgil's Eclogues curses and blessings are the heritage of the Theocritean tradition, which in turn reproduced a common feature in folk poetry. But in comparison to Theocritus, who uses these topics to give his poems a folkloric flavour, the Latin poet treats them in a very different way, removing excessively vulgar phrases from his verses, and using curses and blessings in order to give voice to deep feelings on the part of his characters. Sometimes these τόποι express positive or negative hopes in a contrasting pattern (in ecl. 3. 89–91; 7. 21–28, and, first of all, 1. 59–66, which is a special case), while sometimes there is only a positive (ecl. 5. 60–61, 65 and 76–77; ecl. 9. 30–31) or negative (ecl. 8. 52–58) view. The most common figure of speech for curses and blessings is the adynaton.

Devotio and human sacrifice in archaic Italy and Rome

The Roman father and son of the same name, P. Decius Mus, became paragon heroes by deliberately giving their lives in battle that Rome might win over a fierce enemy. Both engaged in a special ritual called devotio (from which our word “devotion” derives) to offer themselves to the gods of the Underworld, with whom regular people have very little interaction and to whom they rarely sacrifice. While the Mus family is the most famous for this act, it turns out the willingness to sacrifice oneself for Rome frequently occurs within stories of great patriots, including the story of Horatius Cocles, Mettius Curtius, Atilius Regulus, and even the traitors Coriolanus and Tarpeia. Romans regarded self-sacrifice as a very high, noble endeavor, whereas they loathed and persecuted practitioners of human sacrifice. It is therefore quite amazing to read that the Romans thrice engaged in state-sponsored human sacrifice, a fact they rarely mention and generally forget. The most famous enemy practitioners of human sacrifice were the Druids, whom the Romans massacred on Mona Island on Midsummer Night's Eve, but the Carthaginians, the Germans, the Celts, and the Thracians all infamously practiced human sacrifice. To Romans, the act of human sacrifice falls just short of cannibalism in the spectrum of forbidden practices, and was an accusation occasionally thrown against an enemy to claim they are totally barbaric. On the other hand, Romans recognized their own who committed acts of self-sacrifice for the good of the society, as heroes. There can be no better patriot than he who gives his life to save his country. Often the stories of their heroism have been exaggerated or sanitized. These acts of heroism often turn out to be acts of human sacrifice, supposedly a crime. It turns out that Romans have a strong legacy of practicing human sacrifice that lasts into the historic era, despite their alleged opposition to it. Numerous sources relate one story each. Collecting them all makes it impossible to deny the longevity of human sacrifice in Rome, although most Romans under the emperors were probably unaware of it. The paradox of condemning but still practicing human sacrifice demonstrates the nature of Roman religion, where do ut des plays a crucial role in standard sacrifice as well as in unpleasant acts like human sacrifice. Devotio was an inverted form of sacrifice, precisely because it was an offering to the gods of the Underworld, rather than to Jupiter or the Parcae. Romans may have forsaken devotio, but they continued to practice human sacrifice far longer than most of us have suspected, if one widens the current narrow definition of human sacrifice to include events where a life is taken in order to bring about a better future for the commonwealth, appease the gods, or ensure a Roman victory in battle.

Sacratio capitis, devotio, and blood in the Roman law and religion

Some Roman rituals with political value ware provided with the power of a curse whose mechanics was similar to that of Greek defixiones. Those who injured a plebeian tribune were consecrated to the gods or to the gods of the dead. The consecratio of a man was sometimes enacted when the blood of a citizen or the tears of a parent were poured. Blood was particularly efficacious in unleashing a curse on the person responsible for something wrong and offensive to the gods and the Roman people.

“To the ravens”: Curses from the Oracle of Abonouteichos

This discussion examines the religious conflict between the cult and oracle of Glykon and its Epicurean opponents recorded in the second century CE satire, Alexander the False Prophet, by Lucian of Samosata. Following the market theory of religion approach, these groups can be understood to have been engaged in an intense and escalating struggle over followers, financial support, status, and, ultimately, for survival. For the oracle and Glykon's prophet, Alexander of Abonouteichos, this effort included the use of magical curses, which were deployed against their adversaries. As such, these circumstances represent an as-yet unrecognized agonistic context for cursing to take place in the Graeco-Roman world. Alexander's use of cursing also highlights previously overlooked aspects of his own connections to the practice of magic in Graeco-Roman antiquity.

