A paper I have written will be among those discussed in the Meals in the Greco-Roman World seminar at SBL on Saturday afternoon (Nov. 19). Since the papers will not be read at the conference, I have made a draft of the paper available online here (pdf). It deals with wild banquets, including those that involve accusations of human sacrifice and cannibalism, a topic I have touched on in earlier entries on ethnography on this blog. The paper explores ethnographic discourses as reflected in Greek and Roman novels as well as historical works, and places the discussion within the framework of actual associations’ meals as known from inscriptions. It also sheds light on the supposed Oedipean unions (incest) and Thyestean feasts (cannibalism) of the early Christians. If you will attend, you may wish to read the paper in advance.

S19-118 Meals in the Greco-Roman World
11/19/2005 (SATURDAY)
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Washington A – Loews Hotel

Theme: Meals in Greco-Roman Associations

Dennis Smith, Phillips Theological Seminary, Presiding (5 min)

Richard Ascough, Queen’s Theological College
Eating with the Gods: Strengthening the Bonds of Community in Greco-Roman Associations (10 min)

Philip Harland, Concordia University
Culturally Transgressive Banquets in Reality and Imagination: Banqueting Values and the Associations (10 min)

Discussion (45 min)
Break (15 min)
Discussion (45 min)
Other (20 min)

My article on rivalries among associations is now also available in pdf on my site (courtesy of WLU Press): “Spheres of Contention, Claims of Preeminence: Rivalries Among Associations in Sardis and Smyrna,” in Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Sardis and Smyrna, edited by Richard Ascough, pp. 53-63. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005.

I had also recently posted my article on fictive “brother” language which is also available: “Familial Dimensions of Group Identity: ‘Brothers’ (ΑΔΕΛΦΟΙ) in Associations of the Greek East,” Journal of Biblical Literature 124 (2005) 491-513.

These and several other articles can be accessed freely on my publications page.

The mythologies preserved in the Nag Hammadi documents can be both fascinating and bewildering to the modern reader. Many, such as The Sophia (Wisdom) of Jesus Christ (usually dated to the second century CE) quite clearly express their views concerning the origins of the divine realm. Often they build on the assumptions and concepts of contemporary Platonic philosophers who elaborated on the creation of the universe in Plato’s Timaeus (online article on “Middle Platonism“; online translation of Timaeus). One of The Sophia‘s main sources, Eugnostos the Blessed, is saturated in such Platonisms (and Sophia takes them on) in presenting its insights into the five main beings which emerged from the one perfect and indescribable Good, called “God of truth” or “Forefather” by the author. (Eugnostos and The Sophia available online here — check them out for yourself).

Both Eugnostos and The Sophia then go on to innumerate the other main emanations or beings that came to constitute the perfect, spiritual realm along with the Forefather. These beings include the “Self-Father” (the image of the Forefather as if viewed in a mirror), the “Immortal Androgynous Man” (who emerges in the beam of light as the Forefather views his/her image), the “Son of Man” (who is the first-begotten–the others were not begotten), and the “Saviour” (who is “revealed” as a “great androgynous light” by the Son of Man). Each of these figures are androgynous and have their corresponding “female” portion, usually called “Sophia” (Greek for Wisdom). So far, so confused, and I won’t try and sort these out for you now (in the document it is only the Saviour who can explain the whole thing in order to bring understanding).

What I especially want to point out is what The Sophia of Jesus Christ does with this source and an important “story” which the author uses to supplement this scenario. The Sophia places the whole letter of instruction into the form of a dialogue between “the Saviour” (identified with Christ) and his disciples (Eugnostos, on the other hand, shows no signs of being “Christian”, and very little, if any, indication of being “Jewish”). Absent in Eugnostos is any elaboration on how the material realm (rather than the spiritual realm discussed above) came to be, or on who it was that created the material realm in which we humans live and on how we got here.

