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Sacra (ancient Rome)
In ancient Roman religion, ''sacra'' (Latin, neuter plural, "sacred atters) were transactions relating to the worship of the gods, especially sacrifice and prayer. They are either ''sacra privata'' or ''publica''. The former were undertaken on behalf of the individual by himself, on behalf of the family by the pater familias, or on behalf of the ''gens'' by the whole body of the people. Sacra privata The centre of the domestic service of the gods is formed by the worship of the Penates and Lares. In particular cases recourse was also had to certain specified deities. Besides this, private sacra were attached to particular families; these passed to the heir with the succession and became a burden on him. Hence an inheritance without sacra 'hereditas sine sacris''proverbially signified an unimpaired piece of good fortune. If a patrician wished to become a plebeian he had to renounce his familial sacra, his gens and his curia. As the family had sacra, so also had the gens, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religion In Ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by the Roman people, people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety () in maintaining Pax deorum, good relations with the gods. Their Polytheism, polytheistic religion is known for having honoured List of Roman deities, many deities. The presence of Magna Graecia, Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of the historical period influenced Culture of ancient Rome, Roman culture, introducing some religious practices that became fundamental, such as the of Apollo. The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks (), adapting Greek mythology, Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature and Roman art, as the Etruscans had. Etruscan religion was also a major influence, partic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontiffs
In Roman antiquity, a pontiff () was a member of the most illustrious of the colleges of priests of the Roman religion, the College of Pontiffs."Pontifex". "Oxford English Dictionary", March 2007 The term ''pontiff'' was later applied to any high or chief priest and, in Roman Catholic ecclesiastical usage, to bishops, especially the pope, who is sometimes referred to as the Roman pontiff or the supreme pontiff. Etymology The English term derives through Old French ''pontif'' from Latin ''pontifex'', a word commonly held to come from the Latin root words ''pons'', ''pont-'' (bridge) + ''facere'' (to do, to make), and so to have the literal meaning of "bridge-builder", presumably between mankind and the deity/deities. Uncertainty prevailing, this may be only a folk etymology, but it may also recall ancient tasks and magic rites associated with bridges. The term may also be an allusion to Ancient Roman Religious rituals for placating the gods and spirits associated with the Tiber R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Class In Ancient Rome
Social class in ancient Rome was hierarchical, with multiple and overlapping social hierarchies. An individual's relative position in one might be higher or lower than in another, which complicated the social composition of Rome. The status of freeborn Romans during the Republic was established by: * Ancestry ( patrician or plebeian). * Census rank (''ordo'') based on wealth and political privilege, with the senatorial and equestrian ranks elevated above the ordinary citizen. * Gender. * Citizenship, of which there were varying types * The commoners and slaves were in the lower class Patricians and Plebeians Traditionally, patrician refers to members of the upper-class, while Plebeian refers to lower-class. Economic differentiation saw a small number of families accumulate most of the wealth in Rome, thus giving way to the creation of the patrician and plebeian classes. After this initial distinction, however, the divide between patrician and plebeian families was stric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orthopraxy
In the study of religion, orthopraxy is correct conduct, both ethical and liturgical, as opposed to faith or grace. Orthopraxy is in contrast with orthodoxy, which emphasizes correct belief. The word is a neoclassical compound— () meaning 'right practice'. While orthodoxies make use of codified beliefs in the form of creeds and ritualism more narrowly centers on the strict adherence to prescribed rites or rituals, orthopraxy is focused on issues of family, cultural integrity, the transmission of tradition, sacrificial offerings, concerns of purity, ethical system, and the enforcement thereof. In Hinduism, orthopraxy and ritualism are often interconnected. Judaism and Christianity are also considered both religions and orthopraxies, as they guide adherents in both practice and belief. Biale, David, ''Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought'', Princeton University Press, 2011, p.15 Etymology The term ''orthopraxy'' comes from the Greek , meaning "s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Punic War
The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Wars, three wars fought between Ancient Carthage, Carthage and Roman Republic, Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Roman Italy, Italy and Iberia, but also on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and, towards the end of the war, in North Africa. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were once again defeated. Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedonia, Kingdom of Syracuse, Syracuse and several Numidians, Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the fighting, and Celtiberians, Iberian and Gauls, Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main Theater (military), military theatres during the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal (Barcid), Hasdru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rituals
