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[German version] The patera was a flat, round dish without a handle, decorated from time to time, with a bulge ( omphalós) in the middle (like the Greek phiálē : [1. 42-44]) that was used as a drinking vessel (Plaut. Amph. 260; Prop. 4,6,85) and as a sacrificial bowl in the Roman cultural area (Varro, Ling. 5,122; fig. see Sacrifice IV.): from the …

[German version] [1] Name to describe the plurality of gods In modern scholarship on religious history, the term 'pantheon' is used in systematizing the plurality of ancient gods (Polytheism). In the following, it will be used accordingly to denote all the many deities worshipped in a particular geographical area and socio-historical context. Richter, Thomas (Frankfurt/Main) [German version] I. Mesopotamia Sumerian does not have its own expression for a collective of gods corresponding to the term 'pantheon'. The Sumerian term A-nun-na, 'seed of the prince' (i.e. of Enki, the god of the city of Eridu, the oldest municipal settlement in southern Mesopotamia), used as such and found mainly in a literary context, denotes the entire Sumerian pantheon or its main figures, i.e. the deities of the first four generations of gods, or - when used with a topographical te…

Old Roman nomen gentile, derived from the prename Marcus. Tradition knows of a patrician branch with the (…

[German version] Sagmina (pl.) were the herbs which were pulled out of the ground with their soil in Rome on the Arx on behalf of the fetiales (Plin. HN 22,5; 25,105; Fest. 424-426 L.). These herbs were used during the appointment ritual of the pater patratus (Liv. 1,24,4-6); the fetiales also took them along on their missions (Liv. 30,43,9). Bendlin, Andreas (Erfurt) Bibliography J. Rüpke, Domi militiae, 1990, 100-103.

I. In general and in classical antiquity [German version] …

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[German version] I. General The status of the moon in ancient mythological speculation and cult worship reflected its central position in the calendar cycles, agricultural cycles and monthly cycles with respect to their various aspects. The moon (personified) could be the addressee of the cult; the cult also included the male and female deities embedded in the traditional pant…

[German version] Goddess probably of Italian (Sabin.: [4. 166, 186]) origin. In 167 BC, after the victory over Perseus of Macedonia, L. Aemilius [I-32] Paullus burnt the weapons of the enemies for her and other deities (Liv. 45,33,1f.: L. mater; 8,1,6, L. mater as the addressee of a weapon-burning in 341 BC is presumably an annalistic fiction). The choice of the goddess may be explained by the derivation of her name from Latin luere: the weapon-burning after a successfully concluded battle marks the phase of demilitarization as a rite de passage; it symbolizes not only the ‘destructi…

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[German version] I. Term Ritual refers to an elaborate sequence of individual rites which, following an established ritual syntax, are logically connected within a certain functional context. Rituals are not limited to religious contexts but exist in other cultural contexts, political as well as social. The significance of rituals for those who participate in them can be reduced neither to an integrative function (legitimation ritual) nor to a temporary disabling of the regular structure - the two e…

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[German version] According to Calpurnius Piso fr. 42 Peter = 10 Forsythe the wife of Volcanus, no other references. Assumed Oscian origin [1] contributes little to clarification. It is possible that Piso, against a contemporary identification of Maia as the wife of Volcanus and e…

[German version] Epithet of Juno. According to tradition, her Roman temple on the Arx (Capitolium) was vowed by L. Furius ([I 11], probably not [I 12]) Camillus in 345 BC (Liv. 7,28,4) and dedicated on 1 June 344 (Liv. 7,28,5f.; Ov. Fast. 6,183f.; Fasti Venusini, InscrIt 13,2, p. 58). The traditional story that the shrine was erected at the site of the house of M. Manlius [I 8] Capitolinus (e.g. Liv. 6,20,13; 7,28,5; Ov. Fast. 6,185f.) is based on its erroneous localization on the Arx. The source …

