Children and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge* · 2015. 8. 31. · followed all the stages of my research and Maurizio Bettini for discussing this text with me in great detail

Comp. by: PG2793 Stage : Proof ChapterID: 0001178680 Date:18/6/10 Time:10:23:47 Filepath:d:/womat-filecopy/0001178680.3D

3

Children and the Transmission

of Religious Knowledge*

Francesca Prescendi

When Ovid describes the ritual of the Lemuria feast in the Fasti he

presents the agent of the nocturnal rite as ‘he who remembers ancient

rites, and fears the gods’ (ille memor veteris ritus timidusque deorum).1

A pater familias performs the rite alone while his family is asleep. He

wants to protect them from the malevolent spirits of the dead which

rise at night. This pater familias is described as one who respects the

gods, but also as one who remembers the ancient rites: he is memor

veteris ritus, he therefore has a memory of ritual practices. The two

parts of the sentence are complementary because to a Roman, to

respect the gods and to have a reverential fear of them precisely

implies fulfilling the rites for the gods as they have been transmitted

by tradition.

The concepts that I am referring here to are fundamental to

Roman religion, an orthopractic religion,2 that is, a religion whose

most important feature is performing the rites according to the

* My thanks go to Jörg Rüpke, John Scheid, and Christoph Auffarth for theirbibliographical advice. I would particularly like to thank Philippe Borgeaud who hasfollowed all the stages of my research and Maurizio Bettini for discussing this textwith me in great detail and for his precious advice. I thank Kareen Klein for theEnglish translation of my chapter, and Daniele Morresi for helping me with myEnglish. In the Roman world, this subject has received little attention, see Bremmer1995.

1 Ov. fast. 5.431-2.2 Scheid 1998: 20.

OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRST PROOF, 18/6/2010, SPi


ancestors’ tradition. Ovid’s pater familias learned to perform the

Lemuria rite from his father, who in turn learned it from his father

and so on. Religious knowledge has been transmitted through gen-

erations, not by manuals or by sacred texts, but orally.

Memory is thus the instrument of knowledge transmission. In his

treaty on The Education of Children, Plutarch3 maintains: ‘Above all,

the memory (mnēmē) of children should be trained and exercised;

for this is, as it were, a storehouse of learning (paideia).’ He goes on:

‘Nor should parents forget that those branches of instruction which

involve memory make no small contribution, not merely to educa-

tion, but also to the practical activities of life; for the memory of past

activities serves as a pattern of good counsel (euboulia) for the

future.’ Plutarch considers memory a crucial element in the creation

of the future adult.

In his introduction to The Memory of Religions, Philippe Borgeaud

proposes some theoretical concepts with regard to this memory. He

defines religious tradition as ‘not only a store of practices, of know-

how, and of beliefs, but also a flexible and adaptable instrument of

transmission whose preservation is closely linked to maintaining an

identity’.4 The author then proposes two ways of acquiring this

tradition: mechanical memorization and deliberate memorization.

He understands mechanical memorization as ‘practice and imitation,

the mechanical repetition of gestures and words’.5 This memoriza-

tion makes possible ‘the acquisition of a number of models for

action, behaviour, thinking, and sensitivity, which define a social

and cultural identity’. As for deliberate memorization, Borgeaud

sees it as a type of memorization which constitutes a ‘specialization

of the most natural process of knowledge acquisition and of its

techniques’. In contrast to mechanical memorization, through

which young people acquire knowledge without being aware of it,

while gestures and words settle in their memory, deliberate memor-

ization constitutes a more conscious learning process: knowledge is

3 Plut., de liberis educandis, mor. 1 a–13 e, quotation 9 e (trans. F. Cole Babbitt,Loeb 1927 = 1960).

4 Borgeaud 1988: 9.5 Borgeaud 1988: 10.

74 Francesca Prescendi



transmitted at a defined moment.6 Borgeaud cites the example of

initiation rites practised by certain non-European civilizations, dur-

ing which young men or women are kept away from their commu-

nities in order to receive some particular knowledge from the adults.

The example of the Brauronia and the ephēbia in Greece could also

be cited—they are ritual moments of segregation reserved for girls

and boys.7 Such occasions are not clearly documented for Romans:

children do not seem to spend time away from society. Apparently

mechanical memorization plays the most important role. However,

deliberate learning of religious knowledge is not entirely absent

either, as will be shown at the end of this chapter.

1. MECHANICAL MEMORIZATION

In cases where learning is not seen as ‘a specific and autonomous

practice’, that is, where the transmission of knowledge does not rely

on organized school structures nor on specialized transmission

agents, the whole community performs the pedagogical activity.

Know-how (the modus operandi) is transmitted by practice without

making use of discourse. These observations were made by Pierre

Bourdieu8 in his theoretical chapter on ‘the incorporation of struc-

tures’ and they readily adapt to Roman reality. Young Romans learn

religious practices by observing adults while they perform rites.

