Ritual and Individual PROOF-libre

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Ritual and the Individual in Roman Religion*

Greg Woolf

RELIGION AND THE INDIVIDUAL

Ritual action has always been about individuals: there are, after all,no other conceivable social actors. Primatologists observing socialgroups among the great apes differentiate group members by theirrole and character. Those identities go beyond what is determinedby age and gender. Our individuality is arguably inextricably boundup with our sociality and our mortality. The mortality of eachmember of a social group imposes a biography on the survivors,and a narrative direction on their life-courses. Social replacemententails the development and differentiation of the social rolesof its members in ways that might reasonably be described asindividuation.If we have been individuals since before we were human, it is not

surprising that the rst traces of ritual activity (in the Upper Palaeo-lithic) include handprints made by individual artists on the walls ofcaves, and burial rituals which operated in part to differentiate thedeceased and recognize their individuated identities.1 Much ethno-graphically observed ritual mediates between individual and group.Indeed some generalizing theories of ritual are precisely focused onthe means by which collectivities reproduce themselves through the

* I am grateful to all who commented on the paper pre-circulated for the Erfurtconference of September 2009 and especially to Clifford Ando who read and greatlyimproved a subsequent version. I alone am responsible for the views expressed.

1 Gamble 2007; Gamble, Poor 2005. On individual roles in the upper palaeolithicsee also Mithen 1998.

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recruitment, socialization and enculturation of new members.2

It follows that religious individuation must coincide with the rstappearance of human beings, whether that means homo sapienssapiens or even conceivably other late hominid lineages such as theNeanderthals.What of individualization? To be useful for the study of ancient

religions, the term should entail more than the religious dimensionsof this mundane individuation that is entailed in all human sociality.The most obvious additional specicity would be the emergence ofsome level of personal choice between alternative world-views andcompeting religious engagements. Choice in this sense should meanthe capacity of one member of a group to follow a religious path otherthan those entailed by his or her (necessarily individuated) socialidentity. That path might be in addition to, or in place of, thoseexpected by virtue of that persons ascribed social identity. Individu-alization may be thought of as a measure of the extent to which thischoice is exercised. Emancipation, disembedding, and structuraldifferentiation offer variant ways of talking about these changes asthey have unfolded in historical time at the level of entire societies.The variety of these formulations mainly reects differences in whereanalytical attention is focused, rather than major differences ofconceptualization or explanation. Our shared narrative of religioushistory in the very long term envisages a series of moments ofindividualization, points at which society and the sacred becamemore and more estranged from one other.Yet the capacity for choice is a more difcult criterion to apply than

it seems at rst sight. It is widely accepted that a measure of individualchoice already existed in classical antiquity, even if there is lessagreement about how this should be conceptualized. Some scholarssee polytheism itself as inevitably entailing some measure of choice:individuals might form attachments to particular deities, or at leastchoose to attend or give to one temple rather than another.3 Theubiquitous votive dedications tend to specify the precise identity ofthe particular worshippers and gods involved. Those ritual moveshad a counterpart in myth. Personal connections between human

2 For example Connerton 1989. A similar stress on socialization is a theme of Bell1992. A compatible account of the origins of ritual is offered by Linard, Boyer 2006.

3 For some scholars such attachments are integral to classical polytheism, othersclassify them as henotheism, on which Versnel 1990.

Ritual and the Individual in Roman Religion 137



protagonists and particular gods are central to the plots of the earliestliterary works, including the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey. Thefact that those connections take the form of love, hate, jealousy,respect, disdain, and even kinship suggests that patterns of humansociality were extended to involve divine persons created by thedynamics of a polytheistic world view, rather as sacrice invited thegods to share in commensuality as ritualized within human commu-nities.4 Myth and ritual created gods as well as men who wereendowed with some freedom of action, freedom that entailed choiceas well as agency.Against this stands an inuential narrative of religious change

which claims that during the Hellenistic and Roman periods newreligious forms emerged that offered heightened levels of individualreligious experience.5 A key feature of these new religious forms (orreligions) was said to be the requirement they imposed on individualsto make a positive choice to participate, or join, or to become aninitiate.6 Christianity was, of course, the paradigmatic case of a newreligion conceptualized in these terms. As a result, current studies ofthe emergence of religious pluralism are inevitably bound up with thedebates on Christian origins.7 That narrative is itself linked to theemergence of the category of religion, itself increasingly seen to be aproduct of Christian thought and discourse.8 The chronology of thesechanges is contentious. The origins of Dionysiac cult associations liesbefore the Hellenistic period, while key developments in the den-ition of religion as a category have been located between the secondand fourth centuries ad.9 The problem is not so much an empiricalone as a sign of lack of consensus about what should be consideredthe central components of this phenomenon, or narrative.Where should individualization and personal choice be placed in

these accounts of religious history? One (traditional) option would be

4 For the view that Greeks viewed their gods as larger Greeks see Nock 1942.5 The classic statement is Cumont 1906. A set of responses and reassessments is

gathered in Bonnet, Rpke, Scarpi 2006.6 The most elegant formulation remains that of Nock 1933.7 The exercise of choice between competing options is central to the formulations

of North 1992, Stark 1996. But note the powerful critique of the religious marketplace model in Beck 2006.