[German version] 'SR' take their name from an ancient Israelite ritual sequence described in Lv 16,5-10 and 20-22, in which every year at Yom Kippur a ram was sacrificed to Yahweh and a second, on to which all the guilt of the people of Israel had been transferred, was driven into the wilderness "to take away divine anger"( ăzāzēl: [1. 159-162]). Post-Exile and, later, Jewish Rabbinic tradition explain Azazel as a demon or fallen angel, whereas early Christian theology interprets the ram as an allegory for Christ, who by his death is supposed to hav…

[German version] is the original form of the name of the Roman god (CIL I2 453; Vetter No. 200B 6b; Volchanus: CIL I2 1218; Volganus: CIL I2 364; Volkanus: CIL IX 6349), the form Vulcanus is more recent. Attempts to trace this name back through the Etruscan Velch(ans) [1. 289-409] to a Cretan ελχάνος ( Welchános, or Zeus Velchanos) [1. 155-287] and thus to identify its origin in the eastern Mediterranean region are based primarily on linguistic similarities; the conclusion that Volcanus was therefore originally a god of vegetation is hypothetical …

[German version] A. Ancient East Attested since the 2nd half of the 4th millennium, board games were used as a pastime but also for divination purposes ( Divination; in conjunction with models of the liver [3]). The playing boards of 5 × 4 squares were made from wood (carved or with coloured inlays), stone (painted or with inlays) or baked clay; the playing pieces and dice, from ivory or bone; no information is available on the way the games were played. There is probably no connection with the Egypt…

[German version] (Σεπτήριον/ Septḗrion), not Stepterion (Στεπτήριον/ Steptḗrion), was the name of a nine-yearly sequence of festivals and rituals, in the course of which a boy would set fire to a wooden construction beneath the temple of Apollo in Delphi, would then himself be led in a procession into the Thessalian Tempe valley to be ritually purified there of his 'offence' with accompanying sacrifices in the river Peneius. A central constituent was the plucking at the sanctuary to Apollo there of a l…

[German version] (Νόμιοι Θεοί; Nómioi Theoí). As an adjunct to νομεύς/ nomeús, ‘shepherd’, νόμιος/ nómios is a poetic apostrophe or actual cult invocation for the identification of groups of gods (anon. NT in Rome: IG XIV 1013) and individual gods in their function as pastoral deities. The following are addressed as Νόμιος/ Nómios: Hermes (Aristoph. Thesm. 977f.); Pan (Hom. H. 19,5; Paus. 8,38,11: cult of Lycosura in Arcadia); the Nymphs (Orph. H. 51,11f.); Aristaeus [1] in Cyrene (Pind. Pyth. 9,65); Dionysus (Anth. Pal. 9,524); Zeus (Stob. 53,13…

[German version] [1] River in southern Italy River in southern Italy (approximately 185 km in length) with a catchment area of approximately 5,677 km2. It rises on the south-eastern slopes of Monte Metuccia (near Aesernia) from a large karst spring, absorbs tributaries from the Monti del Matese and ultimately the Calor (modern Calore) to the west of mons Taburnus, before breaking to the north of the Tifata mons through to the Mare Tyrrhenum, where its alluvial deposits have created the plain of Campania (Str. 5,4,4;…

[German version] I. Ancient Orient In the Ancient Orient the deification of  rulers always occurred in the context of the legitimization and exercise of  rulership. Deified rulers and proper gods were always differentiated on principle. …

I. Terminology [German version] A. Personification in Rhetoric and Poetry The early modern term personificatio expresses the Hellenistic, rhetorical concept of προσωποποιία/ prosōpopoiía , which refers to the representation of fictive persons, concrete (inanimate) items or abstract concepts as speakers and actors (Latin, conformatio: Rhet. Her. 4,66; personarum ficta inductio: Cic. De or. 3,205; prosopopoeia: Quint. Inst. 9,29-37). As a fictional personalisation, primarily of concepts, prosōpopoiía was considered by Greek literary theory to be an element of a…