Religious actions are transmitted without necessarily being accom-

panied by an explanatory discourse. Bourdieu adds: ‘One does not

imitate models, but the actions of others.’ Children are thus ‘parti-

cularly attentive, in all societies, to the gestures and postures which in

their eyes express all that the adult does: a gait, a movement of the

head, grimaces, a manner of sitting down, of handling instruments,

each time associated with a tone of voice with a manner of discourse

6 See the distinction between socialization and education put forward by A.-C.Harders in this volume.

7 See, for example, Brelich 1969, Brulé 1987, Calame 1996 (esp. 186 ff.).8 Bourdieu 1972: 189.

The Transmission of Religious Knowledge 75



and—how could it be otherwise?—with a whole conscious content.’9

The transmission system for technical knowledge characteristic of

Roman society can again be identified here: the action is not con-

sidered a theoretical and ancestral model which must be repeated.

Quite the contrary, what is important is the transmission of the

procedure of movements which travel through time and generations.

Knowledge Transmitted within the Family fromthe Cradle onwards

In Greece, the religious education of a boy begins in his childhood: he

listens to stories about gods and heroes which are told to him first by

the women of the household10 and by his grandparents,11 then, from

the age of 7 years, by a teacher: he thus acquires mythological knowl-

edge. Learning practices of cult is linked to performing rites, of

which the child can be the agent or the object: ‘participation in cult

ceremonies periodically renews the citizens’ religious learning and

fosters their memory’.12

The same is true for Rome. We know that grandmothers13 were in

charge of transmitting traditional Roman narratives to children.

From their birth, children were immersed in religious knowledge.

A Christian author criticizes this knowledge as follows:14

Once the vain superstition beset the fathers’ pagan hearts, it ran unchecked

through a thousand generations one after another. The young heir bowed

shuddering before anything which his hoary ancestors had designated as

9 Bourdieu 1972: 190.10 See Plat. rep. 2.377c2–4: women and nurses are in charge of shaping the

children’s souls with myths more than shaping their body with the care of theirhands. See also Plat. leg. quoted below. Brisson 1994: 69 explains that the task ofnarrating myths is entrusted to women because of their special relationship with thechildren. See also Rudhardt 1988: 43–4 with regard to young Athenians.

11 See Plat. Prot. 320c2–4 and Brisson 1994: 68, who explains that in a society thattransmits its knowledge orally, elderly people have accumulated knowledge and,because of their old age, are closer to the original message, because their story hasundergone fewer stages of transmission.

12 Rudhardt 1988: 44.13 Hor. sat. 2.6.77-8: anilis fabellas; see Bettini 1989.14 Prud. Contra Symmachum 1.197-244 (trans. H. J. Thomson, Loeb 1949=1962).




worshipful in their eyes. Children in their infancy drank in the error with

their first milk; while still at the crying stage, they had tasted of the sacrificial

meal, and had seen mere stones coated with wax and the grimy gods of the

house dripping with unguent. The little one had looked at a figure in the

shape of Fortune, with her wealthy horn, standing in the house, a hallowed

stone, and watched his mother pale-faced in prayer before it. Then, raised on

his nurse’s shoulder, he too pressed his lips to the flint and rubbed it with

them, pouring out his childish petitions, asking for riches from a sightless

stone, and convinced that all one’s wishes must be sought from thence.

Never did he raise eyes and heart and turn them towards the throne of

wisdom, but clung with credulous faith to his witless tradition, worshipping

gods of his own house with the blood of lambs. And then when he went

abroad, and lost in wonder viewed the public festivals on national holy days

with their games, and saw the lofty Capitol, the laurelled priests standing at

the temples of their gods, and the Sacred Way resounding with the lowing of

cattle before the shrine of Rome [ . . . ].

The importance of the family for the transmission of religious

knowledge, as for the greater part of other technical knowledge, is

here ridiculed by the Christian Prudentius. Yet it is a given fact for

ancient civilizations. By performing certain practices of cult the

Roman matron also transmits technical knowledge to her children.

Women were responsible for the education of children of both sexes

when they were young, but they later specialized in the girls’ educa-

tion. The father begins with the children’s education when they are a

few years old and mainly takes care of the boys’ schooling.15 Ancient

narratives show that the father’s task was considered to be particu-

larly important. Cato the Elder16 took care of his son’s education

himself when he could have employed one of the best tutors of his

time. He taught him literature, law, and gymnastics. He also wrote a

history book ‘in big letters so that his son would have the means

to learn about the ancient traditions of his country at home’. Like-

wise, in his preface to Saturnalia, Macrobius17 states that he wrote

this work so that his son had an ‘information tool’ at his disposal.

Although no ancient text explicitly states this, one can suppose

that teaching ritual practices was part of the same pedagogical

15 See Thomas 1986: 228.16 Plut. Cato 20.17 Macr. Sat. praefatio 1–2.




programme. The Romans like to tell how sons followed their fathers

everywhere, and that in the archaic age they even had access to the

curia where the senators discussed political affairs.18 In these circum-

stances, the young boys also witnessed their fathers’ religious activ-

ities, so that they could declare: ‘I am not without experience because

I continually attended sacrifices’.19 A passage from Plato (leg. 887d)

which refers to the Athenians who renounce the existence of the gods

could also be applied to the Roman context:

the stories which they used to hear, while infants and sucklings, from the lips

of their nurses and mothers—stories chanted to them, as it were, in lullabies,

whether in jest or in earnest; and the same stories they heard repeated also in

prayers at sacrifices, and they saw spectacles which illustrated them, of the

kind which the young delight to see and hear when performed at sacrifices;

and their own parents they saw showing the utmost zeal on behalf

of themselves and their children in addressing the gods in prayers and

supplications, as though they most certainly existed (trans. R. G. Bury,

Loeb 1926=1961).

