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 observe signs according to Etruscan tradition, interpret the will of the Gods regarding one or another proposed action, and report that at assembly. Smith (Dictionary) points out that "The word auspex was supplanted by augur, but the scientific term for the observation continued on the contrary to be auspicium and not augurium", such that augures took the auspicia, but not the auguria.

AUGURIUM (sg) (pl: auguria)

See augur. The term augurium was relegated to 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. The actual observation and interpretation of the signs, however, was called auspicium.

AUSPEX (sg) (pl: auspices)

The auspex was one who read bird flight (avi-spex, more or less "bird-seer"), and so, an augur. 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. Interestingly, in Latin the term "augur" came to be favored over "auspex", but contrarily "auspicia" came to be favored over "augurium". See augur, above, and 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 (from adj, an indeclinable noun, n.)

To be "Religiously or divinely legitimate" might be offered as a definition of fas. One explanation of fas is, as given 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, generic 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.

The Fasti also refers to the famous six-book poem by the poet Ovid, which has been a mine of information on Roman Religion. (See here.) Ovid begins his work saying, "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."

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 (or Marcius), the legendary fourth king of Rome. 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.

INDIGERE (v)

The Latin for "to invoke", to pray unto the Gods.

INDIGITAMENTA (pl) (sg: indigitamentum)

The prayers used to invoke the Gods - an official pontifical catalog of prayers and rites to be used for that purpose. "In them were set forth the various powers of each god who was to be summoned to aid in particular cases...." (Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. 1898) The names of these Gods only survive in tossed and tumbled batches, and of course the actual catalogs have not survived.

Beyond this, there is debate as to what kinds of catalogs the indigitamenta were, whether of prayers, or of prayers intended to "indigitate" (to focus the action of the god on the case at hand), or of the names of the minor Gods to be invoked for sundry aspects of well-being, or of specific epithets with which to address the major Gods in order to "indigitate" them for such minor aspects of well-being. (Controversy mentioned at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigitamenta, under the "Form" section. Here also, see the Roscher's copious listing of surviving indigital names.)

INVOCATIO (sg) (pl invocationes)

The invocations referred to the manner of addressing the Gods in prayer, for of course one had to address the God in the proper way in order to gain effectiveness for the prayer. "The list of names (nomina) is often extensive ...; many prayers and hymns are composed largely of invocations." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_ancient_Roman_religion)

IUS (sg) (pl iura)

The Latin word for rights, fairness, just prerogatives - one sees it in Latin iustitia (justice). One's right was also that which is right, iustum or "lawful" as a principle. The ius divinum was in its nature best or supreme, and from it was derived a less-exalted ius civile or set of citizens' rights. Ius was to be contrasted with the more profane lex or merely human law, as a principle would contrast with specific actions and decisions. (See also lex, infra.)

LAR (sg) (pl lares)

The ancestor spirit or spirits of a Roman house - a subset of the domestic manes. Each house kept images of the lares along with the penates. Additionally, lares might be "spirits of those who have died and remain to protect our neighborhoods, roads, and other community places." (Piscinus, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/religioromana/2011/05/lemuria/ ) The first lares were held to have been brought to Rome by Aeneas, and a special set of lares, the lares praestites, were venerated as the ancestral spirits of Rome herself.

LARARIUM (sg) (pl lararia)

The shrine to the manes - the Lares and Penates - that was kept in a Roman house. It was the center of domestic veneration and offerings to the family's ancestor spirits.

LARVA (sg) (pl larvae)

Larvae were malignant spirits which, had they been beneficent, would have been manes. But these were spirits of ill will which it was necessary to ward off.

LEMUR (sg) (pl lemures)

The lemures are another interesting kind of Roman spirit. These were issue-less, homeless and even foreign spirits who roamed the land, searching for someone, anyone, who would take them into their house as a lar or as lares - ghosts, if you will, and like ghosts they could be harmful or harmless or even beneficent, but were generally treated as troublesome; one could not be certain whether they were friendly or not, since they are not family spirits or even spirits of one's won countrymen. The festival of Lemuria was largely observed in order to provide something for the lemures, to help them travel on and not linger. (As you might guess, the lemures of Madagascar were named after these Roman Lemures due to their “ghostly” appearance.) (Piscinus, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/religioromana/2011/05/lemuria/ )

LECTISTERNIUM (sg) (pl lectisternia)

The Lectisternium was a rite of setting a meal out before images of the Gods. It was "a banquet of the gods, sometimes held on occasions of national thanksgiving. Images of the gods were laid on cushions (pulvinaria), and food of all kinds was placed before them." (Shorey, Commentary on Horace ..., Sanborn and Co. 1910). There are numerous mentions of lectisternia in Livy (viz, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/searchresults?q=lectisternium&page=1). The word derives from sternere lectum, to drape cloth on a couch. "[T]he images of the gods were placed upon couches and food was set before them...." (Rolfe, Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, Heinemann 1927)

LEX (sg) (pl leges)

Law, or a law. Originally, the word may have meant "word" and had a specfically religious meaning, as chosen words of ritual. The phrase quaqua lege volet gave leeway as to wording for someone performing a ritual; "legum dictio" was a name for the inauguration of magistrates; the very word religio itself is based upon lex, legis. In later times, the common meaning shifted toward public law and away from specific relgious contexts, whence the modern word "law". Lex (word, rule) is often contrasted with ius (right, a just thing).

