Magic played an extremely important role in the life of the peoples of the ancient world. The remnants of totemism and animism, the priesthood and all sorts of predictors influenced their mentality. Of course, the seemingly pragmatic ancient Romans were no exception in this series.
Good and evil spirits
For a long time it was believed that there is very little information about the development of superstitions in Rome in the most ancient era. It was believed that in the ancient Roman religion there was no developed teaching about demons, but the Romans believed in ghosts and the souls of evil people, condemned for their sins after death to wander the earth. Now it is clear to scientists that for the ancient Romans the world was full of good and evil spirits, and their favor was to be achieved with the help of prayers, magic spells and sacrifices.
Since the main occupation of the Romans was agriculture, there were many deities who personified literally all natural phenomena and types of agricultural work. For example, three deities - Vervaktor, Redarator and Obarator - helped the peasants when plowing virgin lands. When fertilizing the field, it was necessary to pray and offer sacrifices to Sherculinia, while sowing - to Saturn and Semon. The ripening of the ears was under the auspices of the god Lakgurn.
A host of deities guarded the safety and well-being of home and family. So, lares and penates took care of the dwelling, Janus guarded the doors, Vesta guarded the hearth. Each person had his own patron spirit - a genius, in which the vitality of an individual was manifested. The Romans believed that there were "genius familie" - patrons of the family and "genius loci" - patrons of the place.
The souls of the dead were revered as mana spirits. Mans were considered to be good spirits, but if the families of the deceased neglected rituals to calm the souls of the dead, they could appear to mortals as formidable and vengeful lemurs. To appease the souls of the ancestors, the graves were watered with milk or wine, and a deep hole was dug next to them through which solid food could get to the dead.
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Special spells were chanted to invite the dead to eat and drink. Initially, the inhabitants of the Eternal City did not represent all these deities and spirits in human form, did not erect statues for them, did not build temples. The transition to the anthropomorphism of the gods took place under the influence of the Etruscans during the reign of King Tarquinius the Ancient.
There is no doubt that already in ancient times the Romans knew some complex magic techniques. About the successor of Romulus, Numa Pompilius, who is credited with the ordering of the ancient Roman calendar, the establishment of priestly and craft colleges, participation in the brotherhood of the Pythagoreans, it was said that he was engaged in theurgic art, that is, magical actions, with the help of which he could make the gods appear in a visible form.
His warlike successor Tullus Hostilius, according to legend, was struck by lightning for the fact that on one such occasion he either deceived the gods, or made an irreparable mistake in the ritual, having contrived to climb up the altar with his feet. Titus Livy wrote on this occasion: “King Tullus, having found in Numa's comments indications of some solemn and extremely mysterious sacrifices that the legislator dedicated to Jupiter Elicius, retired to a hidden place to carry out this sacred experience; but, not observing exactly all the prescribed rituals, from the very beginning of the experiment, or in the continuation of it, he was burned down with his whole house by lightning."
The Romans also believed that magic could be used to lure bread from someone else's field to their own, and the laws of the twelve tables (about 450 BC) contained a prohibition on such actions. There are known facts showing that for harmful magic the Romans sometimes used lead tablets depicting the goddess of moonlight Hecate with snakes crawling out of her head. It is believed that snakes in this case were instruments of execution of the curse.
Augurs and Haruspics
Already in the 19th century, if not earlier, historians were well aware of the ancient Roman art of divination or fortune-telling. This art among the Romans, like among the Greeks, was of a purely religious nature: the gods expressed their will through special signs, and people only had to interpret these signs. The earliest teaching of the augurs was probably based exclusively on bird observation among the Romans.
These signs were paid attention to in all important public matters, as well as in many private matters. Every educated Roman should have been able to interpret the flight of birds, but for state purposes, special officials, augurs, were appointed who professionally interpreted the will of the gods with the help of these signs.
Augur outlined with his rod a certain space in the sky and there, after praying to the gods, he expected a sign from them. The latter was interpreted in an affirmative or negative sense, so that it was seen as the direct answer of the gods to the question of whether any undertaking should be carried out. For this purpose, however, not all birds could serve, and not everyone was given signs.
