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1 As Mary Beard has demonstrated, the term ‘foreign’ in relation to Roman religion does not have an ethnic connotation but is rather a social construction. While there is no doubt that the cults considered here had
inscriptions in the form I.O.M.D. 3 The Dolichenus epithet is often referred to in a different way, however, for example: Dolichenius, Dolychenus, Dolochenus, Dolicenus, Dolcenus, Dulcenus, Dolucens. To date, more than 450 inscriptions of the cult have
contact with a different way of life, as well as with cults and habits that would strongly influence changes in various aspects of public and private life. Clear evidence of these aspects can undoubtedly be found in religious life and in the way in which
The article is devoted to the analysis of the historiographical background of the category of the so-called oriental cults/oriental religions created in the 19th century and developed by Franz Cumont. We discuss the role of this term in 20th-century historiography with the focus on the works of Tadeusz Zieliński that are important to the reception of the oriental cults metaphor. We argue that the concept of oriental cults/oriental religions in its original version is not an effective or useful research tool. However, as a historiographical concept it has fulfilled its role in a threefold way: firstly, it drew scholars’ attention to the vitality of ancient religious experience, secondly, it established the fact that Roman religion was a living organism, naturally adapted to changing political, social and cultural conditions, thirdly, it helped to understand the principles behind the construction of metaphors in the academic discourse.
-Ho-Kung, an Iconography of the Lamaist Cathedral in Peking: with notes on Lamaist mythology and cult . [Publication 18 of the Sino-Swedish Expedition.] Stockholm : Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag . Lewis , Todd T . 2000 . Popular Buddhist Texts from
Summary
Secrecy was one of the major features of the so-called mystery cults that met with significant diffusion and popularity throughout the Greco-Roman world. The Roman cult of Mithras was a particular example of mysteries that took place in secret, without any public aspect.
This paper examines the ways in which the major symbolic systems of the Mithras cult, the mithraea, the scene of the tauroctony and the hierarchy of the initiatory grades, would have operated as elaborated security systems that would have contributed to the secrecy of the cult, obstructing both the physical and cognitive access of the uninitiated to their symbolic meanings.
Further, the cognitive processes that mediate the attractiveness of secret communities and forge social cohesion among members of secret groups are explored. It is argued that secrecy was a crucial aspect which would have promoted the formation of close exclusive communities of Mithraists and the development of social cohesion between the cult members.
canon. 2 This study’s objective is to analyze the use of cultic verbs in the VL Book of Daniel (Dn) in all its pluriformity, and in Jerome’s translations of the Greek additions. This Old Testament book, transmitted along with the preceding story of
Tree cult of the Turks has been practised for centuries, but cult under fruit trees like pear-tree has not been noticed. In this article traces of the pear-tree cult in the Caucasus is outlined. The Karachay-Balkar Turks living in the Caucasus denote pear with the word kertme, while it is not so in the majority of Turkic languages. This word was borrowed by Hungarians most probably around the Kuban river north to the Caucasus before the conquest of the Carpathian Basin, their later homeland. Hungarians might also have acquired the worship of the pear-tree that time and in that area, because already in the first written sources (in the form of family- and place names) it is well documented. Hints of the pear cult can also be seen in the children's songs in connection with the 'pear-tree'. We can state that the pear-tree cult was known in the Kuban region before 680-700 A.D., for the Hungarians left for Etelköz in those years and did not return there ever after.
The gold sheets from Pyrgi are mostly interpreted as a testimony of Carthaginian political influence on the city of Caere. We need not interpret the Etruscan-Punic bilingual text inevitably so, because its dates are obscure, but seemingly each text is dated in the manner of the actual party, and they are roughly corresponding. The only important difference shows that the leader of Caere, Ti. Velianas held his sway as a monarch in foreign affairs, but he retained the appearance of the libera res publica in internal policy. The unparalleled Etruscan text, according to a new interpretation of the first sentence, says that Ti. Velianas maintained the rites of the Juno-Astarte sanctuary out of his private property with a temple foundation. It says also that the performance of the cult was connected with a vaticination. These facts show that the cult was more independent from the Carthaginians than it was supposed and we may guess by which means the autocrat of Caere used his power.
As Augustus returned to Rome in 13 BC, the Senate passed a constitutio to build in his honor a lasting altar of peace, the Ara Pacis Augustae, to signal with a major ceremony the new peace all over the Roman world, Gibbon’s Pax Romana. As we know from Ovid Fast. 1. 709–714, 3. 881–882, the Ara Pacis was the site of two annual sacrifices (on 30 Jan. and 30 March) to Pax, an innovation of the Augustan Age, for formerly Pax had been a minor goddess without a temple. The Augustan regime elevated a new form of Pax as a religious cult and made it acceptable to the Roman people, who had regarded Pax as the phenomenon of a foreign power too beaten down to resist Roman arms any longer and had no use for pacifism (in the modern sense), which would be seen only as cowardly in their dangerous world.
Augustus had started this process, perhaps not intentionally, back when he closed the Gates of Janus in 29. By bringing together Greco-Roman elements of Pax with Jupiter and Janus, he was able to forge a new religious cult to Pax Augusta that could appeal to the average Roman by its promise of prosperity and the absence of civil war. Foreign war was perfectly acceptable and not incompatible with this cult, but the emphasis was on domestic harmony and old traditional religious practices, even if the average listener could not understand some of these obligatory, archaic chants. For this reason, the third closing of the Gates of Janus very likely accompanied one of the Ara Pacis ceremonies.
Augustus also built on precedents from his divine father Julius, who had founded the towns Forum Iulii Pacatum (Fréjus, France) and Pax Iulia (Beja, Portugal) and issued Pax imagery on coinage to gain the moral high ground during the civil war. Augustus went one step further with larger sets of Pax coin issues to tell the people that he, not Antony, was trying to maintain peace when Cleopatra wanted war, and then a sequel after Actium that demonstrated his ability to prevail and restore order. The image of Pax Augusta evolved as it developed, but the epitome is the goddess we see on the East side of the Ara Pacis, surrounded by fertility and prosperity, in a state of security. Rome too would enjoy the same benefits.
