Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The devotio was the most extreme offering a Roman general could make, promising to offer his own life in battle along with the enemy as an offering to the underworld gods. Livy offers a detailed account of the devotio carried out by Decius Mus ; family tradition maintained that his son and grandson , all bearing the same name, also devoted ...
In ancient Roman religion, a votum, plural vota, is a vow or promise made to a deity. The word comes from the past participle of the Latin verb voveo, vovere , "vow, promise". As the result of this verbal action, a votum is also that which fulfills a vow, that is, the thing promised, such as offerings, a statue, or even a temple building.
In ancient Roman religion, the devotio was an extreme form of votum in which a Roman general vowed to sacrifice his own life in battle along with the enemy to chthonic gods in exchange for a victory. The most extended description of the ritual is given by the Augustan historian Livy, regarding the self-sacrifice of Decius Mus. [1]
In Roman law, a thing given as a pledge or bond was a sacramentum. The sacramentum legis actio was a sum of money deposited in a legal procedure [5] to affirm that both parties to the litigation were acting in good faith. [6] If correct law and procedures had been followed, it could be assumed that the outcome was iustum, right or valid.
The vocabulary of ancient Roman religion was highly specialized. Its study affords important information about the religion, traditions and beliefs of the ancient Romans. This legacy is conspicuous in European cultural history in its influence on later juridical and religious vocabulary in Europe, particularly of the Christian Church. [1]
Cultus was expected to matter to the gods as a demonstration of respect, honor, and reverence; it was an aspect of the contractual nature of Roman religion (see do ut des). [3] Augustine of Hippo echoes Cicero's formulation when he declares, "religion is nothing other than the cultus of God." [4]
The Religio Romana (literally, the "Roman Religion") constituted the major religion of the city in antiquity.The first gods held sacred by the Romans were Jupiter, the highest, and Mars, the god of war, and father of Rome's twin founders, Romulus and Remus, according to tradition.
Mythology portal; Religion portal; History portal; Religion in Ancient Rome includes the ancestral ethnic religion of the city of Rome that the Romans used to define themselves as a people, as well as the religious practices of peoples brought under Roman rule, in so far as they became widely followed in Rome and Italy.