A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally associated with gestures, words, or revered objects, rituals also occur in non-human species, such as elephant mourning or corvid object-leaving. They may be prescribed by tradition, including religious practices, and are often characterized by formalism, traditionalism, rule-governance, and performance. Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages, funerals and more. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying " hello" may be termed as ''rituals''. The field of ritual studies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman State
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (50927 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilating the Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and the Etruscan culture, and then became the dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. At its height it controlled the North African coast, Egypt, Southern Europe, and most of Western Europ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lemures
The were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead in Roman religion, sometimes used interchangeably with the term (from Latin , 'mask'). The term was first used by the Augustan poet Horace (in Epistles 2.2.209), and was the more common literary term during the Augustan era, with being used only once by Horace. However, is also uncommon: Ovid being the other main figure to employ it, in his ''Fasti'', the six-book calendar poem on Roman holidays and religious customs. Later the two terms were used nearly or completely interchangeably, e.g. by St. Augustine in ''De Civitate Dei''. The word can be traced to the Proto-Indo-European stem *', which also appears in the name of the Greek monster Lamia. Description ' may represent the wandering and vengeful spirits of those not afforded proper burial, funeral rites or affectionate cult by the living: they are thus not attested by tomb or votive inscriptions. Ovid interprets them as vagrant, unsatiated and potenti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacellum
A ''sacellum'' is a small shrine in ancient Roman religious contexts. The word is a diminutive of ''sacrum'' (neuter of ''sacer'', "belonging to a god"). The numerous ''sacella'' of ancient Rome included both shrines maintained on private properties by families, and public ones. A ''sacellum'' might be square or round. Varro and Verrius Flaccus describe ''sacella'' in ways that at first seem contradictory, the former defining a ''sacellum'' in its entirety as equivalent to a ''cella'', which is specifically an enclosed space, and the latter insisting that a ''sacellum'' had no roof. "Enclosure", however, is the shared characteristic, roofed over or not. "The ''sacellum''", notes Jörg Rüpke, "was both less complex and less elaborately defined than a temple proper". The meaning can overlap with that of ''sacrarium'', a place where sacred objects ''(sacra)'' were stored or deposited for safekeeping. The ''sacella'' of the Argei, for instance, are also called ''sacraria''. In pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pater Familias
The ''pater familias'', also written as ''paterfamilias'' (: ''patres familias''), was the head of a Roman family. The ''pater familias'' was the oldest living male in a household, and could legally exercise autocratic authority over his extended family. The term is Latin for "father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate". The form is archaic in Latin, preserving the old genitive ending in (see Latin declension), whereas in classical Latin the normal first declension genitive singular ending was . The ''pater familias'' always had to be a Roman citizen. Roman law and tradition ('' mos majorum'') established the power of the ''pater familias'' within the community of his own extended ''familia''. In Roman family law, the term "Patria potestas" (Latin: “power of a father”) refers to this concept. He held legal privilege over the property of the ''familia'', and varying levels of authority over his dependents: these included his wife and children, certain other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flamen
A (plural ''flamines'') was a priest of the ancient Roman religion who was assigned to one of fifteen deities with official cults during the Roman Republic. The most important of these were the three (or "major priests"), who served the important Roman gods Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus. The remaining twelve were the ("lesser priests"). Two of the served deities whose names are now unknown; among the others are deities about whom little is known other than the name. During the Imperial era, the cult of a deified emperor () also had a flamen. The fifteen Republican flamens were members of the Pontifical College, who administered state-sponsored religion. When the office of flamen was vacant, a could serve as a temporary replacement, although only the is known to have substituted for the , one of the . Etymology The etymology of remains obscure, and perhaps undecidable. Andrew Sihler ''New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin,'' Oxford University Press 1995 p.198:’ Tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curia
Curia (: curiae) in ancient Rome referred to one of the original groupings of the citizenry, eventually numbering 30, and later every Roman citizen was presumed to belong to one. While they originally probably had wider powers, they came to meet for only a few purposes by the end of the Roman Republic, Republic: to confirm the election of Roman magistrate, magistrates with imperium, to witness the installation of Religion in ancient Rome#Public priesthoods and religious law, priests, the making of will (law), wills, and to carry out certain Adoption in ancient Rome, adoptions. The term is more broadly used to designate an popular assembly, assembly, council, or court (other), court, in which public, official, or religious issues are discussed and decided. Lesser curiae existed for other purposes. The word ''curia'' also came to denote the places of assembly, especially of the Roman Senate, senate. Similar institutions existed in other towns and cities of Italy. In mediev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
