Roman religious terms

AEDES (sg) (pl: aedes)

An aedes is a structure, and in Religious terms a shrine or temple building. Templum referred to the area marked off as sacred, while the actual structure housing the god's image was the aedes.

ARA (sg) (pl: arae)

An ara is an altar, the structure on which a sacrifice is made. Arae were often open-air structures, immediately accessible to the public, whether within Rome or out elsewhere.

AUGUR (sg) (pl: augures)

The augures were official diviners for the Roman Republic. Their office was to interpret the will of the Gods regarding one or another proposed action.

AUGURIUM (sg) (pl: auguria)

See augur. The augurium was a term for several functions related to the augurs of Rome - the augurs' rites, the augurs' laws, the augurs' compendium of known signs, and even the consecration of a man as an augur.

AUSPEX (sg) (pl: auspices)

Also a diviner, the auspex was one who read bird flight (avi-spex, more or less "bird-seer"). This was a divining function and an official duty, taking the readings of the Gods' will based on bird flight for projects private or governmental. The related verb is auspico, auspicere - to take the auspices. The word "auspices" is used in contemporary language to mean either supervision of a project or the likelihood of the project's success. See auspicium, below.

AUSPICIUM (sg) (pl: auspicia)

An auspicium was a "reading of the birds", of their behavior in a marked portion of the sky (a templum of airy space). Magistrates took the auspicia publica to determine whether planned ceremonies, elections, or other public undertakings should be undertaken or not; if the Gods were averse, the undertaking would be postponed.

Auspicia appear to have been of five kinds: [to come]

"CAPITE VELATO"

"With the head covered" - the manner in which the Religious officiants of Rome offered libations, sacrifices, and prayers to the Gods. An officiant covered his head by a fold of the back of the toga, an act of piety necessary to the rites.

COLLEGIUM (sg) (pl: collegia)

A collegium (a "college") was a Roman association that had a legal authority, whether commercial, magisterial, or religious. Most significant to Roman religion were the College of Pontiffs; the College of Augurs; the Sibylline college (the Quindecimviri Sacris Faciundis); and the Septemviri Epulonum college, the seven priests who oversaw public religious banquets.

CONSECRATIO (sg) (pl: consecrationes)

The consecratio was the the rite which (in a Religious sense) the aedes of a god was created. It most likely followed at some point the marking-off or sanctifiying of the sacral area (see templum); its officiant was a pontiff, but it also involved a dedication by a civil magistrate standing for the Roman state.

"CULTUS DEORUM" (sg)

Cultus Deorum can be translated as the care of the Gods, the activity, rituals, duties and worship that are characteristic of the Religio Romana. An individual who performs these obligations is a cultor Deorum, a religious "cultivator" of the Gods. Such care was both ritual and material, and the customs were exacting; rites had to be performed in a perfectly precise manner; offerings of animals and materials were specifically laid down for the various acts of sacrifice.

DELUBRUM (sg) (pl: delubra)

A delubrum was a shrine; according to Varro, it was the oldest form of an aedes (q.v.). See also fanum.

"DO UT DES"

Literally, "I give, so that you may give", a concept or principle of ancient religion - and of the Religio Romana in particular. Humankind was bound to respect the Gods and to make appropriate offerings, and the Gods took part by giving something of value back to men: a state of religious reciprocity. Some have seen this principle as a kind of magic commercialism, but it was more than that. A quote from Emile Durkheim gets to the heart of it: it was "an exchange of mutually invigorating good deeds between the divinity and his faithful". See also "cultus deorum".

FANUM (sg) (pl: fana)

The fanum was a sacred space, a shrine. It could be a sacral feature of nature (a sacred tree or grove, or some other locus) or be a consecrated artificial site (an aedes, or a delubrum). As a word, it was cognate with terms in other Italic languages, and was not defined narrowly, but was general in its reference.

FAS (indeclinable noun, n., often used adjectivally)

To be "Religiously or divinely legitimate" might be offered as a definition of fas. One explanation of fas is to say that "fas pertains to religion, iura to the human being"(Servius, as quoted on Wikipedia, [more coming for this cite]). So also under its entry in the Lewis & Short dictionary, "the dictates of religion, divine law; opp. to jus, or human law". From its strict meaning of something that accords with the divine, it took a common meaning of "that which is proper". See also nefas.

FASTI (pl noun)

Derived from fas, the phrase "dies fasti" meant "days Religiously allowing", or in the words of Wm. Smith, "those days upon which legal business might, without impiety ... be transacted before the praetor, ... i.e. lawful days" (Smith's Dictionary). The days of the Roman Kalendarium were variously stigmatized by Relgious freedoms and restrictions (there were dies Fasti, Nefasti, Comitiales, Atri, &c.), and since these governed public life and business, "fasti" became a handy shorthand not only for the days, but for the calendar itself.