Regarding familial ceremonies, J.-P. Néraudau20 states that ‘each

father had to transmit the religious knowledge of the family to his

son to assure its perpetuity’. The transmission took place from father

to son.21 Daughters, by contrast, could not preserve the family’s

ceremonies, since they moved on to another household after their

marriage. Even if traditions were transmitted via the male line, as

Néraudau claims, it is wrong, to my mind, to underestimate the

importance that participation in familial ceremonies had for daugh-

ters. This participation allowed them to familiarize themselves with

the ritual syntax and the rules of a system of thoughts. The acquired

experience was useful later, when they were integrated into their

husband’s family and had to perform religious tasks. It should not

be forgotten that women brought some of their ancestors’ images

18 Having told the story of Papirius Praetextatus, Gell. 1.23 states that the presenceof children at the curia had been forbidden only in recent times.

19 The quotation is from Xen. an. 5.6.29 and concerns young Greeks, but it canjust as well be applied to the Roman world.

20 Néraudau 1984: 226.21 Regarding the transmission of familial memory, see Maurice Halbwachs’ stan-

dard work, published in 1925 (Halbwachs 1994: 146 f.).




with them and added them to those of their husband’s family.22 The

link to the traditions of their own family was thus not completely

broken off.

I will now analyse in more detail some rites in which children are

present as objects or agents. I do not claim to describe every rite, but

merely want to give some examples.

The Child as Object of Rites

The life of a child begins with rites that assure him/her the protection

of the gods, but which also ritually mark her/his entrance into

society. The first feast of which the child is the object is the dies

lustricus: a private feast at which the child is given its name. It

coincides with the eighth day in the life of girls and with the ninth

of boys.23 Through this rite, the family confirms that it accepts the

child as one of its members. The children obviously had no direct

memory of their own dies lustricus,24 but they might perhaps have

had a vague memory of the same rite being performed at the birth of

other members of the family.

Children are also at the centre of the public Matralia feast in

honour of the Mater Matuta and of the feast of Fortuna, celebrated

on the same day.25 On this occasion, thematrons pray for the children

at the temples of the two goddesses. This rite is peculiar because in the

temple of the Mater Matuta, women do not pray for their own

children, but for those of their sisters. The age of the children present

at this feast is not known, nor if they are supposed to participate only

once or several times. One text states that these children are carried in

the arms of their aunts, which leads one to suppose that they were

22 Bettini 1986: 182–5.23 Paul. Fest. 107–8 L.24 Even if Ausonius (Parent. 3.21 f.) speaks of his own dies lustricus (see Bettini

2008: 327), it cannot be confirmed that he personally remembers it.25 The feast is celebrated on 11 June in Rome. Women go to the twin temples of

the two goddesses situated in the Forum Boarium.




quite young.26 It is difficult to establish what memories these children

could have of this feast.

Apart from these rites which constitute fixed moments in the life

of a child, there are also occasional rites, for example the rites of

divination. A famous example is that of Caecilia, wife of Metellus,

taking the auspices.27 Caecilia went to a sanctuary at night, accom-

panied by her niece, in order to enquire about the young girl’s

wedding. After a long wait, during which no sign appeared, the

girl, tired from standing so long, asked her aunt if she could sit

down. The aunt told her to take her own place. These words are

not without importance: they constitute the answer which the two

women sought. Indeed, not long after, the aunt died and the niece

married her uncle: she thus really took her aunt’s place. Later, when

the niece would have to take the auspices of her own niece, she would

be careful not to pronounce the same fateful words that her aunt had

uttered.

The Child as Agent of Rites

Children can participate in rites as main agents or as secondary ones,

together with the adults.

The Child as a Main Agent in Rites

In Roman public religion, men are generally the main agents,

although certain public rites for the preservation of the whole com-

munity are sometimes entrusted to women and children. The chil-

dren’s public tasks mainly become apparent on two occasions:28 at

the lusus Troiae and at the weaving of the rica. The lusus Troiae is a

26 Plut. Camillus 5.2: ‘during this ceremony they [scil. the women] carry in theirarms (enagkalizontai) and honour their nephews and nieces instead of their ownchildren’.

27 Cic. div. 1.104; Val. Max. 1.5.4. For this story, see also Bettini 1986: 98 ff. andBöels-Janssen 1993: 138 f.

28 I have excluded from my list the priesthoods of the Luperci and the Salii atwhich young people participated (it is not known at what age precisely), but whichwere not reserved exclusively for them (see Estienne 2005: 85, and Romano 2005: 90).