8 On which Asad 1993.9 On the emergence of the category of religion in Roman antiquity see now Boyarin

2004a; Boyarin 2001; Boyarin 2004b.

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to say that persons might be individuated in traditional religion butonly individualized in new religions: individualization would then beplaced back into the conventional story of rupture between polythe-isms and monotheisms, open religious systems versus exclusive ones,between religion in society and religion and society. Less comfortablyit would become part of the story of the rise and distinctiveness ofChristianity, a narrative that borrows a good deal from the interestedaccounts framed by the triumphant monotheists themselves.10 Theobjections to this analytical move are clear. At best we would simplygain a new vocabulary in which to tell an old story: at worst it wouldlend spurious sociological legitimacy to a set of distinctions andperiodizations that are now widely seen as problematic.My own starting point is the observation that individuals are

assigned quite a prominent place in Roman religion in such accountsas we possess of actual ritual performances. The second part of thischapter (II) asks what functions the naming of individual participantsin historical and other records of rituals served. The third part (III)asks, on the basis of such records, how rituals participated in thecreation of individuals. My examples deliberately straddle the lineconventionally drawn between civic cults and new religions.

PERFORMANCE AND HISTORY

I shall begin with the participation of individuals in the collectivepublic cults of the classical city, those sacra publica that are oftentoday placed in one way or another at the heart of Roman religion.11

One of the striking features of Roman historical accounts of particularritual performances is the prominence given in those accounts tonamed individual participants.Consider the restoration in 70 ce of one of the central cult places of

Rome, the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, following its destructionduring the Flavian civil war. Tacitus narrates it as follows:

10 Ando, see ch. 4. On the inuence of Christian polemics of different kinds on thehistoriography of ancient religions see also Smith 1990.

11 e.g. Beard, North, Price 1998; Scheid 1985). For discussion of this convention seeBendlin 2000; Gordon 1990a; Woolf 1997.




The work of restoring the Capitol was assigned by him [Vespasian] toLucius Vestinius, a man of the Equestrian order, who, however, for highcharacter and reputation ranked among the nobles. The haruspiceswhom he assembled directed that the remains of the old shrine shouldbe removed to the marshes, and the new temple raised on the originalsite. The Gods, they said, forbade the old form to be changed. On the21st of June, beneath a cloudless sky, the entire space devoted to thesacred enclosure was encompassed with chaplets and garlands. Soldierswho bore auspicious names entered the precincts with sacred boughs.Then the Vestals, with a troop of boys and girls whose fathers andmothers were still living, sprinkled the whole space with water drawnfrom the fountains and rivers. After this, Helvidius Priscus, the praetor,as directed by Publius Aelianus the pontiff, rst puried the spot with asuovetaurilia, and duly placed the entrails on turf; then, besoughtJupiter, Juno, Minerva, and the tutelary deities of empire, to prosperthe undertaking, and to lend their divine help to raise the abodes whichthe piety of men had founded for them. He then touched the wreaths,which were wound round the foundation stone and entwined with theropes, while at the same moment the other Magistrates and Priests, theSenators, the Knights, and a great part of the People, with zeal and joyuniting their efforts, dragged the huge stone along. Contributions ofgold and silver and virgin ores, never smelted in the furnace but still intheir natural state, were showered on the foundations. The haruspiceshad previously directed that no stone or gold which had been intendedfor any other purpose should profane the work. Additional height wasgiven to the structure; this was the only variation which religion wouldpermit, and the one feature which had been thought wanting in thesplendour of the old temple.12

No textualization of any ancient ritual is innocent. Nor can it beentirely extracted from the larger text of which it forms a part. Therestoration of the Capitol is a focal point in Tacitus narrative ofrecovery. Its destruction had been narrated as the nadir of Romesfortune in a chapter (Histories 3.72) that resumed the history of thetemple from its foundation, and alluded to its previous destruction inthe worst of the civil wars of the Republic. Its restoration follows aseries of debates in the senate, also narrated in the Histories, debatesin which the roles of Vespasian and Helvidius are highlighted. Res-toration was certainly an intended meaning of the original ceremony,one motivation for the considerable cost of the project to Vespasian.