LIBATIO (sg) (pl libationes)

The libation was the gesture of respect offered to the Gods by dedicating to Them the first drops of liquid foodstuffs, whether wine, milk, honey, oil or even water. The first drops would be sprinkled onto a household altar, or a public one, or simply upon the earth. It is something like the "saying of grace" in later Christian tradition.

LIBRI (pl) (sg liber)

Liber is Latin for book, and there were many religious books used by augures, pontifices, sacerdotes and presumably magistrates performing religious rites. The Libri Augurales were a collection of the essential lore of the augurs. The Libri Pontificales were the core texts of the Religio, supposedly begun by Numa Pompilius himself, the religiously inclined and innovative second king of Rome.

LITUUS (sg) (pl litui)

This could be either the augur's telltale curved staff or a curved war-horn. In Christianity, the lituus survives as the crosier or curved or crooked staff of a bishop. For the augur, it was both a symbol and a tool, used in dividing the templum of the sky into the proper regions for divination.

LUCUS (sg) (pl luci) A lucus was a sacred grove, dedicated to a certain divinity (or possibly several). Some were forbidden to men at large, and some were capitales luci, sacred woods where trespass meant death. A lucus was distinguished from silva (a natural woodland) and nemus (a grove, but see nemus, infra).

LUDI (pl) (sg ludus)

A ludus is a game, and the ludi were the sacred games that formed a large part of Roman religious festivals.

LUPERCI (pl) (sg lupercus)

An order of priests, these were were "wolfly" ones, lupercales, after the lupus (wolf) who nursed Romulus and Remus. They were central to the observance of the Lupercalia, the fertility festival dedicated to the god Lupercus. The Luperci sacrificed goats and dogs to Lupercus, and later ran through the city, half-naked and clad only in pieces of goat-skin, smacking bystanders with pieces of goat-skin - especially women, for it was believed that such contact rendered a woman fertile.

LUSTRATIIO (sg)

The Lustratio was a rite of purification. According to Smith (Dictionary, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Lustratio.html), the Romans performed lustrationes often in order to purify and bless whatever was of value to them - their fields, their flocks, their colonies, their naval fleets are among those objects of lustration that Smith cites.

MANES (pl)

Manes, meaning “the good ones", were the protective or benevolent spirits of the Roman family, and were venerated and honored at home.

MANUBIA (sg) (pl manubiae)

An Etruscan term for lightning, or the power of Gods to wield lightning. It was a major subject of augury (augurium).

MOLA SALSA

An offering or anointment made of salted flour, and a critical element of ritual. Its invention was attributed to Numa Pompilius (second king of Rome). It was sprinkled on sacrifical victims, between their horns and on their foreheads; and was also sprinkled onto altars, or into the sacred fire.

MONSTRUM

A monstrum was a sign from the Gods, something unnatural in form that displayed their displeasure, often a deformed animal. Suetonius gave the examples of "a snake with feet, or a bird with four wings". There is debate as to whether the word derived from monstro, monstrare (to show) or from moneo, monére (to warn). Its negative or monitory value eventually led to the modern profane word, "monster".

MUNDUS (sg)

While the common meaning of mundus was "the world", it also referred to a certain pit of religious import that was dug and sealed by Romulus as a part of the founding of the city of Rome. As a concave pit in the earth, it represented a doorway from the upper to the lower worlds, and was the receptacle for offerings to infernal deities, and in particular to beneficent Ceres, goddess of fruition. It was kept sealed, however, and only opened on a certain three days of the year.

NEFAS (an indeclinable noun, n.) An action or event or thing contrary to divine law; a thing offensive to the Gods and forbidden - something heinous or sacreligious.

NEFASTUS (adj) An adjective, related to nefas, above. It is used principally as an adjective to dies, "day", for on dies nefasti ("inappropropriate days", "forbidden days") no official business could be transacted.

NEMUS (sg) (pl nemora) Nemus meant woodland, woods, or glade, and was used in common speech and poetry to describe such a grove in nature, but also in poetry and religion to indicate a sacred grove.