ritual parade in which the boys of the nobility participate on horse-

back and in front of an audience of adults.29 We know that the

children are divided into two groups, simulate a battle and then

establishment of peace. This rite could represent the initiation to

arms and to the cavalry for young Romans.30 John Scheid and Jesper

Svenbro31 suppose that it represents concord on which a civic com-

munity should be built. According to them, this is a rite which is

linked to the metaphor of weaving, as the name Troia indicates,

which here does not refer to the city in Asia Minor,32 as authors

from the Augustan age believe, but rather to ‘the weft’. Lusus Troiae

would thus be ‘the game of the weft’ and its goal was to show that ‘the

social union is woven and re-woven’.33

On the female side, the only public task entrusted exclusively to

girls (virgines ingenuae patrimae, matrimae, cives) is that of weaving

the rica, the garment worn by the flaminica, the wife of the flamen

Dialis.34 By weaving this piece of clothing, the girls repeat the action

of the flaminica. Indeed, the religious duty of the flamen Dialis

commanded him to wear only a garment woven by his wife.35 The

young girls thus train for an activity which is characteristic of the

exemplary Roman woman, symbolized by the flaminica.36

Looking at the male and the female world together, it becomes

clear that the goal of these rites was to familiarize the boys and girls

with the fundamental concepts of their future life. Through the lusus

Troiae the boys familiarize themselves with their military role or, if

one follows Scheid and Svenbro’s interpretation, with the idea of

civic concord, for which they will one day be responsible. By weaving

a ritual garment the girls learn the importance of this activity

which is tied to their status as future matron, on which the family’s

29 Verg. Aen. 5.545; Tac. ann. 11.11 speak of two squadrons of twelve boys each.One squadron is made up of children up to 11 years old, the other of children agedfrom 11 to 14.

30 Martinez-Pinna 1995.31 Scheid and Svenbro 2003: 40–6.32 See also Binder 1985.33 Scheid and Svenbro 2003: 44.34 Paul. Fest. 369 L.35 Scheid and Svenbro, 2003: 77–8.36 Brulé 1987: 116–23 compares the weaving rites in Greece and Rome and

emphasizes that in both cases this forms part of female education.




harmony depends to a great extent. These rites thus constitute im-

portant moments in the children’s training and education.

In the domain of domestic religion, there is a particular rite for

which children are protagonists: it marks their passage to another age

class. Before taking on the toga virilis, that is, around the age of 16,

the boys sacrificed their bulla (an ornament which they had hitherto

worn around their neck) to the Lares.37 The girls did the same with

their dolls, probably on the day before their marriage.38 As Arnold

van Gennep39 has shown, the aim of these rites of passage was to

prepare the child for its new status: it became aware of a personal

change in status and function.

Children as Ceremonial Assistants

There are four kinds of religious activities for which children per-

form tasks together with the adults:

1. Singing at public feasts. The pueri and puellae or the virgines

sing in choirs at the supplicationes,40 they also sing hymns,41 espe-

cially during secular games.42 In the context of private gatherings, we

know from Varro43 that pueri sang carmina during the banquets to

commemorate the feats of the family’s ancestors. In this case it is,

however, difficult to establish whether children or slaves of the family

are referred to, because the word pueri can actually designate both.

37 Ps.-Acr. Ad Hor. Sat. 1.5.65: Solebant pueri, postquam pueritiam excedebant, disLaribus bullas suas consecrare, similiter et puellas pupas (‘At the end of their childhood,the young men had the habit of dedicating their bullae to the Lares gods, the girlsconsecrated their dolls in the same fashion’).

38 Boëls-Janssen 1993: 66–7.39 Van Gennep 1981 calls them ‘rites of age classes’ (ch. 6).40 Liv. 27.37.7; 31.12.6-8; 37.12-4; Serv. Aen. 3.438.41 Macr. Sat. 1.6.14.42 Schnegg-Köhler 2002: line 147 of the inscription. See also the commentary on

pp. 146–7.43 Varro, vit. pop. 2.84 (ap. Non. p. 77.2): hsic aderant etiami in conviviis pueri

modesti ut cantarent carmina antiqua in quibus laudes erant maiorum et assa voce etcum tibicine (‘At the banquet chaste children were present who sang ancient poemscontaining praises of the ancestors. They sang without accompaniment or to thesound of flutes’). Riposati (1939: 191–2) explains that the adjective modestus meansthat the children that have been chosen to sing are chaste and pure.




What is certain, in any case, is that (at least at public feasts) these

songs helped the children to memorize the family’s traditions and

history.

2. Participating in processions. Boys lead the pompa circensis44 on

foot, on horseback,45 or by driving chariots (tensae)46 on which the

attributes of the deities are found.47 As for private cults, three young

boys participate in the nuptial procession which leads the bride from

her father’s house to that of her husband:48 one carries a torch, the

other two lead the bride, who is very young herself.

3. Participating in rites as religious assistants to the priests. For

example, for the reconstruction of Jupiter’s temple on the Capitoline

Hill, pueri and puellae help the Vestals to sprinkle the area of the

temple with water.49 During the expiation rites they help the decem-

viri to carry out the sacrifices;50 during the Arval rites they take part

in the banquets and direct the public slaves that had to carry the

offerings to the altar.51 A special category of these young people,

called camilli and camillae, help the flamen Dialis in performing his

44 Arnob 4.31; 7.44.45 Dion. Hal. ant. 7.72.1. Even the ludiones are described by Dion. Hal. (ant.

2.71.4) as young people, but not exclusively of noble birth.46 Cic. har. resp. 23: An si ludius constitit, aut tibicen repente conticuit, aut puer ille

patrimus et matrimus si tensam non tenuit, si lorum omisit, aut si aedilis verbo autsimpuvio aberravit, ludi sunt non rite facti, eaque errata expiantur, et mentes deorumimmortalium ludorum instauratione placantur (‘Let’s see if the dancer has stopped orif the flute player has suddenly fallen silent, if the child who still has father andmother, has stopped to hold the chariot or if he let go of the belt, if the aedile made amistake in the formula or with the ladle, the games have not been ritually celebrated,the mistakes are expiated and the dispositions of the immortal gods are appeased by arenewal of the games’).