12 Tac. hist. 4.53.

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The project was undertaken at a moment when he still had otherserious concerns, presumably because, like the Templum Pacis, itmight evoke Augustus restorative actions in respect of temples andcults at the end of his civil war.13 The Vespasianic rebuilding and itsvery public performance was an attempt to cement and sacralize hisown victory.14

Tacitus telling of the story raises doubts about the stability ofthat order. The rebuilding of the temple represents a brief collusionof interests between these two protagonistsVespasian andPriscusbut the conict between them will return. The followingbook will represent the Flavians as temple sackers rather thanrestorers when the narrative moves to Jerusalem. The temple ofJupiter on the Capitol was in any case already a focal point inRoman historiography. Livy (1.556) presents its original construc-tion as the last and greatest act of Tarquin the Proud: his treatmentmakes clear that the subject had been prominently treated in thehistories of Fabius Pictor and of Piso. Livy emphasises both itsmagnicence and the suffering of the people compelled to labouron it by the tyrant. Tacitus account of the ritual is carefullyselective but new questions will have been evoked by his allusionto the tradition.15 What sort of emperor will Vespasian turn out tobe? a new Augustus? or a new Tarquin? or a new Sulla? TheHistories are heading towards Domitian whose Capitoline Agonwill be a symbol for subsequent reigns of his own corruption, ratherthan restoration, of the res publica.16

For present purposes, however, I want to put aside the topicality ofthe action and the character of Tacitus account, and instead drawattention to the record of the ritual on which we must presumeTacitus relied. The exact nature of these records is unclear. The actasenatus may have included an account of whatever was agreed in thepreliminary debates. The college of pontiffs generated and kept its

13 For full documentation see Gros 1976.14 For other attempts to provide religious legitimacy for Vespasians victory in

terms of portents, astrology, and the patronage of Sarapis see Henrichs 1968; Latti-more 1934.

15 Suet. Vesp. 8 and Dio 65.10.2 in contrast stresses the personal engagement of thenew emperor, actually participating in the manual work of clearing the rubble fromthe wreckage of the earlier temple.

16 See for instance the comments of Tacitus contemporary, Plin. epi. 4.22 onwhich Woolf 2006. Also Caldelli 1993; Hardie 2003.




own records.17 Quite possibly there were epigraphic monumenta ofthe ceremony as well. Monumental writing was as important a sourceof legitimacy to Vespasian as it had been to earlier emperors. Sueto-nius describes Vespasians concern to nd copies of three thousandodd documents originally recorded on bronze tablets around theCapitol, and to reinscribe them as part of his restoration, and theFlavian period in general is marked by a resurgence of epigraphictexts.18

Whatever the medium originally employed it is clear that an im-portant part of the records comprised the names of those involved.The initiative for restoration is attributed to the new emperor (in whatcapacity Tacitus does not specify although the original records mayhave done so). Three further individuals are named: the equestriancharged with the construction, Helvidius Priscus as praetor and Pub-lius Aelianus the pontiff. It was evidently important for those whorecorded the ritual in the rst place to note the names of thoseinvolved, as well as precisely which priests and magistrates were toplay a part. As in other imperial ritualsthe better documentedconsecrationes for example, or the various ceremonies described andprescribed in the new Tiberian epigraphic documentswe are offeredthe spectacle of the state performed as a pageant.19 Each of the ordinesis given its place, and their membership is left anonymous. Yet theidentity of the key players was also evidently deemed important.It is not certain exactly how such rituals were devised. Some

components might have been suggested by the ways in which othertemples had been dedicated, or even by the rites used in the Sullanrestoration. Temple dedications were so common as to be virtuallyroutine: the Temple of Jupiter itself had been rededicated on a

17 For the documents generated by priestly colleges see the essays gathered inMoatti, ed.1998.

18 Suet. Vesp. 8 listing senatus consulta and plebiscita recording alliances, treatiesand privileges granted to various parties. Note also the bronze fragments of the lex deimperio Vespasiani (CIL VI.930) which show Vespasian as concerned as had beenTiberius at the start of his reign to make the maximum possible use of epigraphicmonumenta. The various copies of the Flavian municipal decree, the reinscription ofthe colonial law of Urso, the production of the Orange cadasters are among provincialexemplars of the Flavian vogue for epigraphic monuments. The existence of a Flavianpredecessor of the Forma Urbis Romae that hung in the Severan reconstruction of theTemplum Pacis has also been suspected.

19 Price 1987; Rowe 2002. Cf. Hopkins 1991.

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number of occasions. Elements of repetition and a punctilious con-cern with precedent would seem appropriate. But it is clear from theinvolvement of the haruspices that planning the ritual was also treatedas the design of something new and unique, its detail the solution to acomplex ritual problem. And at some point, discussion of the ritesmust have given way to decisions about the identity of individualparticipants. Why Helvidius of all the senior magistrates? Was itbecause of his leading role in the debates about restoration? Otherparticipants were also selected on the basis of characteristics that wereessentially personal. No prior register can have existed of boys andgirls whose parents were still alive. How were they selected? And whatabout all those soldiers named Felix, Fortunatus, and so on, pluckedfrom the ranks to make a lucky day? Their names too are part of thepreparation of the ceremony and of its record.The same emphases on the planning of a unique ceremony and

on recording the names of the personnel involved occur in Livysaccount of the bringing of the Great Mother of the Gods to Rome in204 bc. On that occasion a lengthy discussion was held about pre-cisely who should welcome her on her arrival. Interpretation of theSybilline books had earlier led to the decision to seek the help of KingAttalus of Pergamum, a key Roman ally, in acquiring her from hersanctuary at Pessinus. En route to Pergamum the delegation hadstopped to consult the oracle at Delphi and had received instructionsabout the rituals appropriate to her reception at Rome.20 The debatewhich resulted is described by Livy, our main source for these events.

