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Book Reviews Numen 60 (2013) 348–370 brill.com/nu Book Reviews Bestattungsrituale und Totenkult in der römischen Kaiserzeit (Potsdamer Alter- tumswissenschaftliche Beiträge, 27.) Edited by Jörg Rüpke and John Scheid. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010. 298 pp. ISBN 978-3-515-09190-9 (pbk.) The book under review is the result of one of the conferences organized within the framework of the DFG Schwerpunktprogramm “Römische Reichsreligion und Provinzialreligion: Globalisierungs- und Regionalisierungsprozess in der antiken Religionsgeschichte,” in this case in cooperation with the Collège de France. That is why the articles are either in French or German. In their rather brief introduction the organizers, Jörg Rüpke and John Scheid, note that two types of questions were the focus of the conference. First is the question of the formation of espaces culturels. To what extent can we observe the contribution of religion to the integration of the Roman Empire? Which elements of religion are important in this respect? How is religion transmitted? A second cluster of problems focuses on the complexity and heterogeneity of these espaces cul- turels. Who used the religious components that were issued from the center? How were these strange elements integrated in the provinces of the Empire? What about the provincial elites and their attitudes towards religion? These and other related questions are investigated through the prism of funerary practices, although these had been largely excluded from the aforementioned Forschungsprogramm. The editors rightly stress, though, that these practices nowadays appear to be much more informative than in earlier times due to the great advances made in excavations by the application of, for example, physi- cal anthropology, paleobotany, and paleozoology. Naturally, the thirteen con- tributions cannot all be discussed in detail here and I will limit myself to a brief presentation. Darja Šterbenc Erker (11–23) studies several Roman festivals in connection with the dead: the Feralia, the Parentatio, the Larentalia, and the Argei festival (originally a purifijication ritual). In these rituals, which are described by Ovid and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, we can see that the latter stresses the continu- ity of the Greek and Trojan heritage in Roman religion, whereas the former aims at connecting the past with the presence of the Augustan Empire. Yet the article seems to me a bit outside the main themes of the book, just like the © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341268 Book Reviews / Numen 60 (2013) 348–370 349 analysis of Domitian’s “black meal” of 89 C.E. as a demonstration of an “arrange- ment” with the senate by Andreas Gutsfeld (25–33). In contrast, Rudolf Haensch (35–55) analyses the grave monuments of the highest offfijicials in the provinces as well as those of their wives in a stimulating contribution. Even though we have only a small number of them (ca. 23), as most offfijicials that died outside Rome were nevertheless honored in Rome, Haensch can show that several examples suggest that in the third century C.E. the recruitment of these offfijicials changed in respect to their social and geo- graphical origins, which also manifested itself in their funerary cults. Ralph Häussler (57–92) interestingly connects the processes of heroization in Gaul and England at the beginning of the Roman rule not so much with Roman influences, but with internal developments in the respective societies, which, at the most, could have been furthered by Roman culture. Valérie Bel’s (93–112) study of graves in Nîmes is another illustration of this tendency, where the Roman influence arrives relatively late and the developments in the last centu- ries before the beginning of the Christian era testify to indigenous develop- ments rather than to changes due to Roman influence. In one of the most interesting contributions, Christoph Aufffarth (113–133) studies the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 that just like a seed of corn has to die in the earth to produce new fruits, so human beings have to die in order to gain a new exis- tence. In Paul’s words, as Aufffarth persuasively argues, we can recognize an echo of the Mysteries of Eleusis, of which the apostle will have heard during his stay in Corinth. It is therefore only to be found in this Letter, not elsewhere in his writings. Gian Franco Chiai (135–56) moves us to Phrygia, where he analyses the cult of Zeus Bronton. Inscriptions show that the souls of the dead were worshipped and invoked together with this god. The author connects this with the develop- ment to henotheism in the course of Late Antiquity. Unfortunately, we cannot be wholly sure where these votive altars and their inscriptions had originally been erected, but a place within a sanctuary of the god is not unlikely. Isabelle Sachet (157–74), in a well-illustrated contribution, studies the funerary liba- tions in Nabataea, which are only archaeologically attested. She scrupulously analyses the various vessels used for the libations, and concludes that they did not difffer that much from the rest of the Mediterranean; in fact, it seems that the local Romans assimilated more to the Nabataeans than the other way round. Yet the pax Romana enabled the Nabataeans to buy better and more expensive oils for their libations than before. Stefan Lehmann (175–213) notes that the Romans influenced the change from just mummifijication of the deceased to mummy and individual portrait, which has given us the beautiful mummy portraits, of which he fortunately .
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    Transcript What was the Parentalia? Dr Emma-Jayne Graham: The Parentalia was a nine-day Roman festival that took place every year between 13th and 21st February. During the festival families would gather together to celebrate, to remember and to appease the dead. Initially in their homes but also in the cemetery. The main purpose of the Parentalia seems to have been to make sure that the restless dead were content in the afterlife. That they stayed in their graves and that they didn’t terrorise the living. The first eight days of the Parentalia saw people in their homes performing rituals of purification. And for this reason we know very little about these private aspects of the festival. But, on the final day, known as the Feralia they would congregate in the cemetery and honour the dead with a very public display of offerings, of prayers and of flowers. Culminating in a great banquet held right there in the cemetery outside the tomb and in the company of their ancestors. And some tombs were equipped with small ovens. Meaning that fresh bread could be made right there on the spot ready for the occasion. And individual graves also sometimes had tubes inserted into them so that the dead could receive their share of the wine, of the honey and of the bread that their relatives were enjoying. The poet Ovid writes about the Parentalia in his work on the Roman calendar and he describes it as an inauspicious time for business and for weddings. Because it was a moment when the unlucky shades of the dead were very close to the world of the living.
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