The Altars of Republican Rome and Latium: Sacrifice and the Materiality of Roman Religion

Description

In this book, Claudia Moser offers a new understanding of Roman religion in the Republican era through an exploration of sacrifice, its principal ritual. Examining the long-term imprint of sacrificial practices on the material world, she focuses on monumental altars as the site for the act of sacrifice. Piecing together the fragments of the complex kaleidoscope of Roman religious practices, she shows how they fit together in ways that shed new light on the characteristic diversity of Roman religion. This study reorients the study of sacrificial practice in three principal ways: first, by establishing the primacy of sacred architecture, rather than individual action, in determining religious authority; second, by viewing religious activities as haptic, structured experiences in the material world rather than as expressions of doctrinal, belief-based mentalities; and third, by considering Roman sacrifice as a local, site-specific ritual rather than as a single, monolithic practice. - Reorients the study of sacrificial practice - Offers an alternative approach to study sacrifice by focusing on the archaeological record of ritual - Examines sites and ritual practice over time List of Figures page ix List of Maps xi List of Tables xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 1 The Organization and Boundaries of Sacred Places 14 2 The Economy of Ritual: The Standardization and Heterogeneity of Votive Offerings 54 3 The Seasonality of Ritual: Animal Sacrifice 82 4 Material Memory 109 Epilogue 141 Notes 151 Bibliography 179 Index 203