There was also a discussion (consultatio) on how the Idaean Mothershould be welcomed. Marcus Valerius, a member of the delegation, hadtravelled ahead to announce that she would soon be in Italy, and arecent report stated she was already at Terracina. No trivial matterdemanded the senates decision, viz. who was the best man (optimusvir) in the state. To be sure anyone would prefer victory in this compe-tition to any number of commands or magistracies, whether awarded bythe votes of the senate or the people. The judgement was made thatPublius Scipio, son of the Gaius who had died in Spain, a young mannot yet old enough to hold a quaestorship, was the best of all the goodmen in the state. I would gladly relate the specic qualities of this manthat led the senate to this decision, had earlier writers who had access tothe memory of contemporaries passed this on. But I shall not add my

20 Liv. 29.1011 for initial discussion and consultation of oracles.




own guesses given the long lapse in time since then. Publius Corneliuswas commanded to go with all the matronae to meet the goddess atOstia. He himself was to go aboard the ship to receive her and wouldbring her ashore and hand her over to the matronae who would carryher on. After the ship arrived at the mouth of the river Tiber, he did ashe was ordered, sailed out to the ship and received the goddess from herpriests and brought her to land. She was welcomed by the foremostwomen of the city, the most prominent of whom was one ClaudiaQuinta. The story goes that some had doubts about her reputationbefore these events, but her purity (pudicitia) was all the more famousin later years on account of her performance of this ritual. The matronsthen passed the goddesses from hand to hand in succession while all thecity came out to meet her. Censers had been placed in front of the doorsalong the route she took and as she passed incense was burned andprayers offered up that she might enter the city of Rome willingly andmight bring good fortune. They carried her to the temple of Victory onthe Palatine on the Ides of April. That day became a sacred day. Crowdsof people brought gifts to the goddess on the Palatine, a feast of the gods(a lectisternium) took place and games were held, called the Megalen-sian Games.21

These events have been most often discussed for their politicalcontext and for the signicance of the mixture of traditional andexotic elements that came to characterize the cult of the GreatMother.22 But for present purposes, I want to underline the factthat the rituals themselves are composed of fairly conventional elem-ents, and yet great care seems to have been taken in the choreograph-ing of the ritual performance.Why did it need such careful planning? Here too there were many

possible models that ought to have made planning the events a simplematter. The evocatio of Juno Regina from Veii is just one of a numberof precedents. Livys account of that event is shorter, but begins withthe selection of a group of young men picked from the entire army.23

After washing themselves and putting on white robes they solemnlyentered the temple and reached out their hands to touch the cultstatue, and one asked the goddess if she was willing to move. Livy tells

21 Liv. 29.14.513. The other main account is Ovid. fast. 4.179372.22 See most recently Burton 1996; Gruen 1990, ch. 1. For attention to the process of

designing the new rituals see Beard 1994. On the identication of goddess and cultimage Ando 2008, 226.

23 Liv. 5.22.58

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us the others declared they had seen her nod, then reports an alter-native tradition that the goddess actually agreed verbally. Either wayshe was apparently moved, as if almost weightless, to her new templeon the Aventine, this too being taken as a sign of her consent.Each of these three ritual performances is presented as an excep-

tional and unique event, even though precedents were available forconsultation in all cases. Part of the explanation must be the differ-ence between our perspective and theirs: a ritual performance thatmay seem to us to be routine expressions of a normlike the weeklyattendance of mass for many Catholicsmust have felt less ordinary,and more laden with immanent signicance to those involved.24 Thatdifference becomes more acute with the perceived importance of theperformance. Each of these cases underwent a lengthy planningprocess, and in each case detailed records were clearly made ofwhat actually occurred. It looks very much as if both preparationand memorialization served primarily to assert the special signi-cance of the events in question, to extend their duration backwardsand forwards in time. The prominence of the selection and recordingof names ags the participation of key individuals as something otherthat the routine discharge of their duties. For in all cases it wasapparently not decided simply that such and such a ritual was theprerogative of a particular priest or subdivision of the community ofthe Romans. Nor was random sortition or representative selectionemployed. A deliberate public selection was clearly felt important,and the names selected were remembered even, as Livy complains,when the reasons for the choice were not.Can we go beyond noting the emphasis given to the participation

of particular individuals to the religious experience of those individ-uals themselves? This is not so easy. Nevertheless, Livys account doessuggest both that the selection of Publius Cornelius Scipio was some-thing that might be expected to bring lasting honour, and also that theparticipation of Claudia Quinta changed her reputation, her fama. Nopersonal record survives. But it does not seem too speculative tosuppose that at least some individuals selected for a starring role ina great ceremony of this kindthe children on the Capitol, theauspiciously named soldiers, the youths selected to touch the cult