47 Fest. 500 L.48 Paul. Fest. 282 L.: patrimi et matrimi pueri praetextati tres nubentem deducunt;

unus, qui facem praefert ex spina alba, quia noctu nubebant; duo, qui tenent nubentem(‘three children that still wear the toga praetexta and whose parents are still aliveconduct the bride: one carries a hawthorn torch in front, because marriages take placeat night, two hold the bride’).

49 Tac. hist. 4.53.50 Liv. 37.3.6: decem ingenui, decem virgines, patrimi omnes matrimique, ad id

sacrificium adhibiti et decemviri nocte lactentibus rem divinam fecerunt (‘Ten freebornyoung people and ten girls that all still had their mothers and fathers were chosen forthe ceremony and at night the decemviri sacrificed sucking animals’. See also Obseq. 40.

51 Scheid 1990: 535–6.




rites.52 It seems that children had the same subordinate role in a

private context as in public religious ceremonies. Varro53 states that

freeborn children of both sexes (pueri liberi et puerae) took part in

domestic activities as servants. A scene from Satyricon (60) by Pet-

ronius depicts three boys, wearing short tunics and the bulla around

their neck, who carry statuettes of the Lares gods and a chalice of

wine, invoking the goodwill of the gods. Regarding the private

ceremonies involving children or slaves, the most famous account

is that of the magic rite as described by Ovid (fast. 2.571-82). An old

woman performs a complicated rite to tie up evil tongues. She does

so in mediis puellis, that is, surrounded by girls. These puellae do not

partake in the action, apart from the fact that, together with the old

magician, they drink the wine used for the libations. For the remain-

der of the ceremony, they presumably watch and listen to the for-

mulas. One day, these girls, having become expert magicians

themselves, will be able to pass on the ritual procedure and the

magical words to other apprentices. Another family custom, attested

by Columella,54 describes a child entering the part of the house called

penus, where food was kept:

All these writers held that he who undertakes the performance of these

duties ought to be chaste and continent, because it was of prime importance

that neither drinking vessels nor food should be handled except by one who

had not reached puberty or, at any rate, only by one who was most

abstemious in sexual intercourse. Any man or woman who indulged in it

ought, they thought, to wash in a river or running water before touching

food; consequently in their view one must employ the services of a boy

52 Varro, ling. 7.34; Fest. 82 L.; see Fless 1995: 45–51.53 Varro, vit. pop. 2.83 (ap. Non. p. 156): sic in privatis domibus pueri liberi et

puerae ministrabant (‘thus the freeborn boys and girls serve in private houses’). In thispassage, note the use of the rare word puera instead of the more common puella.Riposati 1939: 186–92 comments on the difference between this passage and theinformation found in Cic. Brut. 19.75 and Val. Max. 2.1.10, according to which theancestors (maiores natu) are the ones singing the family’s praises.

54 Colum. 12.4.3: his autem omnibus placuit eum, qui rerum harum officiumsusceperit, castum esse continentemque oportere, quoniam totum in eo sit, ne contrec-tentur pocula vel cibi nisi aut inpubi aut certe abstinentissimo rebus veneriis; quibus sifuerit operatus vel vir vel femina, debere eos flumine aut perenni aqua, priusquampenora contingant, ablui; propter quod his necessarium esse pueri vel virginis minister-ium, per quos promantur, quae usus postulaverit.




or maiden to give out the food required for daily use (trans. E. S. Forster and

E. H. Heffner, Loeb 1955).

Thanks to this purity,55 the child is responsible for certain practices

which confirm his religious importance within the community.

Again, one cannot confirm that this refers to a freeborn child, but

it is clear that we are dealing with a young child, since his sexual

abstinence is fundamental.

4. Participating in divinatory rites. At banquets, after the food

sacrifice has been thrown into the domestic hearth, before continu-

ing the meal, one waits for a child (puer) to announce if the gods have

appreciated the victuals.56 This divinatory role can be compared to

the one children have in sanctuaries, where the goodwill of the gods

is consulted by drawing the sortes, as is the case in the sanctuary of

Fortuna in Praeneste. Here, a child has to descend into a hole to draw

the sortes which announce the answer of the deity.57

All the above-mentioned rites underline the fact that purity is a

fundamental characteristic for the children to be able to assist in the

performance of public ceremonies and in the social activities of the

family.58

Patrimi matrimique

As I have emphasized before, it is sometimes difficult to assert

whether the pueri who act as religious assistants are children rather

than slaves. However, in certain cases, and mainly with regard to

55 In the passage cited above, regarding the children who sing the family’s history,Varro defines these children as modesti, an adjective that, according to Riposati 1939:191–2, means ‘chaste and pure’.

