The Archeology of Divine Guidance in Corinth

This chapter looks at some of the archeological discoveries in Corinth that reflect popular attitudes toward the gods, religious experience, and divine guidance. The most prominent was the healing cult centered in the Temple of Asklepios, where interpretation of dreams was a key feature. Other sites and household shrines would have brought to mind Fortuna, family ancestors, the oracle of Delphi, and mythical stories of divine intervention with a Corinthian slant (Venus, Medea, Glauce, Bellerophon, Sisyphus, Dionysus). But for an alternative point of view, there was the tomb of Diogenes the Cynic (fourth century BCE), who settled in Corinth “to be where fools were thickest.” He was highly critical of superstitious piety and advised instead to follow the inscription at Delphi, “Know Thyself.” He concluded that oracles are deceptive not because the gods are deceitful but because human beings are incapable of properly understanding the gods.

Other Roman Writers

Other Roman writers add breadth to the range of attitudes toward divine guidance. Propertius became more pious toward the end of his life, but his early poems are cynical and depict Jupiter as self-centered, spiteful, and deaf to prayer. Even so he mentions numerous forms of divination: astrology, dreams, omens, necromancy, casting lots, throwing dice, offering incense at household shrines. Ovid prefers “simple truth” and rails against popular religion and morality in The Art of Love and Metamorphoses. Livy detested the immorality and cynicism of the new generation represented by Ovid and the Epicurean Petronius, who in Satyricon was biting in his mockery of merchant-class pieties. But in his History of Rome Livy believes more in the tradition of Rome than in poetic stories of divine guidance. Lucan too largely dismisses divine interventions in history yet has a warm attitude toward Delphi’s holiness and accessibility.

Household and Family

This chapter provides cultural background for early Christian ritual through an overview of Roman sacra familiae (domestic rites). It offers representative examples from three main areas of domestic religious practice: (1) regular worship of the gods at household shrines; (2) rites de passage or lifecycle rituals, as illustrated by a freeborn boy’s coming of age ceremony; and (3) annual festivals concerned with interactions between freeborn and slave members of the household, and relations between the living and the dead as demonstrated by the commemorative Parentalia festival. These rituals reveal the importance of prayer and sacrifice as key means of communicating with the gods and securing their favour, and the principle of reciprocity which was a cornerstone of Roman religion. Sacra familiae helped to cultivate core social values and unite the household’s diverse membership in a community of worshippers who shared a sense of common identity predicated upon long-standing traditions and beliefs.

Governed by Gods

In this new account of Athenian demokratia, the most significant human activities in the polis were not political deliberations or economic transactions but ritual engagements with gods, the non-human agencies who ultimately controlled the very conditions of existence. To a point, offerings to gods were like taxes rendered to maintain the infrastructure of the cosmos. Ritual actions were thus performed more or less continually, at a wide range of locations, from household shrines to major sanctuaries, by all inhabitants of Attica, male and female, young and old, Athenian and non-Athenian alike. As the chapter stresses, these actions are best understood as ecological transactions, rather than as purely “religious” practices. Indeed, in such circumstances, where gods were potentially everywhere and anywhere in experience, the modern category “religion” has little or no valence or meaning. The chapter also highlights the ritual contributions to the life of the polis that were made by females, who played literally vital ecological roles through their involvements in numerous divine cults.

Sometimes a “Stove” is “Just a Stove”: A Context-Based Reconsideration of Three-Prong “Incense Burners” from the Western Belize Valley

Among the most ubiquitous “functionally identifiable” archaeological artifacts found in the Belize Valley are so-called ceramic “censer horns” or “three-prong incensarios,” sometimes glossed in the literature as “chile mashers” or “pestles.” Since their original identifications in the 1920s, they generally have been regarded as incensarios—or ceremonial objects—and used regularly as indicators of private or public ritual activities. The authors have examined many of these sherds and the restorable vessels represented; adhering residues; the reported depositional contexts; and their functional contextual associations, and submit that the vessels, sherds, and formal types represented had little if anything to do with ceremonial activities, public or private, but were in fact portable domestic braziers or braseros, and are primarily indicative of household or personal domestic activities rather than personal, familial, or corporate ritual observances. In actuality, two distinct classes of three-horned burner stands do exist and can be distinguished by appearance, intactness, and context. We describe and discuss both classes, and reiterate that although previously used to identify household shrines, religious activities, or other ideo-ritual observances, the majority of these vessels had little or nothing to do with anything other than warming beanpots, beans, or hands, or keeping away biting insects.

Notes on Pompeian Domestic Cults

The performance and setting of Pompeian domestic cults is investigated on the basis of the evidence from three Pompeian houses (Casa del Cenaculo, Casa degli Amorini Dorati, Casa di Marcus Lucretius). Wissowa's view that representations of gods in mural paintings received divine worship in the domestic sphere, as well as the conclusions drawn from it by modern scholars, are refuted. An attempt is made to outline the functioning of Pompeian domestic cults, including the worship of the emperor, solely on the basis of divine figurines, which are abundantly attested in Pompeian household shrines, but have never before received systematic attention.

Women, Ancestors, and Alterity Among the Manjaco of Guinea-Bissau

I explore a classic topic in anthropological studies of African religion-ancestor worship-by interpreting the rituals associated with the installation of a new ancestor figure into Manjaco household shrines. Women-pecifically out-marrying father's sisters-do most of the talking at the image's installation ceremony. And they generally characterize ancestors as selfish, capricious juniors. By exploring the way fathers' sisters assert their version of moral authority by denigrating or scolding the ancestors, I suggest that the cult does not objectify particular personae (i.e. elder males). Rather, the ritual and the orations that occur at the ritual contextualize particular relationships and processes (i.e. the enforced transformation of male junior to male elder) which privilege the agency of women in maintaining a precarious community of interest in the Manjaco house-a seemingly andro-centric corporate group.

Sacra privata in the Roman domus Private or Public? A Study of Household Shrines in an Architectural Context at Pompeii and Ostia

The household shrines, or lararia, in private dwelling houses at Pompeii and Ostia are discessed according to the following parameters: type of lararia and their orientation, the rooms/spaces in which the lararia appear in the house, major movement lines within the house, deep-view axes and other viewed lines, the size of the houses, and the region in which the houses are situated. The aim of this paper is forst, from a synchronic point of view, to investigate which types of lararia were placed in what architectural contexts, in a private or public position, within the house. Then a diachronic view is adopted to see if there are changes over time. A tabular catalogue of all lararia registered in private dwelling houses at Pompeii and at Ostia is appended.