Enter Sophia and her mistake, referred to in The Sophia document. “Saviour” (Christ) talking here:

“All who come into the world, like a drop from the Light, are sent by him to the world of Almighty, that they may be guarded by him. And the bond of his forgetfulness bound him by the will of Sophia, that the matter might be revealed through it to the whole world in poverty concerning his (Almighty’s) arrogance and blindness and the ignorance that he was named. But I (Saviour) came from the places above by the will of the great Light. . . I have cut off the work of the robbers (powers that created or control the material realm); I have wakened that drop that was sent from Sophia, that it might bear much fruit. . . And you (disciples being addressed) were sent by the Son, who was sent that you might receive Light and remove yourselves from the forgetfulness of the authorities. . . Tread upon their (the robbers or authorities who rule the material realm) malicious intent” (Sophia of Jesus Christ 106-108; trans. D. M. Parrott in The Nag Hammadi Library in English ; explanatory notes added by me).

Here we have what does recur (in variant forms) in some other Nag Hammadi documents (such as the Apocryphon of John) and which is referred to in some heresiologists (like Irenaeus). This is a reference to the story of Sophia’s mistake in desiring, by herself and without her consort, “to bring these (authorities including Almighty, or Yaldabaoth) to existence” (114; BG 118). She created, by this mistake, the “Almighty”, the god of the Hebrew Bible, and his “robber” buddies, in this author’s view. Here the god of the Hebrew Bible is cast as the ignorant creator of the material realm (demiurge), whose work necessitated the sending of a Saviour from another God, the perfect and ineffable Forefather, to awaken and bring back the drops of the perfect spiritual realm (trapped within bodies-prisons in this material realm) to the place they belong. The Saviour came to bring the knowledge of the situation so that “they (the drops) might be joined with that Spirit and Breath. . . and might from two become one,” one with the perfect spiritual realm of the Forefather. This scenario is precisely what salvation is all about, for this author (and some others who also thought of themselves as followers of Christ).

But don’t expect to understand such mythology easily, since the documents that present it presume some previous knowledge of this way of thinking. We (moderns) can at least begin to get a sense of how different this is from some other early Christian writings where salvation instead pivots on Jesus’ death and resurrection (as in Paul’s letters, for instance).

These discussions of Nag Hammadi material (traditionally “gnosticism”) are far longer than what you want a blog entry to be and they certainly do not do justice to the topic. But what can you do?

Worship of the emperors is a fascinating aspect of religious life in the Roman empire. Over on BMCR, there is a review (by Kieran Hendrick) of a recent book that deals with the title “temple-warden” (neokoros) in connection with provincial imperial cults (temples devoted to worship of the emperors): Barbara Burrell, Neokoroi: Greek cities and Roman Emperors. Cincinnati Classical Studies, New Series Volume IX. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

Cities throughout Asia Minor and other eastern areas of the empire proudly took on the title “temple-warden” when they came to host a provincial temple in honour of the “revered ones” (Sebastoi), the emperors or imperial family as gods. Burrell’s book gathers together and provides an overview of the evidence for this practice.

If you would like to know more about worship of the emperors in the eastern part of the empire, you can read a brief overview here on my site. Or, if you would like to read more about imperial cults at the local level within associations, read my journal article here (or this one). On the significance of these cults for John’s Apocalypse (Revelation), which speaks of “worshipping the beast”, read this. The classic study which set the stage for much recent research in this area, including my own, is Simon Price’s Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1984). That is still the place to start if you want to read a book on the subject.

Photo (above right): Head of the colossal statue of emperor Domitian (or Titus) associated with the provincial imperial cult temple at Ephesus (which made the city “twice temple warden” in the Flavian era, the late first century). Now in the Ephesus Museum (mini-photo-tour of museum here). Photo by Phil.

Bandits or pirates play an important role within many of the ancient Greek novels. In essence, these thugs come to embody just about every improper social and religious activity you can imagine, including human sacrifice and cannibalism (as I discussed in earlier entries on ethnography. They are also depicted as engaging in improper banqueting activity in other respects.