24 On the importance of this difference for the study of cultural action seeBourdieu 1977, 39. I am grateful to Clifford Ando for drawing my attention to thispassage.




statue in Veii that until then only members of one Etruscan priestlyfamily had been allowed to touchmight carry that experience withthem throughout their lives. That might seem to qualify for anindividuated religious experience. How much more striking musthave been the experience of being selected for a priesthood, especiallyif it were one like the priestesses of Vesta or the amen Dialis, whichsurrounded the body of the chosen ones with elaborate prescriptionsand proscriptions?25 Very occasionally the priestly role seems to havebecome central to the perception of a given individual. How much ofthis was meant when a Quintus Mucius Scaevola was nicknamedaugur or pontifex? Perhaps the best evidence for the notion of asacerdotal identity (as opposed to role) is provided by the priestlypersona Augustus tried to cultivate through iconography andtitulature.26 The experience of such distinction is, however, beyondreconstruction.Let us return to the written account of the performance. One effect

of this prominent insertion of the names of individuals into accountsof ritual performances is to enhance, for the reader, a sense of thehistoricity of the events described, of the once-and-for-all occasion onwhich each ritual was performed. It is no surprise that historians likeTacitus and Livy deliberately historicize these events. The rituals theydescribe are episodes in narratives that are not primarily religious.I provided some context for the Vespasianic restoration of the templeof Jupiter on the Capitol. It would have been equally easy to showhow the story of the Idaean Mothers journey to Rome forms anintegral part of the account of how Rome survives Hannibals pene-tration of Italy and their initial crippling defeat at his hands, torecuperate their position and win the second Punic War, or howthe bringing of Juno Regina to Rome has a key place in the story of therise of Rome and in the life of Camillus.Yet it is not only in literary and historical narrations of ritual acts

that the names of individuals are prominent. One of the most strikingfeatures of the epigraphic Acta of the Arval Brothers is the minuteattention with which they record each ritual performance, and with itthe names of the ofciating priests or magistri and of other membersof the college present at the time. These texts may be distinguished

25 On the distinctiveness of this category of priests Rpke 1996; Scheid 1986.26 On this Gordon 1990b. For alternative Roman notions of priesthood that had

perhaps a greater charismatic component, see Beard 1989.

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from familiar epigraphic forms like the alba and fasti that publicizedand memorialized comprehensive and ordered records of the mem-bership of collegia or civic bodies, true for a given period but notfocused on a single ritual performance. A record of those whohappened to be present on one given occasion emphasises contin-gency over comprehensiveness, and serves to individualize andhistoricize each act of cult performed in the sacred grove.27 It hasoften been pointed out that each performance differed slightly, andthat even if reading a series of records might convey a sense ofnormative practicespractices of prior debate, of performance, andof recordingthey were in no sense scripts for future performances.There is also a growing consensus that no such scripts existed, andthat the creation of such comprehensive accounts and normativetexts as were composed occurred only late in the Republican periodin the context of challenges to priestly authority.28 Both the actaArvalium and the letters of Symmachus make clear that priests ofthe imperial period did not behave as if constrained by such manuals,and continued to plot individual performances in minute detail.My point here is not to claim that Roman rituals were not repetitive

or conservative. They clearly were, as any perusal of a series of entriessuch as the Arval Acta makes clear. Generation upon generation ofpriests agonized over the design of individual performances withoutapparently introducing either radical innovations or procedures fortheir mechanical replication. That is to say ritual action remained bothconservative and creative, and what looks to us like repetition wasnever simple routinization. Each performance, it seemed, shouldconform (in some sense) to precedent. Yet it could never conform soclosely that control of ritual might slip from the hands of aristocraticpriests nor that their expertise would become redundant.29

These considerations suggest another reason for the presence ofnamed individuals in the written accounts of these performances.Ritualization more or less demands agreement on a series of signsthat ag a given action as belonging to a ritual tradition: such signsgenerate a sense of familiarity as well as recognition.30 That applies to

27 For this point see Rpke 2004, 356.28 On this process see Wallace-Hadrill 1997.29 For Roman religion, this dynamic is most clearly exemplied in struggles over

the publicising of the ritual calendar on which Rpke 1995. Key moments areilluminated by Purcell 2001; Wallace-Hadrill 1987.

