te appellari uolueris(Servius, Aeneis2.351). Such caution was the rule within every
context, either votive or magical. A lead tablet aiming at a rival’s destruction called
for the nymphs siue quo alio nomine uoltis adpellari(CIL11.1823). Is that the
reason why, in late antiquity, a magician practiced at Anna Perenna’s temple
(Piranomonte 2002)?
Saying the deity’s name represented the slightest, first step in theological
definition, for it defined the deity as a superior being and attributed to it a power
within a circumscribed field. For similar reasons, the theonym was frequently accom-
panied by cultural epithets (epiclesis) that drew explicit limits to the deity’s field of
action. Jupiter is optimus maximus, Mars is pateror uictor(Belayche et al. 2005).
When a sacrifice was performed, the praefatio(introductory rite) consisted of an incense
and wine libation on an altar with a fire (ThesCRA 1. 203– 4). It was an equivalent
through gesture to the address by the name. It expressed a preliminary homage,
“the solemn salutation of the gods” (Scheid 2003: 109; 2005c: 44 –50). Being intro-
duced to the gods required observance of concrete conditions, too; scholars are used
to referring to them as ritual purity (Veyne 2005: 448 –9). Entering the deities’ area
- the sacred (sacer) – demanded a few qualities from cultic actors and the space
and time of the ceremony (Cic. Leg.2.24). There were set behaviors, gestures,
and festive surroundings throughout, all more or less demonstrative according to
the ritual’s status. Place (temple and altar), actors, and sacrificial animals adorned
with garlands and crowns regularly figured on great public sacrifice reliefs (Ryberg
1955), and ritual operators washed their hands in running water as a preliminary.
Festive time itself was declared as set apart from profane time, available for human
activity. After participants had been required to keep silent (fauete linguis), music
created a symbolic separation from daily life. Flutists (tubicines) belonging to one of
the city’s ordineswere called for public rituals. Within private ceremonies, the faith-
ful could rent a lyre-player for a sacrifice (rem diuinam faceret) performed at home
(domi) in order to thank a god once, say, one’s son had come back safely (Plautus,
Epidicus314 –16, 414 –16). The whole range of dispositions was more complex and
punctilious in the case of “magical” rituals, because the divine power was summoned
to come and to proceed to action (PGMtrIV.55 –7).
All these preliminary rites co-occurring at the meeting with superior beings are
compelling, because the relationship between the two partners is unbalanced on the
ontological level. And yet, however almighty and immortal the gods might be, they
had rights and duties within the Roman community like any of its members (Scheid
1985b [2001]: 69).
“Men were Used to Protect Themselves (muniti
essent) by Dedications against Shocks of
Fortune (aduersus fortunae impetus)”
(Servius, Aeneis4.694)
Actions and decisions were regulated by vows throughout daily life. Religious rela-
tionships were defined as an engagement between two partners, the uotum, for they
280 Nicole Belayche