56 Serv. Aen. 1.730.57 Champeaux 1982: 55–83.58 According to Parker 1983: 79–81 the idea of passing on to another status is more

important than the idea of purity. He explains that if the question related to purityone could have entrusted these rites to old women, who more readily abstain fromsexual relations than children. I would like to distance myself from this statement:firstly because I am not sure that an old woman is more abstinent than children, andsecondly because it seems to me that the texts emphasize that children and purity areclosely linked.




public services, the sources explicitly mention that the pueri and

puellae are freeborn (liberi, ingenui),59 citizens (cives)60 and, in the

deeds of the Arval brethren, they are said to belong to the senatorial

order.61 Yet the attribute that these ancient texts chiefly insist on is

that these young boys and girls are patrimi matrimique.62 These

terms are quite difficult to explain from a linguistic point of view.

The -imus suffix of these two adjectives has no parallel which might

shed light on its function.

As for the meaning, we have more information. A single text63

specifies that this refers to children born from marriages that were

celebrated by confarreatio, a matrimonial practice reserved for patri-

cians. According to other texts, this expression designates children

whose parents are still alive (Paul. Fest. 113 L.: quibus matres et patres

adhuc vivunt).64 Patrimi matrimique children thus correspond to the

paides amphithaleis in Greek religion, that is children that ‘bloom’

(thaleuein) from both sides (amphi-, from the father’s and the

mother’s side). Incidentally, this relation was already expressed in

antiquity. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (ant. 2.22.1), Cassius Dio

(59.7), and Zosimus (2.6.21) translate the formula patrimi matrimi-

que, which becomes paides amphithaleis in Greek.

Did Roman religion therefore copy this kind of ceremonial assis-

tant from theGreek religion, as some assume?65 To establish the origin

of Roman religious roles remains a difficult exercise and it certainly

does not better our understanding, but merely shifts the problem.

Even if one admits that they imitated the Greek model, why did the

Romans entrust religious duties to children that were not orphans?

In his article concerning the camilli and the camillae in the Dar-

emberg–Saglio,66 Hunziker submits an idea that is worth examining.

59 Liv. 37.3.6; for Macr. Sat. 1.6.14, they can be free(ingenui) and emancipated(libertini).

60 Paul. Fest. 369 L.61 Scheid 1990: 539–1.62 See Koch 1949.63 Serv. georg. 1.31.64 See also Fest. 266 L., the expression pater patrimus which designates a father

whose father is still alive. See also Fest. 282 L.65 See Smith 2006: 351–2.66 Hunziker 1887: 859.




According to him, these children take part in the ceremony with their

own parents: that is why they had to be patrimi.67 This implies

a direct transmission of technical knowledge from father to son.

Hunziker’s idea corresponds to an explanation that was already

provided in antiquity. In a passage cited above, Dionysius of Hali-

carnassus (ant. 2.22.1) underlines the blood relationship between the

father and his ceremonial assistants.

And because some rites were to be performed by women, others by children

whose fathers and mothers were living, to the end that these also might be

administered in the best manner, he ordered that the wives of the priests

should be associated with their husbands in the priesthood; and that in the

case of any rites which men were forbidden by the law of the country to

celebrate, their wives should perform them and their children should assist

as their duties required; and that the priests who had no children should

choose out of the other families of each curia the most beautiful boy and girl,

the boy to assist in the rites till the age of manhood, and the girl so long as

she remained unmarried (trans. E. Cary, Loeb 1937 = 1960).

Obviously, for Dionysius of Halicarnassus children that appear in

public ceremonies together with priests are primarily their sons, and

only in the second instance children of the same curia. Oddly en-

ough, Hunziker does not use this passage to support his point of

view. However, he proposes three texts in which one learns that the

deceased father is replaced by his son in his role as augur.68 Another

passage that Hunziker invokes is a statement found in Servius auc-

tus.69 According to this text, in ancient times, sons succeeded fathers

in their priesthoods. In contrast to Hunziker’s interpretation, it

should be clarified that such successions within the family are not

frequent. Also, in one of the texts that Hunziker relies on, Cicero

(Phil. 13.5.12) explicitly states that he will try to allocate the office of

augur to Pompey’s son after Pompey’s death. His aim is to reward the

son for the kindnesses that Cicero received from Pompey and

not because the son had acquired the knowledge of his progenitor.

Besides, this connection between priests and their sons seems diffi-

cult to prove. Having studied the prosography of children that

67 The same explanation is also given by Oepke 1934: 44–5 .68 Cic. Phil. 13.5.12; Liv. 27.6.16; 30.26.7.69 Serv. Aen. 768.




participated in the ceremonies of the Arval brethren, John Scheid has

shown that only a quarter of these young people were sons or grand-

children of masters of the brethren.70 Finally, even if the direct

succession could explain why patrimi children participate in the

ceremonies, it does not explain why these children also have to be

matrimi. To have a mother that is still alive does not seem particu-

larly relevant for this explanation.

In his article ‘Patrimi et Matrimi’, published in the Pauly–Wissowa,

Carl Koch71 proposes a different approach. He maintains that these

children are able to participate in these ceremonies because their life

has not yet been overcome by a bereavement in the family. This idea

cannot be accepted without qualifications. In fact, children whose

father and mother are still alive, might have suffered other bereave-

ments in the family, such as that of brothers or sisters.72 Being

patrimi et matrimi does thus not mean that they are safe from the

contamination of death.

