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SHANNON - HENDERSON , KELLY E. (2019). Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 414 pp., 88,02€ [ISBN  978-0-1988-3276-8] [Book review]

Introduction

Se analiza la conexión entre Ceres y las dinastías alto imperiales a través de las imágenes de las emperatrices representadas como Ceres. Se presta especial atención a la vinculación de la adormidera con Deméter/Ceres y la dinastía antoniniana.

This paper is an attempt to think broadly about the transformation of religious identity from classical to late antiquity, and the part played in that transformation by conversion.  Beginning with a simple three-point model of religious change, I reconsider A. D. Nock’s classic distinction between conversion and adhesion.  I argue that what really distinguishes classical from late antiquity was not the appearance of religious choices that offered the possibility of a radical reorientation in a person’s understanding of the cosmos, as Nock implies, but rather the development of social structures that transformed that possibility into a necessity, that effectively disallowed adhesion and made conversion the only possible type of religious choice.

The present study analyzes the cult of the so-called Danubian Riders, with special emphasis on the sacrifices and sacred food involved. As primary sources the study uses the three-row reliefs that were made and circulated in the province of Dacia, and other variants of the lead tablets that were mostly distributed in Pannonia Inferior, around the center of Sirmium. These selected monuments reveal themselves as developed forms of this cult’s iconography, narrating mythical episodes through symbolic scenes and describing ritual acts. These complex iconographies are pseudonarrative because they include, among the diachronically ordered key scenes, essential data on the cult, the exponential moments of both the mythical and ritual rows. The meat of both fish and ram becomes the sacred food of the Gods and of the people adoring them, around a complex myth and ritual.

The Isis temple in Pompeii was one of the findings that most impacted scholars and enthusiastic travellers. The remains found inside spoke of a mysterious religion unknown to the Western world and were quickly interpreted to the liking of those who contemplated them. The food offerings and human remains went on to become sustaining elements of a myth nourished by the belief that evil rituals were characteristic of some increasingly criticised oriental cultures.

Aunque en la Antigüedad el destino estaba presente tanto en la religiosidad popular como en la religión oficial, en la filosofía, la literatura y el arte, y tenía diferentes concepciones, también alcanzó un estatus de realidad mitológica cuando Hesíodo lo presentó en la Teogonía como un trío divino de hijas de Nix, la Noche. Todos los pueblos indoeuropeos han conocido divinidades del destino, pero hoy queremos centrarnos especialmente en su pervivencia desde época romana en la mitología y las creencias populares del pueblo rumano, donde toman la forma de unos personajes míticos femeninos denominados generalmente Ursitoare y cuya principal atribución es establecer la suerte, el destino del ser humano, desde su nacimiento hasta la muerte.

En su artículo “Towards Interpreting Demonic Powers in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity”, J. Z. Smith concluye destacando lo paradójico que resulta que los poderes demónicos, asociados con lo marginal, lo liminal, lo caótico, aparezcan a menudo descritos bajo un rígido orden. En este mismo ámbito se puede incluir a las criaturas de la noche, que si bien están en general asociadas a la muerte y lo destructivo, también son objeto de ordenación sistemática y diferenciaciones tipológicas. Se analizan aquí el simbolismo religioso y función mágica de la lechuza (noctua/tyto alba en la clasificación linneana), el búho real (bubo/Bubo bubo) y la fantástica estrige para destacar cómo en el mundo romano la variedad taxonómica de las rapaces nocturnas se tiene en cuenta asimismo en la esfera religiosa.

This work is meant to analyze the priesthoods of the imperial cult associated to women of the aristocracy (flaminicae/sacerdos) and freedmen (seuiri) in the conuentus Astigitanus from the CIL II2/5, together with their social and political relevance. In order to achieve this, we will focus our attention upon the social and gender inequalities these priesthoods imply when compared to other priesthoods of the imperial cult, such as pontifices/ flamini.