NUNTIATIO (sg) (pl nuntationes) The nuntiatio was the object of an augur's work: to report the observed signs and their meanings. It was to be made not in writing, but verbally before the appropriate assembly. Magistrates empowered to take the auspices also gave nuntiationes.

OBNUNTIATIO (sg) (pl obnuntiationes) As with a number of ob- terms, the obnuntiatio was a negative report on the auspices, a report of unfavorable signs, and resulted in suspension, postponement or cancelation of public actions. It is only mentioned in the writings of Cicero. Polas a veto on public action. n 44 BCE, Marcus Antonius, as an augur, used the obnuntiatio to halt the election of the consuls.

OBSERVATIO (sg) (pl observationes) The observatio referred to the traditional Etruscan-taught interpretation of signs. It meant both the act of observation and also the written lore by which such observations were made. The lore of observatio was accepted as scientific and factual, in contrast to the more speculative coniectura (q.v.).

OMEN (sg) (pl omina) An omen was a sign - whether favorable or not - indicating an individual's future; whereas a prodigium was of import more to the public at large, an omen was more a sign pointed at the fate of an individual. Of course, if the individual were himself of public consequence, then the omen meant something for the public, as well. Omens - whether apocryphally or not - were part of many a story and history. During the Second Punic War, when Hannibal was invading North Italy, the consul Flaminius disregarded several omina before his disastrous defeat at Lake Trasimeno. On the other hand, favorable omina (real or ficitonal) might be publicized in relation to public figures, as part of their active public relations campaigns, or as part of legend.

OSTENTUM (sg) (pl ostenta) An ostentum was a sign of a certain kind. Suetonius defined it as something that "shows itself" (se ostendere) "without possessing a solid body and affects both our eyes and ears, like darkness or a light at night." [cite] The ostenta were not the codified signs related to observatio (supra) but rather novel signs that required some further interpretation, which is to say were the domain of coniectura rather than observatio. Nonetheless, observations & interpretations related to ostenta were collected in ostentaria, books which described such signs and helped guide their interpretation.

ORDO SACERDOTUM As with any hierarchy, the priests of Rome had a pecking order, the ordo sacerdotum, ranking the chief priests, at least in their seating at sacrifices and banquets. Nearest the images of the Gods, at the top of the order, was the time-honored Rex Sacrorum; next him was the Flamen Dialis (Priest of Iuppiter); then the Flamen Martialis (Priest of Mars); then the Flamen Quirinalis (Priest of Quirinus), and last the Pontifex Maximus (Great Priest).

PALUDAMENTUM (sg) (pl paludamenta) A Roman "having put on the paludamentum", the distinctive Roman military commander's vestments. This included arms, armor and ornaments, and was worn beyond the pomerium or sacred boundaries of Rome. Donning the paludamentum, one was paludatus, and had already received imperium and the auspices of war, and had made the requisite pledges and sacrifices at the Capitolium.

PAX DEORUM Literally the "Peace of the Gods", pax in this sense was also a "pact", a contract, between men and deity. But this peace was contingent, and the people (and their priests and magistrates) had to follow the rites, obey the obligations, and offer the correct sacrifices to maintain the pact. Thus the priests (and magistrates) had the extra burden of keeping this peace in effect for the benefit of all Rome. (See also, Do ut Des, above.)

PIACULUM (sg) (pl piacula) The piaculum was a religious device to atone with the Gods for a slip or transgression in worship, a sacrifice to expiate such an error.

PIETAS (sg) (pl pietates) - see Pius, below.

PIUS (adj) An Italic word seen not only in Latin but also in cognate forms in Volscian, Oscan and Umbrian, pius could describe both actions done to the Gods' satisfaction and people who behaved in ways satisfactory to the Gods.

PONTIFEX (sg) (pl pontifices) The pontifices (pontiffs) were, in Smith's words, "the most illustrious among the great colleges of priests", held their religious office for life, working under the Pontifex Maximus. They "had the supreme superintendence of all matters of religion, and of things and persons connected with public as well as private worship." Thus, although chief priests of other priestly colleges may have been ranked higher in divine eminence, it was the Pontifex Maximus who wielded greatest power over people. How a man became a pontiff changed over the centuries, but it is significant that men might become a pontiff in addition to other titles and magistracies.

PORTENTUM (sg) (pl portenta) The portentum (a foreseeing, a portent) is similar to the ostentum (supra). Per Smith, it was "some strange incident or wonderful appearance which was supposed to herald the approach of misfortune." Thus, being novel and unexpected, it was a matter for coniectura rather than Etruscan observatio. It is also said that the portenta were interpreted by the haruspices rather than the augurs.

PRECATIO (sg) (pl precationes) The precatio was the prayer formula used in formally addressing deities. In modern English, "precatory" means entreating, begging, imploring; the precatio was the intial entreaty, man to divinity. (See also prex.)