(publice) in particular cult spaces. And so, at the time of the Epulum Iouis, the great
sacrifice to the Capitoline triad on September 13 and November 13, the senators
took part in a sacrificial banquet on the Capitol, under the gaze of the three divinities
of the Capitoline temple. For those participants not in a privileged position, the rules
were different. With few exceptions – for example, at the altar of Hercules – most
citizens did not take part in “public” sacrificial banquets held at public expense. No
doubt they had to buy their share, either during the rite itself or from the butcher,
unless a benefactor offered them some of the meat and the bread and wine that
went with it. At many of the public sacrifices in Rome, there was room only for a
banquet restricted to the celebrants. In smaller communities, for example the imme-
diate neighborhood, the college, or the family, the relationship between sacrifice and
banquet was more immediate: the sacrifice that was offered was eaten there and then,
or at least divided and distributed in order to be taken away, or its equivalent value
in money. Sacrifices at the Great Altar of Hercules, in the Forum Boarum, were unusual.
They began, like all sacrifices, in the morning and included a first banquet bringing
together the sacrificers, and perhaps also the senators (at least on the major occasion,
August 12). In the evening, a second banquet took place, to which all citizens, with
the exception of women, were invited. These banquets were famous, since none of
the meat from the sacrifice was allowed to remain at the end of the day, and none
of it could be removed from the cult precinct.
One particular, but very common type of sacrifice was that offered during a
public or private meal. Between the first and second course, incense and wine were
offered, along with a share of the banquet or other special offerings. This sacrifice
was probably the most common of those performed in the domestic context. At all
banquets, a sacrifice of this type was addressed to the Lares, to the Penates, and,
from the first century bc onward, to the Genius Augusti. These sacrifices clearly high-
light the connection between the ritual and food: the sacrificers reclined on dining
couches (triclinia) during the offering, and shared their banquet with the gods.
During certain special rituals like the great lectisterniathat were introduced in Rome
in 399 bc, all the heads of household would celebrate banquets in their homes,
to which they invited neighbors and passers-by: in this way they proclaimed their
hospitality, which they also offered to the gods they were intending to thank or appease.
A sacrificial meal seems to have been required in the cult of Mithras in the imperial
period, because the locations designed for Mithraic cult practice appear in the form
of a large tricliniumwith an altar at the far end. The initiates banqueted, and water
and bread were offered as well as wine. The blood sacrifice was almost certainly
performed outside the ritual “cavern.” Recent studies of a mithraeumhave begun
to uncover the first remains of these sacrifices and banquets (see Martens 2004a,
2004b; R. Turcan 1980, 1989: 227–34). From what we know, a part of the pub-
lic rites celebrated during the Ludi Megalenses, in honor of the Great Mother (April
4–10) consisted of closed banquets: the great families of Rome formed sodalities in
order to dine, no doubt with the goddess, on the festival’s high day, April 4, at great
banquets called mutitationes (“dinner invitations”). Besides the mutitationes, a
magistrate offered a public sacrifice. “Phrygian” sacrifices performed by the goddess’s
own priests will not be discussed here.
268 John Scheid