Apuleius’ Golden Ass (aka Metamorphoses) relates the story of a man who is turned into an ass through magic and goes on adventures towards his ultimate salvation from the goddess Isis. In the mean time, his adventures include capture by a guild (collegium) of bandits (6.31), whose meal etiquette is characterized thus:

They ate and drank in utter disorder, swallowing meat by the heap, bread by the stack, and cups by the legion. They played raucously, sang deafeningly, and joked abusively, and in every other respect behaved just like those half-beasts, the Lapiths and Centaurs (Metamorphoses 4.8, trans LCL).

According to Greek mythology, the wedding celebration of Peirithous, a Lapith, ended in utter violence between the two peoples due to the drunken behaviour of a Centaur (cf. Homer, Od. 21.285-304). So these mythical figures became the epitome of terrible and violent banqueting behaviour ever since, as evidenced in the title of Lucian’s satirical Symposium, or The Lapiths, and in many artistic representations (cf. Pausanias, Guide to Greece 1.17.2; 1.28.2; 5.10.8).

A Lapith struggles with a Centaur
(Parthenon metope, now in the British Museum)

The brigands in Apuleius’ novel have “principles,” by the way, which are manifest in their (foiled) plan to punish the girl and the ass in the most humiliating manner: by having the living girl sewn inside the executed animal and leaving them both in the hot sun for dogs and vultures to devour.

You can read more about such characterizations of wild meals or anti-banquets of bandits and other “low-lifes” in a paper I wrote here.

I recently re-watched Pink Floyd’s “Live at Pompeii” (originally 1972) film which has now been released as a director’s cut DVD (also with the original version included). The live concert was recorded (with no audience, I might add) in the amphitheatre at Pompeii, with excellent results in sound. The new director’s cut version of the film adds considerable Roman archeological material as background (the original version had some). In particular, “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, which is mesmerizing to begin with, is now interspersed with shots of the paintings from the Villa of the Mysteries (Villa Item), which pertain to the mysteries of the god Dionysos (Dionysus) or Bacchus (which you can read about here). If you do like Pink Floyd’s music or you are interested in Roman archeology and the mysteries, then it’s well worth a watch. It also has the track “Madame Nobs” (recorded in a studio, not Pompeii) which is a blues tune with harmonica and live howling dog accompaniment (my son enjoys that the most).

Over on “Towards an Archaeology of Iconoclasm“, Troels mentions a new study by Jakob Munk Højte on Roman imperial statue bases. Troels then goes on to the question of the mutilation of inscriptions, and mentions a case in the Prytaneion (presidency building) at Ephesus which involves the obliteration of the goddess Artemis’ name (probably by Christians). Troels also promises some more entries on the topic, to which I will look forward.
Troels also mentions the relative commonality of the erasure of an emperor’s name in cases where an emperor was so disliked by other senators that his memory was “condemned” (damnatio memoriae) after his death. I happen to have on hand a photo of an inscription, now in the museum at Ephesus, that involves a dedication to the emperor Domitian in 88-89 CE (by the city of Klazomenae) (IEph 235). After the condemnation of Domitian’s memory, Domitian’s name was erased and the monument was rededicated to the emperor Vespasian. The erasure and re-inscription took place on lines two and four, with Domitian being replaced with “god” (theos) in line two and Germanicus being replaced with “Vespasian” in line four).

You can also check out some other monuments and statues in the Ephesus museum, as well as other Turkish museums, here.

UPDATE: Welcome to readers of Respectful Insolence (aka Orac Knows), a blog by an “academic surgeon and scientist” that covers just about everything you could imagine, including science and history (especially WW II and the Holocaust). If you are interested in Roman history and the history of religions in the Roman empire (including Judaism and Christianity, of course), you may (are sure to) find other entries of interest here.

Thanks to David Meadows for noting a new journal devoted to the study of “Hellenic religion” (Journal of Hellenic Religion). This is not an academic journal but a journal produced by those who wish to promote and continue practicing the worship of the ancient Greek gods. If you are interested in the study of neo-paganism (new, modern paganism), then, this may be of interest to you. To use an analogy: You wouldn’t want to use Pat Robertson’s 700 club show as a source of information if you were doing a research paper on the New Testament or on ancient Christianity, but you would need to watch him if you were studying and doing a paper on a particular brand of modern American religion.