30 Bell 1992.




the actual words, costume, props, and gestures employed as well as tothe physical layout of texts and the formulae spoken and inscribed.Romans understood perfectly well the sense that certain rituals,especially those which acquired a xed place in the calendar, stabil-ized the earthly order by emphasizing the cyclical nature of time.Ancient commentators on festivals like the Parilia and the Lupercaliarepeatedly stress their antiquity, while Horace famously used theregular procession of pontiff and vestal Virgin up the slopes of theCapitol as a gure for remote posterity.31 The eternity of Rome was,in some senses, bound up with the myth that its ritual tradition stoodoutside history.How then to relate this to the highly historicized accounts of

particular performances that we have in literary texts and on epi-graphic monuments? I suggest that what we have to deal with is atension between the timelessness of ritualized action and the implicitclaims to the uniqueness and immediacy of each performance. Thattension was part of what gave each performance its charge. Thepunctilious itemization of the names of individuals helped to anchorany given performance in the here and now. Individuals (or theirnames) were employed (or deployed) routinely so as to historicize thetranscendent. The place they were allocated was, however, closelycircumscribed so as not to disturb the sense in which ritual ensuredthe extension of the present state into the future in a direction thatmarked a continuity with the past. Individuals, that is, had theirplace but it was carefully regulated, at least in these narrations ofperformance.If this is correct, then the prominence of individuals in these

recorded performances was not a product of an increased valueplaced on personal religious participation or experience, nor a signof a movement towards emancipation and greater autonomy, bothoften taken as markers of individualization. Instead, their namesanchored ritual performance in the here and now, just as the intenseplotting of more or less identical performances marks each one asunique. Both modes of action contributed to protecting the preroga-tives of the priests and the aristocracy from which they were drawn.

31 e.g. Plut. Rom. 21 on the ancient origins of the Matronalia, Carmentalia, andLupercalia, Cic. Cael. 26 on the Lupercalia coitio [sc. Lupercorum] illa silvestris anteest instituta quam humanitas atque leges. On the pontiff and virgin, Hor. car.III.30.69. Many other such passages could be gathered.

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Religious writing operated in precisely the opposite manner to avernacular book of common prayer: it constrained rather than eman-cipated, and it consolidated existing power structures rather thanproviding the resources with which to challenge them.

RITUALS AND EXCHANGE

The preceding argument depended heavily on Tacitus and Livysappropriations of records deriving from actual performances. Whenwe turn to the primary recordsvirtually all epigraphic in natureitis possible to ask other questions about the participation of namedindividuals. I have already suggested that performing a particularritual role might be experienced as a form of individuation, a contri-bution to the ongoing transformation of a participants personalbiography. Corresponding transformations today have a twofoldnature. First they may alter our interiorized sense of self, by layingdown powerful memories which we may revisit repeatedly as a meansof self-fashioning: wedding days and funerals are obvious examples,but participation in some more public rituals such as coronations canalso provide resources of this kind. Second, rituals transform oursocial identity, affecting the way others treat us: weddings again(and indeed all rites of passage) have this effect. Naturally the twodimensions of identitythe sense of self and social identityare notwholly independent of one another, although it is common enoughfor them to be in tension.Was this what it was like for the Romans too? That rites of passage

affect social identity is clear enough in all human societies, but whatof the interior self ? This is the terrain on which oriental religions andthe like were once believed to do the most work. Let me begin withthis inscription from an altar found at the colony of Lyon.

In the taurobolium of the Great Idaean Mother of the Gods, which wasperformed on the instruction of the Mother of the Gods, for the well-being of the emperor Caesar Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius,father of his country and of his children and of the condition of thecolonia of Lugdunum, Lucius Aemilius Carpus, sevir Augustalis and atthe same time dendrophorus received the powers (the vires) andtransferred them from the Vaticanum, and consecrated an altaradorned with an ox-head at his own expense. The ofciating priest,




Quintus Sammius Secundus, was honoured with an armlet and garlandby the quindecimviri, and the most holy town-council of Lugdunumdecreed him a lifelong priesthood. In the consulship of Appius AnniusAtilius Bradua and Titus Clodius Vibius Varus. Ground was given forthis monument by decree of the town council.32

This example takes us into territory claimed by both the sacrapublica and the new oriental cults. The cult of Cybele originatedwith that of an Anatolian mother-goddess, worshipped as an aniconicstone betyl through rites that included ecstatic frenzy and self-muti-lation. I have already discussed Livys account of how she was broughtto Rome during the Hannibalic War. Thereafter her public cultcontained elements of what Romans considered exotic rituals, along-side annual games, civic drama, and a temple on the Palatine. Taur-obolium in this period meant both a public sacrice of a bull and alsoan initiatory ritual conducted for the benet of individual worship-pers of the Great Mother. This well-known, if in some respectsenigmatic, text records the installation of her cult among the sacrapublica of another city, the Roman colonia of Lyon.33

The inscription is a monument to a series of rituals that created aweb of relationships between a number of participating parties. Theparties concerned included two individuals, Carpus who was bothaugustalis and dendrophorus, and Secundus the sacerdos; two civicbodies, (the decuriones of Lyon and the priestly college of the quin-decimviri); two cities (Rome and Lyon); a god, Magna Mater Deorum;and the emperor Antoninus Pius. The rituals transformed the rela-tionships between the participants. That was presumably one reasonwhy the monument was set up by the central gure, Carpus. Anotherwas to commemorate and publicize the various acts of permissionand sponsorship that had made these transformations possible andauthorized them.The most obvious change of status is that undergone by Secundus

to whom the ordo of the colonia decreed a perpetual priesthood.34 Butthe inscription takes care to name all the other participants involved,and to document the distribution of gifts through which thesechanged relationships were marked. Carpus paid for an altar and

32 CIL XIII 1751 translation adapted from Beard, North, Price 1998, 162.33 See Audin 1985; Beard, North, Price 1998, 3838; Turcan 1972, 8098.34 CIL 13.1751 : . . . . cui sanctissimus ordo lugdunens(ium) perpetuatem sacerdoti(i)

decrevit.

