Spoken Prayers and Written Instructions in the Central Italian Cultural Koinê and Beyond

Home , Numerius (praenomen), Titus (praenomen)

Jay Fisher

From the seventh to the fourth century bce, the defining characteristic of the cultures of central Italy was their similarity to one another rather than their differences. As T.J. Cornell observes, there was “a common material culture shared by peoples with distinct ethnic and linguistic identities” in Etruria, Latium and Campania.1 On the level of cult, there are priesthoods across the various cultures of central Italy that are at least similar to one another and a type of votive deposit common to west-central Italy during the fifth and fourth centuries.2 Even on the level of language, Helmut Rix has noted the common use of praenomina and nomina, including Titus, a praenomen that has Etruscan, Umbrian, Oscan and Latin versions.3 The most striking feature of this so-called central Italian cultural koinê,4 however, may be the number of parallel expressions in the ritual texts composed in the different languages of the koinê, such as Latin, Umbrian and Etruscan, expressions that have become so entrenched in the ritual practice of these different cultures that it is rarely possible even to guess where a given parallel originated.5

1 Cornell (1995: 163–164). 2 Schultz (2006: 11). 3 Rix (1972: 700) observes that in addition to the common use of a personal praenomen and a family name or nomen, forms of the name “Titus” are found in Etruscan, Umbrian, Oscan and Latin; the name “Aulus” in Etruscan, Oscan and Latin; and “Numerius” in Etruscan, Oscan, Umbrian and Latin. 4 Campanile (1993: 36–45) is the most extensive argument for a cultural koinê in central Italy that is separate from the Mediterranean cultural koinê and that postdates the Proto-Italic era. Jacques Heurgon used the term “la koiné étrusco-romano-campanienne,” however, in the title of an unpublished paper in 1973 cited by Bonfante (2003: 121 n. 47). The passing remark of Pallottino (1981: 44) that there was a “koiné culturale ed artistica” that included the Greek colonies is another important development of the idea of the central Italian koinê. 5 Parallels between Umbrian and Latin have been noted and interpreted by Sandoz (1979: 345–346) and by Benveniste (1970: 309). Watkins (1995: 155–156) also notes a parallel between Oscan and Latin. I have also observed a number of parallels between Latin, Umbrian and Oscan throughout my study of the Annals of Quintus Ennius (Fisher 2014).

Another consistent feature of the ritual documents of the koinê is an intense dialogue between written ritual instructions and spoken prayer. This dialogue can be observed in a number of ritual documents that juxtapose an oral ele- ment of the ritual with a series of instructions for what actions to perform in addition to reciting a prayer. Although such a dialogue is not in itself sur- prising, the use of marked verbal forms and traditional ritual collocations in the written elements of these ritual texts closes the gap between the oral and textual elements of the ritual. This difference between utterance and gesture is further elided in these texts, since both the spoken and the unspoken elements of the ritual are usually written in the same document, even though the absence of prayers in the older tablets of the Iguvine Tables, a series of ritual texts in the Umbrian language, suggests that the prescriptions for performing the ritual were written first and that the prayers were added only later. The tension between orality and textuality in these ritual texts is achieved not only by juxtaposition but also by close parallels between the language of prayer and the language of the instructions for the ritual attendant upon these prayers. In the Umbrian Iguvine Tables from modern Gubbio in Italy, for exam- ple, there are close verbal parallels between the instructions for performing the augury before a sacrifice and the pronouncement of the intention to perform the augury. This same tension between prayer and instruction is also observ- able in a number of prayers and ritual instructions preserved in the De Agricul- tura of Cato. What is more, there are indications of a similar interplay between oral utterance and written instruction in Etruscan, even though these indications are controversial.6 Two, if not three, of the oldest documents of Italic ritual therefore juxtapose very similar turns of phrase in both prayer and instructions with the result that the boundary between oral prayer and written ritual pre- scription is extremely permeable. Because some formulaic phrases in one Italic ritual tradition closely resem- ble some in others of the koinê and because these phrases sometimes cross the permeable boundary between ritual utterance and instructions, these partic- ular expressions were likely sites of negotiation between orality and textuality some time before their appearance in the epigraphic and literary record. The

6 Although Koen (2000) refers to the meaning of one potential verbum dicendi, as “elusive” (88), and objects to interpreting another as a verb of speaking (219–220), he interprets the imperative trin as “say, speak, invoke” (86), thereby accepting that ritual utterance is implied in the Liber Linteus.