For those of you who are not familiar with neo-paganism, it takes a variety of forms such that the single term is misleading. It includes people today who are devoted to the worship of specific deities such as Demeter, for instance, and those who claim to practice ancient Druidism, as well as others such as the Wiccans and still others that combine little bit of each, so to speak. Belief.net has an article on modern polytheism here. IMPORTANT: This is a case where it is very important to distinguish between academically-minded and religiously-minded websites that deal with ancient religions. The ones just listed are religiously-minded, produced by those who practice their “pagan” religion in a modern form.

As you may know, you can read a number of articles dealing with the social and religious life of associations and guilds in the Roman empire by clicking on my full-text online articles (and scrolling down). But I thought I’d mention a few other articles on associations (collegia, thiasoi, synodoi, etc) that are also freely available online:

Our friendly neighbourhood Philo scholar has the following very interesting paper hosted on the Ioudaios site (which later appeared in revised form in the volume edited by John S. Kloppenborg and Stephen G. Wilson):
Torrey Seland, “Philo and the Clubs and Associations of Alexandria.”

The Hendrickson site has Richard S. Ascough’s general discussion (from an edited book) of “Greco-Roman Philosophic, Religious, and Voluntary Associations.”

Ascough’s book on What are they Saying about the Formation of the Pauline Churches, which also has introductory discussions on associations and on mysteries as a backdrop for Pauline groups, is available for browsing on GooglePrint

Ilias Arnaoutoglou, an expert on Greek law, has an article on whether or not there were strictly enforced laws regarding associations in Asia Minor (answering, as do I in my book [pp.161-176], in the negative):
Ilias N. Arnaoutoglou, “Roman Law and Collegia in Asia Minor,” Revue Internationale des droits de l’antiquité 49 (2002): 27-44.

I was just looking at Paul R. Trebilco’s webpage at the University of Otago and had to share what I found. Trebilco is best know for his excellent work on Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (Cambridge University Press, 1991), and more recently he has written The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius (Mohr-Siebeck 2004). Yet among his earlier refereed publications are:

Blunt, J.W., Hartshorn, M.P., Munro, M.H.G., Lee, T.S., Thompson, R.S., Trebilco, P.R., Vannort, R.W. and Vaughan, J. ‘Reactions of Propargyl Alcohols VI. Lithium Aluminium Hydride Reductions of 2,2-Dimethyl-3-phenylhex-4-yn-3-ol, its 1- methoxy-derivative and 2,2-Di-(meth-oxy-met-hyl)-3-phenylhex-4-yn-3-ol.’ Australian Journal of Chemistry 36 (1983): 581-591.

‘Paul and Silas, Servants of the Most High God – Acts 16:16-18.’ Journal for the Study of the New Testament 36 (1989): 51-73.

The transition from chemist to scholar of Christian origins took less than 6 years, apparently. Impressive!

Unofficial groups in the Greco-Roman world that I (and others) typically call “associations” used a variety of terms to describe themselves. Some of the favourite Greek terms were synodos (“synod”), koinon, synergasia (“guild”), thiasos (“cult-society”), and mystai (“initiates”). Today, when people (including many scholars) hear the term synagogue or head-of-the-synagogue (archisynagogos) they tend to assume some Jewish group (or building) is in mind. However, the term synagogue (stemming from the Greek synagō, meaning to gather or bring together) was also used by other “pagan” associations and was not necessarily a sign of Jewish connections.