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brought the bulls vires from the Vatican; the quindecimviri grantedornamenta to Secundus; the ordo conrmed the perpetuity of hispriesthood and gave a place for the monument; the goddess com-manded the ritual take place; the chief beneciaries of the taurobo-lium were the emperor, his family and the colonia, the strongconnections between which were thereby asserted. When these giftexchangesconcluding with the setting up of our inscriptionwerecompleted, the social world had been slightly changed. What therituals had transformed were the social identities of those concerned,and specically the relational dimensions of those identities.How far can we generalize from this example? The cases which

I have so far discussed were not part of the common experience of allRomans. Nor were all rituals so obviously transformative. What of thecarnival atmosphere of the Saturnalia or the Parilia? What aboutfestivals focused on the dead like the Lemuria and Parentalia? Therituals associated with those four festivals were repeated each year, atdifferent scales of association. On the face of it they seem likely tohave promoted social solidarity and a sense of continuity with thepast and future. Joining or leaving a group that customarily celebratedone of these together conceivably marked some change of socialidentity. Yet collective ritual experience is often said to generate asense of common, rather than individual, identity. Roman rites ofpassage formed a slightly different case. Putting on the toga virilis forboys or young men and the dedication of dolls by girls or youngwomen was not a collective experience, like the initiations whichentire age-sets undergo together in some societies. There is no signin Roman culture of a special bond between those who attainedadulthood at roughly the same time. Besides, rituals like these wereperhaps pretty much the same for all children of equivalent socialstatus. Socialization seems more evident than any differentiated indi-viduation. In many cases, participation in ritual had no real individu-ating dimension for most Romans. The exceptional cases remain.Carpus as a dendrophorus and Secundus as a perpetual priest atLyon had presumably both taken conscious decisions to devotethemselves to the worship of the Great Mother. Not all exceptionalcases exhibited this degree of choice: the age at which a tiny numberof aristocratic girls became Vestals (rather than brides) was so youngas to suggest that they may have had little realistic say about it.Religious differentiation did however became a little more signi-

cant in the Roman world than beforehand. The argument is an a




priori one.35 Opportunities for social differentiation depend to a largedegree on the complexity of any given society. Modern societies havethe highest rates because of the extent of the division of labour, thehigh level of economic polarization, and the possibilities for socialmobility opened up by both. Ancient societies were much less com-plex; nevertheless that complexity increased between say 300 bc andad 200. Relative increases in levels of urbanization, of economicactivity, of the reach of government, and of education must to someextent have released many from their social cages.36 Limited socialmobility can be detected.37 Analogies have often been drawn withmodernizing processes of various kinds.38 Diasporic movements andcosmopolitanism of various kinds were concomitants of thesechanges;. so too was religious differentation, and that meant higherlevels of religious individuation, some voluntary, some not.There is another reason to link these processes with the trans-

formative potential of some Roman rituals. One phenomenon char-acteristic of those social milieux most affected by these processes wasthe appearance of epigraphic memorialization.39 Most inscriptionsare in fact records (or monuments) of ritual performances. The vastmajority are funerary, the second largest category being dedicationsto the gods. Both categories of ritual mark the modication of socialrelationships, and both were also marked by gift exchange. Epitaphsoffer a nal reckoning of relations between the deceased and thecommemorators, marking the moment at which social roles changed,through testation and inheritance and the redistribution of authorityand roles within the family.40 Payment for the funeral and themonument was often an important ofcium expected of the hereswho in any case had a vested interest in public recognition of thosesocial transformations. Votive altars commemorated signicanttransactions between the human and the divine, exchanges of giftsthat modied social relationships between dedicator and deity.41 The

35 What follows owes a good deal to the parallel argument of Runciman 1984.36 For the effects of government see Ando (this volume). For social caging see

Mann 1986.37 Hopkins 1965; Purcell 1983. Downward mobility is, naturally, less well attested.38 For application of Wallersteins notion of world systems see Hopkins 1980;

Woolf 1990. For globalization see Hingley 2005; Hitchner 2008; Sweetman 2007.39 For an explanation of this in relation to Latin inscriptions see Woolf 1996.40 For similar ideas applied to testaments, see Champlin 1991.41 Derks 1995.

