Key Terms Flashcards
Blood sacrifice
The killing of an animal as an offering to the gods
Hecatomb
The sacrifice of at least 100 bulls during (a) large festival(s)
Caducaeus
A Roman or Greek wand: that of Hermes, typically with two snaked entwined around it.
Gilding
The covering of a surface in thin layer of gold
Mantis
Inerprets the entrails of a sacrificed animal. (Soothsayers: Lightly compared to fortune tellers)
Augur (3 points)
- Augur’s main job was reading the flight of the birds, the behaviour of animals/ direction of thunder.
- Took place before a battle, marriage or business transaction.
- Romulus and Remus story about the vultures, how more vultures were on one side than the other.
What is the name for a Greek Priest and Priestess respiectively?
Hiereus and Hiereia (+i for plural)
Deifne ‘Pax Deorum’ (definition + how)
‘Peace of the Gods’.
–> Maintained by saying correct prayer, completing the correct sacrifice and fulfilling the priestly role.
Pontifex Maximus, and what did he do? (5 points)
- Head of the most important college of priests in the Roman world; life long role.
- Always elected from the existing pontifices.
- From 13 BC (Augustus’ election), post held by emperor.
- Main roles to protect temple, regulation of burial, and inheritance laws, supervision of the religious calendar.
- Control of the calendar = immense power of when things could happen in Rome.
Vestal Virgins and what did they do? (8 points)
- Chosen before puberty, freed from any legal ties and legal obligations.
- College of 6 priestesses that represent the only female priesthood in Rome.
- Priestesses of Vesta (Goddess of the Heart, also known as Hestia), all virgins.
- Lives in the house of the vestals, the House of the Vestals inside the Roman forum.
- Most important job: protect the sacred flame for the safety of the state, located in the Temple of Vesta. (The flame was believed to have been brought from the ashes of Troy to Rome by Aeneas.) (Believed that if the flame went out, Rome would fall.)
- Protected the temple that held all of the treaties and the wills of leading Romans. Also made the mola salsa that was sprinkled in the heads of sacrificial animals.
- Allowed front seats at certain games, also their own property, to make their own wills, and vote. (Other women were not allowed to do these things.)
- If the flame of Vesta went out, the Vestals were whipped. If they broke their vow of chastity, they were buried alive while the male responsible was whipped to death.
Haruspex and what did he do? (4 points)
- Of Etruscan origin.
- Specialised in reading the entrails of sacrificial animal
- Would watch how the animal fell to the ground as it dies, then examine the smoke/flames as the beast was burned/cooked.
- Would use a model liver to read the liver of the dead animal, the most important organ…
Mola salsa
A mixture of coarse-ground, toasted emmer [1] flour and salt prepared by the Vestal Virgins
Pediment
Triangular bit of roof
Colonnade
Row of columns supporting the roof.
Metope
Rectangular slabs that adroned the outside of Doric temples.