Thus, for instance, one monument from Apamea in Bithynia (northern Asia Minor / Turkey), which involves a group of men and women devotees (thiasitai and thiastides) honouring a priestess of Cybele (the Great Mother), mentions that the inscription was set up in the “synagogue” of Zeus (IApamBith 35). Across the Propontis in Perinthos-Herakleia in Thracia, there was an occupationally-based “synagogue of oar (or small-ware) dealers” that shows no sign of Jewish connections (IPerinthos 59 [first or second century]). At both Beroia and Hagios Mamas in Macedonia there were associations (devoted to Poseidon and a hero-god respectively) whose main leader was known as the head-of-the-synagogue (archisynagogos) (IMakedD 747 [second century]; SEG 27 [1977] 267). And there are many other “pagan” cases where the chief leader of the group, as in some Jewish gatherings, was termed head-of-the-synagogue (e.g. NewDocs I 5; IG X.2 288-289; SEG 42 [1992] 625).

Diaspora Jewish groups (including Jesus-devotees) shared more in common with “run-of-the-mill” associations of the Greco-Roman world than often acknowledged, and their “gatherings” would have been viewed as such by outsiders in some important respects.

To read more about associations in the Greco-Roman world, as well as their relevance to early Judaism and Christianity, go here.

As pointed out on the Stoa consortium, the well-established journal Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies is now freely available online (at least the current year). Let’s hope it stays free-access.

There are sometimes articles dealing with religions of the ancient Mediterranean in this journal, including the recent article by Velvet Yates on “The Titanic Origin of Humans: The Melian Nymphs and Zagreus” (link to pdf not working at the moment). Another article by Michael Carter, titled “Archiereis and Asiarchs: A Gladiatorial Perspective“, argues that the positions of the highpriests of the imperial cult are, in fact, one and the same with the positions of asiarchs in the province of Asia. D.R. Jordan’s article from 2000 which lists recently discovered curse tablets, or defixiones, is also available (“New Greek Curse Tablets (1985-2000)“.

Until recently, the suggestion that members of the early Christian congregations may have simultaneously been members in other associations and guilds remained under-explored. In my book, I dealt with the question of multiple memberships in connection with the Christians at Corinth (addressed by Paul in 1 Cor 8 and 10) who were attending banquets alongside non-Christians (“pagans”). I also considered the possibility that the opponents addressed by John’s Apocalypse, especially those accused of eating idol-food (or idol-meat) with “Jezebel”, may have been encountering sacrificial food as members in the guilds of Thyatira (something that William Ramsay suggested, but did not explore, long ago). For all this, see pp. 205-10, 259-63 of Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations.

In a more recent article dealing with Sardis and Smyrna, which you can read on my site, I looked at the implications of multiple memberships for questions of rivalries and competition among different groups.

I have now just read a very interesting article on associations on the island of Rhodes by Vincent Gabrielson, which drew my attention to another interesting case of multiple memberships in associations (dealing with IG XII[1] 155). A man named Dionysodoros, who was an immigrant from Alexandria (in Egypt), was honoured by a number of associations (koina) at Rhodes in the second century BCE, including the “Haliasts and Haliads,” the “Paniasts,” and the “Dionysiasts” (devoted to the god Dionysos). A closer look at this lengthy inscription shows that he was not only honoured by these groups, but was also a member in at least four associations at Rhodes! (See Vincent Gabrielson, “The Rhodian Associations Honouring Dionysodoros from Alexandria, ” Classica et mediaevalia 45 [1994] 137-60.)

And these memberships were not fleeting. Dionysodoros was a member of the “Haliasts and Haliads” for 35 years, and he acted as their chief-of-banquets (archeranistas) for 23 years. Simultaneously he was a faithful member and benefactor of other associations, including the “Paniasts” whom he served as chief-of-banquets for at least 18 years. This is the sort of atmosphere of multiple affiliations and interactions in which the early Christians and diaspora Jews found themselves. So we should not be too surprised if we find some Jews or Christians going to synagogue or church one day, and hanging out with friends in the guild or association the next.

There is a review by Julia Lougovaya-Ast at BMCR of a recent collection of funerary epigrams (poetic grave inscriptions) from the south of Asia Minor which illustrates well how much fun and how intriguing inscriptions can be, even grave-inscriptions (Reinhold Merkelbach, Josef Stauber, Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten. Band 4: Die Südküste Kleinasiens, Syrien und Palaestina. München/Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2002).