Doves could serve as a sign only for kings, because these birds never fly alone, just as rulers do not go out without a retinue. For some birds, such as ravens, ravens, owls, roosters, a cry served as a sign, for others, such as an eagle or a kite, flight. For some birds, flight from left to right was considered favorable, while in others, from right to left.
Later, when faith in the ancient methods of divination was somewhat weakened, while the state, by virtue of tradition, still retained the position of augurs, a new method was invented - receiving signs by feeding chickens. For this purpose, young chickens were kept in a cage, and when they needed a sign, they were released and watched as they ate the abandoned food.
If the chickens eagerly pounced on him, so that they even dropped part of their beak, it was a good sign. If, on the contrary, they did not pay attention to the food, this was interpreted as a harbinger of trouble. This method was very convenient, since it was easy to secure the desired sign in advance by forcing the chickens to starve, or, on the contrary, by pre-feeding them.
From their closest neighbors, the Etruscans, the Romans learned other forms of divination at a very early era.
The Etruscan art of divination showed a strange resemblance to the Chaldean, and this can hardly be explained by chance. It was not for nothing that Herodotus considered the Etruscans to be immigrants from Lydia, a region on the Anatolian Peninsula. Among the various branches of mantics (fortune telling) among the Etruscans, like among the Chaldeans, were the interpretation of miraculous events, the observation of lightning, the entrails of sacrificial animals, the flight and cry of birds, newborn freaks, and so on. The Romans also became acquainted with all this.
First, they invited Etruscan haruspics, that is, researchers of the intestines of animals. Later, it became customary to send noble youths to Etruria to learn various types of mantics. But of all these species in Rome, it seems that only observations of animal entrails and lightning have become widespread, at least in relation to state enterprises.
Sibyl books
The Roman state possessed another extremely remarkable work in the field of magic - the Books of the Sibyls, which were consulted for advice in especially difficult cases, if suddenly the augurs and haruspics were powerless.
According to legend, King Tarquinius Proud (the last, seventh king of Ancient Rome in 534-509 BC) was first offered to buy nine such books, but he found their price too high. Then the seller, the prophetess Demophila from the Greek city of Kuma in Campania, first burned three books, and then three more.
Finally, the king, begged by his terrified advisers, bought the three remaining books at the same price as all nine were originally priced. They were written in Greek hexameters on palm leaves. The first book allegedly consisted of the prophecies of the Kumskaya sibyl itself, the second - of the predictions of the most famous of the Tiburtine sibyls, the third - of the wise sayings of various sibyls, which were written down by the Roman brothers Martius. They were deposited in the Temple of Jupiter Capitoline.
For interpretations, a board of 15 people was established, who were supposed to keep the contents of the books in the deepest secret.
Sibyl of Kum, with which the appearance of the Sibylline books is associated (fresco by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel)
It is also assumed that these books were a collection of sayings of the Greek oracles, set out so that they could be suitable for all times. Cicero wrote on this occasion: “The author presented them so skillfully that everything that happens can be considered predicted in them, since in these sayings there are no indications of certain people or a certain era.
In addition, he deliberately expresses himself tactfully that the same poems in different eras can be attributed to completely different events. The structure of the poems shows, however, that they were not written by a madman; they are more likely to be the result of art and diligence than the fruit of inner excitement and excitement."
This mysterious composition was destroyed in a fire around 400 BC. However, the book keepers did not accept the loss. From memory, they were able to reproduce and re-record several hundred sayings of the Sibyls. Subsequently, several scrolls were compiled from them, which were secretly used until the 5th century. It is also known that in 293 a terrible plague broke out in Rome.
Nobody knew what to do. But on the pages of one of the restored books, an instruction was found - to bring to Rome a statue of the god Aesculapius from the city of Epidaurus. Messengers were urgently sent there, the statue was packed and urgently sent to Rome. As soon as the cart with the precious cargo drove through the city gates, the epidemic subsided.
Andrey CHINAEV