Indeed, more than the idea of contamination, it is the idea of

integrity, of perfection and completeness which is fundamental. In

order to understand this, one has to compare the symbolic value of

the priestly couple of the flamen Dialis and the flaminica. The flamen

Dialis can fulfil his religious duty as long as his wife lives by his side:

in case of divorce or if the flaminica dies, the flamen has to hand in

his resignation. The couple presents perfect unity: the flamen and the

flaminica complement each other by their masculine and feminine

skills. Equally, having both progenitors alive is a sign of perfection:

the children are sons and daughters of a complete family which has

not had one of its essential members amputated. That is why the

patrimi matrimique children are complete.

70 Scheid 1990: 535.71 Koch 1949. The same idea, but with regard to the paides amphithaleis, is also

expressed by Nilsson 1955, I. 117–18. See also Brelich 1969: 401 n. 207; Néraudau1984: 229.

72 The Novellae 115, caput 5.1 state that after a death, the heirs, the parents, thechildren, the spouse, the agnates and cognates, other close relatives, and the warran-tors could not be cited to court or implicated in political affairs for nine days. Thisperiod represents the normal time of mourning for men (see Prescendi 1996). Thispassage comprises not only the family members from the vertical line, but also thebrothers and sisters that were affected by the bereavement. Brothers and sisters werethus also soiled by death.




Thus, restricting ceremonial participation to these children does

not seem to be due to practical reasons (sons whose parents are alive

are more competent than orphans), but rather to symbolical values.

Moreover, returning to the above-cited passage by Dionysius of

Halicarnassus (ant. 2.22.1), one notes that the chosen children are

chariestatoi, that is, those that are most ‘graceful, charming’. It is thus

more important that the cult of the gods should be entrusted to the

best children, those who are perfect through their condition and

attitude. The choice of the Vestals confirms this idea: they also have

to be patrimae matrimaeque and free from any physical defects at the

time of their co-optation (Gell. 1.12.2-3). The bodily perfection of

priests is confirmed by a passage from Roman Questions where

Plutarch73 compares it to that of sacrificial animals. He proposes

two answers to the question of why it was forbidden for priests to

take the auspices if they were wounded. According to the first answer,

this wound could signify a suffering of the soul which would distract

him. In the second explanation, he maintains that one cannot use

wounded animals for sacrifices or for divination and that the same

precautions need to be taken by the priest: he needs to be ‘pure, intact

and complete’ when he receives the sign of the gods. ‘The wound

seems to be a mutilation and a soiling of the body.’

Being an orphan can therefore be compared to having a physical

defect. This seems to be true for officiating children, as I have just

shown, as well as for children who are victims. A passage from the

Augustan History about the life of Elagabalus (SHA Heliog. 8.1)

narrates how the emperor decided to offer human sacrifices to his

favourite god and that he chose children from the most noble

families, who were also of great beauty and whose parents were

both still alive (patrimi matrimique). The explanation provided is

that the emperor’s aim was to provoke greater grief for the parents

because both suffered from the loss of their child. Yet behind this

rather simplistic explanation, another seems to be hidden: the desire

to favour among potential victims those who distinguish themselves

by their perfection.

73 Plut. mor. 281 c. See Brulé 2007: 292.




2. DELIBERATE MEMORIZATION

I have so far analysed the presence of children at ceremonies where

they acquire knowledge through mechanical memorization. Now the

few cases of deliberate transmission of religious knowledge will be

analysed, that is, those which constitute a conscious learning process,

governed by a framework and specific structures.

The Technical Knowledge of Priests

Those who were chosen or co-opted for priesthood had to learn how

to deal with the religious questions related to that duty. They did so

with their colleagues that were already in the collegiate organization.

Cicero (dom. 135) gives an example in his invective against L. Pinarius

Natta, Clodius’ brother-in-law, who, encouraged by Clodius, had

consecrated to Liberty the house he had confiscated from Cicero.

Pinarius had just been co-opted as pontiff (135: novus pontifex). Cicero

imagines him as he consecrates the house, whichwas Pinarius’ first rite

after he had taken office. Cicero presents him as an adolescent without

experience (139: imperitus adulescens) and, later, without knowledge

(ignarus). It seems that the young pontiff was not able to master the

ceremony (140): ‘with inverted words and sinister predictions, con-

stantly pulling himself together, hesitating, trembling and stammer-

ing’. Cicero implies that Pinarius’ clumsiness was due to the unjust act

that he was performing, but his inexperience obviously also played a

big role. According to Cicero, he pronounced everything differently

from the instructions in the pontiff ’s documents. Returning to this

theme (141), Cicero maintains that this new pontiff found himself in

the position of teacher before having learned anything himself. The

previous pontiffs’ training was evidently essential.

Nevertheless, we know next to nothing about this apprenticeship.

The only interesting piece of information is one about the Vestals. We

know that they were co-opted between the age of 6 and 10 and that

they remained Vestals for a period of thirty years.74 During the first

74 Gell. 1.12.1.




ten years they had to devote themselves to an apprenticeship directed

by the eldest.75 They then spent the next ten years performing rites.

Finally, in the last ten years, they taught the youngest ones. The

apprenticeship for other priesthoods was probably not as long.

Even if this religious knowledge was transmitted orally, as in a

familial setting, the priest’s apprenticeship, once they took office,

probably involved more deliberate memorization. There had to be

specific moments at which the older colleagues taught the newco-

mers the ‘secrets of the trade’.