Among the inscriptions there is one for a dog, named Stephanos, who was mourned and buried like a human. Another echoes the paraphrased title of this post (which comes from a satirical epitaph).

Others are a bit less fun, even sad, but nonetheless give us glimpses into the social realities of life in the ancient world. Among them is the grave of a woman who died giving birth to triplets. As the reviewer points out, this is one of the few references to multiple births beyond twins in antiquity.

Check out the full review, which provides some English translations of several graves (including the above). Of course, the book itself provides the Greek texts and German translations.

Once again, the satirical “wit” at the Daily Show with Jon Stewart shows a familiarity with the history of religions in the reference to Michael Jackson’s victory celebration as the Boy-cchanalia. I will not engage the Michael Jackson issue, but thought I’d say a few words about the Bacchanalia incident that ultimately provided us with our word for wild drunken orgies (Bacchanalia is now in most English dictionaries with a definition along those lines, though you will rarely hear it used these days).

Back in the time of Augustus (c. 20 BCE), the Roman historian Livy recounted the story of a controversy from two centuries earlier (186 BCE) involving the worshippers of Bacchus (Dionysos) in Rome and the surrounding area in Italy. In the process of explaining why the Roman leaders (consuls) had suppressed the worship of that imported, foreign deity, Livy goes into great detail concerning the incidents that supposedly led up to the suppression. In the process he draws on a common stock-pile of charges (including human sacrifice and wild orgies) attributed to foreign or “barbarian” peoples, charges which are echoed in the accusations against the early Christians in later times as well (see earlier post). Livy has the character Hispala describe these Dionysiac mysteries or secretive rituals as follows:

From the time when the rites were held promiscuously, with men and women mixed together, and when the license offered by darkness had been added, no sort of crime, no kind of immorality, was left unattempted. There were more obscenities practiced between men than between men and women. Anyone refusing to submit to outrage or reluctant to commit crimes was slaughtered as a sacrificial victim. To regard nothing as forbidden was among these people the summit of religious achievement
(Livy, History of Rome 39.13; trans. by H. Bettenson, Livy: Rome and the Mediterranean [Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976]).

To read more about Dionysos’ mysteries, go here. For some photos of Dionysos or Bacchus, go here or here.

Down in a dusty basement of the British Museum, where few will ever see it, is a very interesting monument involving an association devoted to Zeus Hypsistos (“Most High”; GIBM IV.2 1007; from Panormos, near Kyzikos in Asia Minor).

The “three-storey” relief on this monument depicts the gods to whom the association was devoted, with Zeus (left) alongside Artemis (middle) and Apollo (right). All three deities hold out a libation bowl in their right hands, symbolic of the libations (drink-offerings) which humans offer in honour of these figures.

There is now an online review of my book, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations, in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2005.06.20) . Earlier online reviews also appeared in Review of Biblical Literature and Church History.

I’m back and I’ll start blogging again very soon once the email box is cleared out.

A new book gathers together a variety of Greek epigraphic sacred laws or regulations concerning civic and other cults and groups: Eran Lupu, Greek Sacred Law: A Collection of New Documents (NGSL). Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 152. Leiden: Brill, 2005. The book focuses on those sacred laws that were not included in earlier collections, especially Sokolowski’s Lois sacrées de l’Asie Mineure (Paris 1955) and Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Paris 1962 and 1969). Sokolowski’s collections included several regulation inscriptions that were produced by associations, including the famous Iobacchoi monument from Athens and the rules of the household-based association devoted to Zeus and Agdistis at Philadelphia in Asia Minor (on the various types of associations, go here).