There is also the famous six-book poem by the great Roman poet Ovid, a mine of information on Roman Religion, called Fasti. (See here.) "The order of the calendar throughout the Latin year, its causes, and the starry signs that set beneath the earth and rise again -- of these I’ll sing," Ovid begins his work.

FAUSTUS (-us, -a, -um) (adj)

That which was favored by the divine powers, that which was held to be auspicious, of good omen, fortunate, lucky. It is a cousin to the Latin word fastus (see fasti above).

FELIX (adj)

Thought to be derived from an Indo-European word meaning "fruitful, productive", felix had the Religious meaning of "being at peace with the Gods".

FERIA (sg; feriae, pl)

The feriae were the "free days" of the Roman calendar, days on which public business was prohibited, employees were given a holiday, and even the slaves were allowed time off, as well. There were three sorts of feriae:

• feriae stativae "standing holidays", id est, feriae that occurred on certain dates, regularly, each year;
• feriae conceptivae id est, feriae that recurred, but the dates were not fixed, being determined each year by magistrate or priestly college according to augury or other religious calculations;
• feriae imperativae "mandated holidays", feriae that were not recurring, but were established or created by magistrates to celebrate a special occasion.

FESTUS (-us, -a, -um) (adj)

Dies festi were religiously-dedicated holidays on which, as with feriae, public business was not allowed.

FETIAL (from adj fetialis/fetiales)

The Fetials were an order of priests, said to have been an Aequian institution borrowed & established in Rome in ancient times by Ancus Martius. Their duties were largely to do with external affairs, interaction with other nations. They had authority in areas of war, peace, diplomacy, and international agreements.

FINIS (sg) (fines pl)

A critical part of Roman religion was the establishment of "sacred areas" called templa, making certains areas fit for augury or other divine interaction. The common word finis - border or limit - took on a specific meaning in Roman religion, the religious finis being a sacred boundary in which consecration or augury might proceed. However, Roman religion being bound up as intimately with the state as it was, it was often not the priests or augures who established these fines, but Rome's magistrates.

FLAMEN (sg) (pl: flamines)

For each major and official deity of Roman religion, a certain priest - a flamen - was charged with officiating at rites for said deity. There were fifteen of these flamines dedicated to certain Gods, and they made up a good portion of the College of Pontiffs of Rome. They were elected publicly to their offices, the pool of candidates limited by certain conditions of family and birth, and the inaugurated flamen" had a right to a lictor, toga praetexta, use of the sella curulis, and a seat in the senate in virtue of his office. There were three patrician flamines (flamines majores), who officiated for the most eminent deities - Iuppiter, Mars, Quirinus; the rest were plebeian flamines (flamines minores). Again, magistracy and religion were interwoven in Rome; one could argue that Rome was in effect as much a "church" as a state.

The most dignified flamines were those attached to these three superior deities:

• of Jove (Iuppiter, Diiovis) had the Flamen Dialis, the Jovian pontiff, "the Lighter of the Fire of Jove";
• of Mars, called the Flamen Martialis, priest of Mars;
• of Quirinus, called the Flamen Quirinalis.

It is not clear exactly which Gods else filled out the remaining 12 offices, but there is evidence for at least ten (you may see the Wikipedia info regarding this, here).

FRATRES ARVALES (pl noun)

Here was another order of Roman priests, the "Brothers of the Fields", 12 in number again. These were dedicated to maintaining the fertility of the land by worship of the Dea Dia, identified with the goddess Ceres. It is asserted that these Brothers were the oldest of the religious colleges, a society founded by Romulus himself. (For this author, to the extent that farming was the theme of Old Rome par excellence, this in itself marks the Fratres Arvales as an ancient order.) A man held the office of Frater Arvalis for the rest of this life.

It was in May that the Fratres Arvales officiated at the Ambarvalia, a three-day celebration for the Dea Dia, which is to say Ceres, the Goddess of Grain. The sacrifices seem to have been made at points defining Old Rome's original extent (the Ager Romanus) as well as other areas of religious importance.

HOSTIA (sg) (pl: hostiae)

The hostia was a victim offered to a god in sacrifice, although for some authorities the words hostia and victima were differentiated for various reasons: in once case, the hostia was a sacrifice offered before a battle for victory, and a victima one offered after the victory was won; in another, the difference was of size - the hostia was a smallish offering compared the larger victima.

Etymologically, the Latin words involving host- led quite separate lives: the hostis was the enemy faced in battle; hostiae were offerings made for the defeat of Rome's hostes, but eventually gave the English the word "host" for the bread used in Christian eucharist; and although the English word "host" for the provider of hospitality derives from another Latin word — hospes, "guest" or "host" — that parent word nonetheless came from the same original Indo-European root, *ghostis "a stranger".

INAUGURATIO (sg) (pl: inaugurationes) A rite performed, as one might guess, by the augurs, in which the observation of certain augural signs marked the Gods' pleasure at the appointment of the subject to the office in question.