School

Religious knowledge as other technical knowledge was transmitted

outside of programmes or pedagogical structures. However, a pas-

sage from Statius qualifies this statement. The poet’s father was a

tutor, first in Campania, and later possibly in Rome.76 The poet

briefly informs us about the new programme his father adopted

after the ‘transfer’ of his office. He knew that his pupils would one

day fulfil the most important administrative functions. Perhaps the

future emperor Domitian was among them.77 To prepare them for

their future political careers, Statius’ father instructed them in mat-

ters of religion:78 the pontifex maximus (‘the Dardan inspector of the

75 Dion. Hal. ant. 2.67.76 According to certain scholars (for example Cancik 1973: 181; Gibson 2006:

334–5), Statius’ father went from Campania to Rome in 69–70; according to others(Vollmer 1898: 541; Bremmer 1995: 37), the Roman pupils joined their tutor inCampania. From my point of view, it is not essential to take a stance on this matter.What counts is the adverb mox (‘then’) in the text which seems to indicate that achange took place: from a certain point onwards, the pupils were young Romans(Romulea stirpis).

77 See the commentary by Gibson 2006: 334–5.78 Stat. silv. 5.3.175–84: ‘Presently too you instruct the stock of Romulus and

notables to be, ceasing not to lead them in their fathers’ footsteps. Under yourdirection grew up the Dardan inspector of the hidden fire, who conceals the sanc-tuary of that which Diomedes stole, and learned the ritual as a boy. You approved theSalii and showed them their arms, you showed the Augurs the sky that gives themforeknowledge, showed who is authorized to unroll the song of Chalcis and why thehair of the Phrygian Flamen is concealed; and greatly did the girt-up Luperci fearyour stripes’ (trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Loeb 2003).




hidden fire’) learns the rite from his tutor when he is a child (sacrum

didicit puer); this tutor also shows (monstrasti) the Salii how to wear

their shields, and the augurs how to draw predictions from the sky; to

the quindecemviri he introduces the priests of the Mother of the gods.

Statius concludes this passage by mentioning the Luperci: they were

beaten by the tutor. Statius here plays on the reversal of the rite: the

Luperci who usually give the women lashes during the festival of

Lupercalia, are here presented as undergoing the same punishment.

Hubert Cancik, who has studied this text in detail, proposes two

interpretations. According to the first one, Statius’ father presented

his young audience with texts in which the adolescents could read

about these priesthoods. According to the second interpretation, he

made them read technical and possibly legal treatises dealing with

religious questions. In both cases, it seems that what was transmitted

in these classes was the rites’ cultural apparatus. The tutor read texts

to instruct his young audience theoretically about the cults’ history

and the composition of the colleges of priests. It was not a matter of

transmitting the rules for performing rites. The school thus provided

the children with cultural knowledge thanks to which the future

politician could show his worth in society.

CONCLUSION

We saw that technical knowledge was transmitted to children by their

parents or by older priests. As for the school, it transmitted knowl-

edge about history and the composition of priesthoods. And yet, was

the memorization of religious practices merely reduced to the mem-

orization of a series of technical gestures?

In one of his articles, Christoph Auffarth79 focuses his attention on

the transmission of technical knowledge in the performance of sa-

crifices. He states that in Greece not only priests perform rites but

that each man has to know the sacrificial procedure because he has

performed it on different occasions, first and foremost in the

79 Auffarth 2005.




community of his own family. Children, as well as women, assist the

head of the family with religious practices. According to Auffarth,

religious tradition is learnt as one learns a language, that is, by

watching and by trying it out.80 In Greek sanctuaries, if there are

ritual instructions, they do not indicate all the steps of a ‘normal’ rite.

The ‘normal’ sacrificial procedure is never entirely formulated. Auf-

farth concludes that in the performance of a rite ‘accuracy was not

required’ (20). Indeed, in his opinion, the ‘significance of the rite’

seems to have been more important than the correct reproduction of

the series of movements. But what is this ‘significance of the rite’ and

what does it tell us about Rome?

As Scheid81 remarks, the Roman rite in itself is not devoid of

meaning. There is a basic meaning visible while the movements are

being performed. A sacrifice, for instance, is a banquet that humans

offer to the gods. The performance of movements in a specific order

reveals a fundamental message of the sacrifice, namely the hierarchy

amongst the beings that populate this world (gods, humans, ani-

mals). Scheid, citing Charles Malamoud, maintains that the rite, and

the obligation to fulfil it, represent the only certainty for the Romans,

and that it has the same place that revelation has in other religious

systems.

Roman citizens thus not only learned the sequence of movements

during their childhood, but they also acquired a sense of their

religion through them, without needing further theoretical explana-

tions. By observing the ritual rules and in the contemplation of the

primary meaning of the rites (that is, the most elementary and most

immediate one), as Scheid insists,82 the Romans found ‘profound

moral and spiritual satisfaction’. To experience this satisfaction,

young Romans trained alongside their parents.

80 Auffarth 2005: 16.81 Scheid 2007: 42.82 Scheid 2007: 53.



Documents

Children and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge* · 2015. 8. 31. · followed all the stages of my research and Maurizio Bettini for discussing this text with me in great detail