Included in Lupu’s new volume is a sacred law of an association (synodos) of Herakles devotees at Paiania in Greece, dating to about the turn of the second century (no. 5 = SEG 31 122, first published 1981). Among the statutes of this group are the typical prohibitions against fighting and the supply of food and sacrificial victims for the gatherings of the group. The inscription also seems to suggest that children could also become members of the group (lines 38-40). Among the concerns to ensure supplies is the following:

Two people in charge of meat shall be chosen by lot every [festival] day and likewise two people in charge of pastries. If any of those entrusted is found to have done something sordid, he shall pay 20 drachmas (lines 31-33; trans. Lupu).

When the members of associations or guilds in the Roman empire gathered together for a meal, much more than simply satisfying the appetite or merely socializing was going on. Things that we moderns might separate into the categories of “social” and “religious” were intimately intertwined in antiquity, and the sacrificial meal is a case in point. The main way to honour the gods or goddesses was to make offerings of food or animal sacrifices, and in the majority of cases this, by default, included the accompanying meal of the worshipers.

In fact, in some cases it was even imagined that the god threw the banquet and was present with devotees as they shared in a communal meal. One banquet invitation on papyrus (ancient paper made from plants in Egypt) shows that the (Greco-Egyptian) god Sarapis sometimes sent out personal invitations for dinner: “The god calls you to a banquet being held. . . tomorrow from the 9th hour” (trans. by G.H.R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, vol. I no. 1). And this is one of those rare cases when an upper-class author (in this case Aelius Aristides of Smyrna) happens to clarify how the members of an association devoted to Sarapis might think about their god’s presence, whether in Egypt or in Asia Minor:

“And mankind exceptionally makes this god [Sarapis] alone a full partner in their sacrifices, summoning him to the feast and making him both their chief guest and host, so that while different gods contribute to different banquets, he is the universal contributor to all banquets and has the rank of mess president for those who assemble at times for his sake . . . he is a participant in the libations and is the one who receives the libations, and he goes as a guest to the revel and issues the invitations to the revelers, who under his guidance perform a dance.” Orations 45.27-28; trans. by Charles A. Behr, P. Aelius Aristides: The Complete Works. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981 (second century

Quite well-known is the book of Revelation’s (aka John’s Apocalypse) condemnation of “worshiping the beast” in his writing to the Christians in Asia Minor:

[The beast rising from the sea] was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all the inhabitants of the earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slaughtered (13:7-8 [NRSV]).

Scholars have for a long time recognized in this a reference to worship of the Roman emperor, with the emperor being cast as a chaotic beast in this passage. In the Greek part of the empire (including Asia Minor), in particular, the emperor and the imperial family were granted honours equivalent to those offered traditional deities, like Zeus or Artemis. They were referred to as the “revered ones” (Sebastoi), the Greek equivalent of the title “Augusti”. This worship included temples in their honour as well as sacrifices at both the city and the provincial levels.

Yet quite often those who have studied these “imperial cults” tend to see them as primarily political and lacking in religiosity, or as “public” rather than “private”. This problematic view is partly due to the neglect of the many monuments and inscriptions set up by small, informal groups or associations at the local level in many cities of Asia Minor. Many of these groups worshiped the emperors without anyone imposing that on them. One such association at Pergamum was called the “hymn-singers” (hymnodoi). Once in a while they participated in special provincial celebrations in honour of god Augustus and his heirs, but they also engaged in special “mysteries” that lasted three days in honour of the “revered ones” within their local meetings. Similarly, an association at Ephesus in the time of emperor Domitian had “mysteries and sacrifices” which they performed each year “to Demeter…and to the Sebastoi gods”.

If you want to read more about John’s Apocalypse in relation to imperial cults, go here. If you want to read more about the associations specifically and their imperial mysteries, go here. For a short overview of the types of imperial cults, go here.

