Session (1.1.1) Temples, Priests and Sacrifices

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Objectives

Understand why temples, sacrifices and priests were important in the Roman world.

Engage

You will be looking at how gods were believed to affect the daily lives of their worshippers. It was very important to keep the gods on your side, if you did not they could be cruel and petty, as we have seen. Keeping them on your side involved giving them gifts which were called sacrifices from the Latin for doing or making something sacred. If, after a sacrifice the god still did not do as he or she had been asked, then it was assumed that the sacrifice had not been pleasing and a bigger and better one was often given.

Watch the following short film on how Prometheus tricked the gods about sacrifices and how he gave mankind fire to allow them to keep warm and cook. This story was first told by the poet, Hesiod, in his poem Theogony, and later by Plato in his dialogue, Protagoras.

Learn

You need to begin this topic by reading pages 106-109 in your de Romanis Book 1 coursebook. Here you will find subject areas divided into various sections:

how things happened and who did them;

getting a god’s favour;

what happened if you displeased the gods.

You might find it helpful to make some notes on some of the topics.

Apply

Read Source 4.1 (page 112). You might be reminded of what happened to Aeneas’ son, Ascanius, in Troy when you read this story.  Look at the source questions and work out how you would answer them. This makes you think more deeply about what is being said and how the passage is written to affect your emotions or understanding.

Consolidate

Read the notes below and if you like add to your notes you made.

Temples were important places if you wished to interact with the gods and because the Romans had so many different gods there were temples everywhere in towns and in the countryside, though the countryside temples might be more humble. In towns, temples were built to look magnificent; they were, after all, the house of the gods and gods liked to and deserved to live in style! Temples were mostly dedicated to one god but sometimes they shared a dedication, like the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill which was dedicated to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. As you found out earlier in this course, temples were magnificently decorated and very colourful.

Priests (sacerdotes) performed the ritual of the sacrifices. Priesthood in the ancient world was often a political office and both Julius Caesar and Augustus had the title pontifex maximus, chief priest. Some priests had to conform to certain rules of life, much as priests or holy men do these days. 

Sacrifices could be anything which you could afford, though the larger sacrifices involving the killing of an animal often ended up in a public feast. In Athens at the four-yearly Great Panathenaic Festival, 100 oxen a day were sacrificed for several days and after the tribute had been paid to the gods, the remaining meat would have been distributed amongst the people. See below for which parts of the animal were given to the gods and why. Poor people might give a little grain or cakes or whatever they had. For an example of how the favour of the gods could affect someone’s life.