Between the pure and the impure: The peculiar case of the homo sacer

According to Durkheim, the notion of ‘sacred’ is per se ambivalent, because it includes antinomic notions such as the pure and the impure. This theory would be justified by the original ambiguity of the Latin sacer. Only one case is always quoted: the peculiar condition of the homo sacer, a criminal consecrated to the gods. But the ambiguity of the sacer is not a problem for the Romans. The uncertainties of modern interpretation stem from the fact that this consecratio of a criminal is often explained as a sacrifice, but the destiny of the homo sacer is more analogous to the fate reserved for the violators of international treaties: on the profane side, the culprit is deprived of his citizenship and becomes a foreigner. Nor, however, is he accepted by enemies. In the same way, from an anthropological point of view, the consecrated person stays on a liminal stage: he remains forever in an uncertain gap between the sphere of men and the world of the gods. There is no ambiguity of the sacred because the homo sacer could not really reach the gods or pollute them.

A new way of understanding the relationship between men and the gods: Socrates, gods and wealth

A careful methodology can enable us to be confident in the idea, largely neglected by historiography, that Socrates understood the relationships between men, the gods and wealth, in a very different manner to that of the large majority of his contemporaries. While the latter thought that the rites could lead the gods to bring them prosperity, that wealth was a blessing, Socrates was convinced of the opposite: wealth was not, in his view, a blessing, and had nothing to do with the gods. This was able to draw a few Athenians to think that philosophy could threaten the practice of religious rituals.

Anna Perenna in Vergil, Ovid, and Statius: A Curse or A Blessing?

The discovery of the fountain of Anna Perenna in Rome in 1999, and especially the presence there of curse tablets, establishes that she was known as a religious presence in the time of Ovid and, presumably, of Vergil. This paper seeks to examine the depictions we find of her in the works of Ovid, Vergil, and in Statius’ Punica 8.

The Filatterio Capitolino, The Greek-Jewish foil preserved in The Musei Capitolini: A new contribution concerning its discovery site

This paper is focused on the context of an excavation where the Capitoline Philactery was found. It is a silver-inscribed foil, in the upper part we read a short Greek text, while in the lower one the text is written in Hebraic. The foil could protect from malaria. It was found in Rome in the Esquilino quarter in 1874 inside a Mithraeum, that took place in the 3th–4th century within an area of Imperial property. To the same place converged the cult of salutary divinities as well and in the 4th–5th century some sacred artifacts were buried together before the abandonment of the Mithraeum itself, between them there was the Capitoline Philactery.

The power of ancient stones: Protecting children in Greek Sicily

The paper focuses on the occurrence of Castelluccian (Early Bronze Age) pebble pendants in sub-adult tombs found in Greek, but also indigenous sites in Sicily from 8th century BC onwards. These pebble-shaped pendants are made of various materials, especially alabaster and translucent stones. They are usually unearthed with shells, perhaps to form a single ornament, in close bond with selected people. The occurrence in archaic infant burials, both in Greek and indigenous contexts, without being documented meanwhile, brings up a challenging issue: we can argue that these items, discovered accidentally in very ancient tombs, were considered to be old and therefore deemed particularly valuable also due to the intrinsic properties of the stones, being shiny and translucent. As a consequence (by drawing inspiration from native women's ancient knowledge?) they were probably conveyed a new meaning and turned into apotropaic amulets in order to protect children from diseases during life, and from perils in afterlife.

Magic and maleficia in the Ancient World: The case of Roman Sardinia

This paper will focus on magic rituals aimed at causing maleficia in a specific area: Sardinia. Although difficult to retrace, there is some evidence, on the island, of the existence of forms of both necromancy and oracular divination that refer, with their own forms, to the culture spread in the Roman empire. Among the most significant documents, there are the tabellae defixionum, some epigraphic texts widely documented in the Roman world, and even earlier in the Punic world. The evidence, in this case, is quite interesting, also, because it reflects the combination of different cultures in Sardinia, whose results are “original”, also in the world of magic.