Over on Paleojudaica, Jim Davila points to a recent debate over the existence of child sacrifice among the Carthaginians (in ancient North Africa), with one recent native Tunisian archeologist trying to dispel the notion that the ancestors of the Tunisians sacrificed children. It is true that almost all ancient ethnographical references to human sacrifice are made by Greek or Roman (or other) authors in order to show how terrible and uncivilized the “barbarian” peoples were. In almost all cases these are standard mud-slinging stereotypes of the “other” along the lines of the accusations against Christians and the stories used in novels which I mentioned a couple of days ago. However, the case of the Phoenicians (and Carthaginians) is different. A substantial study of Carthaginian sacrifice (which I happen to have out of the library), discusses this in relation to the Mediterranean context and concludes among other things that:

a noteworthy absence of eyewitness accounts is characteristic of the ancient sources of human sacrifices and other ‘unnatural’ killings. Also characteristic is the tendency to attribute ongoing sacrifices to other people, but to assume that in one’s own group such acts took place only in the past, if at all. It is not possible to prove that most attested human sacrifices ever happened; in fact, they probably did not. Yet, at least for the Phoenicians [and hence Carthaginians], there is independent archaeological evidence that the accusations were not wholly false.
Shelby Brown, Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in their Mediterranean Context (JSOT/ASOR Monograph Series, vol. 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), p.149.

The interpretation of this archaeological evidence is precisely what the archeologists in the recent media report are debating.

UPDATE: More discussion of child sacrifice among the Phoenicians on N. S. Gill’s about.com ancient history site.

Quite well-known are the accusations of cannibalism (Thyestan feasts) and incest (Oedipean unions) made by some Greeks, Romans, and others against Christians in the second century (as reflected in the letter written by Christians at Lyons in Gaul [France] to those in Asia Minor [Turkey] in 177 CE). Yet such allegations were part of a common set of stereotypes for describing the “other” (that is, foreign or “barbarian” peoples and groups) that were also used by ancient writers of history and fiction concerning “foreign” religious associations or criminal “lowlife” guilds.

Some Christian authors in later years would draw on the same stockpile of accusations in their fight with other Christians that they considered “heretics” (e.g. Epiphanius on the Phibionites). The same “rituals of atrocity” would be leveled against supposed heretics and “witches” in the middle ages, and most recently recurred in stories about the supposed ritual murders performed among Satanist groups in the 1980s. I am now in the midst of writing a paper that explores such accusations of wildly transgressive rituals and banquets in antiquity (for the Society of Biblical Literature Greco-Roman meals seminar).

Among the more interesting and deliberately shocking accounts in ancient Greek novels is the episode from Lollianos’ (or Lollianus’) A Phoenician Story (Phoenikika – second century CE), which describes a criminal guild of initiates engaging in ritual murder:

Meanwhile another man, who was naked, walked by, wearing a crimson loincloth, and throwing the body of the pais (child or servant) on its back, he cut it up, and tore out its heart and placed it upon the fire. Then, he took up [the cooked heart] and sliced it up to the middle. And on the surface [of the slices] he sprinkled [barley groats] and wet it with oil; and when he had sufficiently prepared them, [he gave them to the] initiates, and those who held (a slice?) [he ordered] to swear in the blood of the heart that they would neither give up nor betray [--------], not [even if they are led off to prison], nor yet if they be tortured
PColon 3328, B 1 Recto, lines 9-16. Translation from Susan A. Stephens and John J. Winkler, Ancient Greek Novels: The Fragments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 338-341.

What might be missed by a modern reader is just how normal this episode would be if not for the fact that the sacrificial victim is human. Greeks and Romans regularly engaged in sacrifices of animals in order to honour their gods, and the procedure described here would not be considered out of the ordinary. The sacrifice was accompanied by a communal meal sharing in portions of the sacrificed animal (including the innards, which were somewhat of a delicacy). Greeks and Romans alike would be utterly shocked and outraged, however, at the idea of a human victim. (The quotation in this post’s title comes from Plutarch’s Life of Cicero 10.4 and speaks of Cicero’s political opponent Cataline and his supposed co-conspirators in the 60s BCE.)

Perhaps this is less bland than my introductory post.

UPDATE: Now you can read a draft of my article that deals with novels and accusations of human sacrifice and cannibalism in the Greco-Roman period here. For further posts on banqueting in the Roman world in this blog, see other entries in the banqueting sub-category.