152 Greg Woolf



general importance of epigraphy in making a claim to new socialrelationships is supported by the sense of public evoked by thelocations in which they were placed.42 It has long been known thatthe upwardly mobilesuch as former slaves, or auxiliary soldierswho have won citizenshipare disproportionately represented inthe epigraphic record.43 Some sanctuaries at least were lled withtexts recording the names of worshippers: this too may be seen as ameans of asserting a relationship between dedicator and deity.44 TheCapitol, with those thousands of bronze tablets recording treaties anddecrees, alliances and grants, was just a very special case of thisphenomenon. Restoring that monumental assemblage was onemeans by which Vespasian proclaimed the endurance of the relation-ally dened identities with the community of the Romans and be-tween that community and its neighbours.What about that other, internalized dimension of identity that we

term the self? Perhaps there were in antiquity private moments ofrevelation, transactions between gods and men that remained foreverinternalized. If so we have no access to them. Even the shortestepitaph takes its anticipated readership into its condence. Thescarcity of pre-Christian texts expressing such a sensibility is notori-ous.45 There are, I suggest, good reasons to doubt the signicance ofindividualism of that sort.Religious individualization in antiquity, I have suggested, needs to

entail a level of choice if it is to be meaningfully distinguished fromsocialization or the human experience in general. Religious choice, asit emerges in the material I have considered, takes the form ofparticipating in kinds of gift exchange and ritual action throughwhich a person acquires a modied social identity relationally. Byrelationally I mean this new identity is not a unique and personalself, fashioned by whatever means, but rather membership of one ormore groups. Put otherwise, individual identity was established by aprocess of triangulation on the identities of others. Assertions ofidentity made epigraphically took the form of claims about whereone was located in the social nexus.Non-epigraphic sources often described a change of identity as the

assumption of a new persona. The most recent discussions of theconcept are quite sceptical about the emergence in the Roman period

42 Carroll 2006; Corbier 1987; Hesberg, Zanker 1987. 43 Hope 2001.44 Beard 1991; Scheid 1996; Veyne 1983. 45 Nock 1933.




of quasi-modern subjectivities centred on a self-conscious and intern-alised individuality.46 Persona was, it seems, an important but not apermanent aspect of the self, and one clearly anchored to externallydened roles, such as senator, father, or judge: who one wasdepended to a great extent on ones (current) statio in life. There isno real sign of an ethic of individualism, certainly not in a positivesense. Nor is there a sense that ones internal self is in some sense thereal, essential, and dening core of ones being. Seneca, Pliny theYounger, and Epictetus all devote a good deal of attention to theproduction of the self, but always viewed as a being in action, a persondened relationally. It is no surprise then that identities assertedepigraphically, that is as products of ritualized exchanges, conformto this model. They are typically highly formal and fairly regular intype. The relationship between the dedicator and the commemoratedon funerary inscriptions does sometimes include affective elements,but the deceased is rarely described wholly or even mostly in terms ofpersonal qualities. Names, liation, tribe, origo, citizenship, ranks,honores, even approximate age all combined to create an identitywith reference to the broader social groups at the intersection ofwhich he or she was located.What this means for religious individualization is that when

individuals made choices about religious roles they chose fromready-made models. This is certainly not the same as unreectiveparticipation in ancestral rites. But it is quite different from what weunderstand today by the development of a personalized religiosity, letalone engagement in personal cosmological and ethical reection thathas been both valorised and condemned since the Reformation.47

A great gulf separates ancient forms of individualization from thoseof the early modern and modern worlds.From a wider cross-cultural perspective this is not at all surprising.

The variability of notions of the self is well known to those anthro-pologists for whom personhood has been a major subject of debate.48

As individualization is classically related to modernity, so interiorizedand autonomous selves have come to be seen as a relatively recent

46 I have found particularly helpful Frede 2007; Gill 2006, especially pp. 32844.More widely see the fundamental collection Carrithers, Collins, Lukes 1985.

47 Ginzburg 1980.48 Carrithers, Collins, Lukes 1985. The collection departs from a lecture given by

Marcel Mauss in 1938.

154 Greg Woolf



invention and one by no means universally subscribed to even today.With all the usual caveats about generalizing theories, something likean ideal type of a socio-centric or holistic person has been developedto describe pre-modern and non-western notions of selfhood.49 Trad-itional societies such as the Melanesian ones on which much recentwork has focused often treat personhood entirely relationally andcontextually. What we would regard as individualistic behaviour isliable to be categorized as sorcery or madness. When Melanesiansspeak of themselves they portray each individual as a node in a web ofrelations, exchanges, and mutual obligations, that same web articu-lated and explored in terms of gift exchange. The term dividual hasbeen coined to describe this lay concept.50 Romans were not, ofcourse, just like Melanesians . . . any more than they are just like us.But the space between these ideal types seems the best place to lookfor the kinds of self we nd elaborated in philosophical texts orproduced by epigraphic records of rituals. The main implication forthe study of religious individualization in historical perspective is thatwe are not dealing with a simple movement along a developmentalcontinuum. For the religious history of the period, the implicationsare even more serious. The most inuential accounts of religiouschange posit a world full of gods in which individuals, conceived ofin modern terms, selected among competing religions. If, as nowseems most likely, there were (properly speaking) neither individualsnor religions in Roman antiquity, our explanations will need to berecast.

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Ritual and Individual PROOF-libre

Documents

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