Читать книгу Religion in the Roman Empire - Группа авторов - Страница 22

Walking through the streets and houses of Pompeii, one has one overwhelming impression: the gods seem to be everywhere. For a start they were established in public places (Fig. 1). In AD 79, the forum district was dominated by no less than six major sanctuaries, eight if we include the two chapels set up in the public market. Apart from the four great temples arranged around the forum and on the square, including the Capitolium, there was the sanctuary of Venus which dominated the sea and the mouth of the Sarno, and that of Fortuna Augusta established at the junction of the streets of Fortune and Mercury. Then there was the portico of Eumachia opening onto the forum, which was dedicated to Concordia Augusta and Piety: the statue of Concordia adorned the main niche of the building, opposite the entrance. Similarly, the monumental apse of the municipal curia must once have housed a statue representing the genius of the colony or the statue of an emperor. The theatre district was the other religious centre of the city: three shrines were arranged in a semi-circle around the entertainment buildings, the old Doric temple surrounded by a portico, the temple of Isis and the temple attributed to Aesculapius. There are about ten sanctuaries founded at various times in the history of the city and clearly all still active at the time of the eruption of mount Vesuvius.

Fig. 2: Map of Pompeii and location of the main places of worship (DAO: Carole Chevalier): 1. Temple of Fortune Auguste, 2. Capitol, 3. Temple of Apollo, 4. Temple of Venus Pompeian, 5. Porticoes of Eumachia, 6. Temple of Augustus, 7. Temple of the Divine Domus (?), 8. Chapels of the Macellum, 9. Temple of Minerva, 10. Temple of Isis, 11. Temple attributed to Aesculapius.

People at Pompeii were surrounded by the sacred¹. It is not enough to consider the number of places of worship, because as soon as the entrance to a sanctuary was crossed, the visitor was confronted with a crowd of divine statues erected at various times in the history of the shrine, most often as offerings. In the sanctuary of Apollo, the excavators were thus able to count, despite the spoliations, bronze and marble effigies that were originally placed on the bases aligned along the portico: Apollo of course (he was the patron of the temple), but also Diana, Venus, Hermaphrodite, Mercury and Maia (Fig. 2). Certainly, one could offer the god his own effigy or the statue of another god, but the presence of masonry altars in the southwest corner of the portico clearly indicates that rituals were performed to deities other than Apollo, even on his own estate. In polytheism, the gods are never alone. Since each divinity possessed a multitude of facets and fields of action, associating them with other divine powers made it possible to specify their personality and their historical depth for each place of worship. In a sanctuary, the gathering of the gods therefore added to the religious meaning of the cult in question. In the enclosure of his Pompeian residence, Apollo was thus associated with members of his mythological family such as Diana, his sister, also with deities of the city such as Venus, holder of the nearby temple, or Mercury and Maia whose worship was managed by the public authorities. The sanctuary of Isis was similarly populated by statues of deities, some of which were found in place: in the northwest corner of the portico stood a Pentelic marble effigy of the titular deity Isis, the offering of a certain L. Caecilius Phoebus, in a place granted by the city council, the ordo decurionum. In the same way as in the sanctuary of Apollo, a statue featuring Venus coming out of the bath was installed in the southwest corner of the same portico. Simple ornament? Yes, but it is likely that Venus was there again as the patron goddess of the city (and the goddess coming out of the bath is indeed an iconographic model retained by local tradition). There were also gods directly linked to Isiac mythology such as Harpocrates, whose painting adorned the east portico in the axis of the temple. Effigies of the same deity as Horus the Child associated with Anubis may have been displayed in the niches of the temple entrance, the pronaos. A marble statue of Dionysus completed the cycle of representations: it found its place in a niche in the rear wall of the temple. The presence of six bases posted along the colonnade overlooking the temple courtyard indicates that even more gods were invited.

Fig. 3: Reconstruction of the Temple of Apollo by Weichard 1897. The attribution of the statues to the bases preserved in situ was determined shortly after the excavation of the temple; bronze and marble gods took place on the bases placed under the porticoes. The altars, on the other hand, were installed in the courtyard.

Outside the great temples, the gods were present in all the public spaces in connection with the activities that took place there. In the market located in the northern part of the forum, a cult room was built, probably dedicated to Mercury, with a fixed and oriented altar used for sacrifices; a cattle pen was also located in the immediate vicinity. A niche the console of which still bears the traces of the place where the cult statuette was set up is also visible in the south entrance of the building, possibly a seat of the genius of the macellum. Inside the water tower located at the gateway to mount Vesuvius, a religious painting depicts the divinity of the spring that fed the aqueduct. The setting of the painting is no less evocative, the goddess and the three nymphs appearing exactly where the water from the aqueduct was discharged into the reservoir: this is where the action of the goddess of the spring stopped, the water was then distributed and used, losing its sacred character. Thus, logically, there are no places of worship related to water in the urban thermal baths. Such a statement deserves to be underlined for a site as well conserved as Pompeii, even if divine patronage sometimes intervenes in the name given to the establishments, as shown by the balneum venerium on the property of Iulia Felix.² Simple patronage, let us repeat, this was, which could be symbolized by the presence of a statue of divinity as in the suburban baths of Herculaneum, where a bust of Apollo was enthroned in the atrium of the entrance. More visible is the mark of the divine on the walls and entrances of the city. A small sanctuary of the Porta Marina contained a terracotta statuette of Minerva, who was obviously in Pompeii the guardian of the city’s walls and gates. The same goes for the gorgon of the Stabiae Gate Fountain, a traditional attribute of Minerva. Under the porch of the same gate, there is a niche with painted plaster, found empty, which may have sheltered an effigy of the goddess. Finally, and not without good reason, a portrait of Minerva is identified on the keystone of the Nola Gate. It is likely that these places of worship and religious representations were linked to the sacred nature attributed to the gates and walls by Roman law.

In public spaces, the gods were also present at the crossroads of the city: to take only the example of the via dell’Abbondanza, one of the two main axes of the street plan (decumani), about ten altars dedicated to the Lares compitales were placed along the street or at the entrance of secondary alleys (Fig 3). Most included religious paintings in bright colours depicting the gods of the crossroads, a scene of sacrifice or simply snakes that marked, in the cities around Vesuvius, the presence of the gods and geniuses. These are the sanctuaries of urban vici duly dedicated to the Lares of the crossroads – they protected the territory of the crossroads which constituted the place of representation of neighbourhood associations, a kind of extension of domestic spaces – and sometimes associated with other gods of the neighbourhood³. Thus, the Twelve Gods are represented on a compitum on the via dell’Abbondanza while the name of the goddess Salus is written in painting above an altar in region IX. A god important for the district was sometimes depicted on the fountain posted at the crossroads: the one in the via di Stabia bears the face of Venus; in the via di Mercurio, an effigy of the god of commerce serves as a gargoyle. Well-being and daily happiness were obviously based on the presence of the familiar gods of the neighbourhood: were they not the first gods a Pompeian met when leaving home? The deities who held the crossroads were, however, the Lares, whose favourite sacrificial victim was the pig, slaughtered during neighbourhood festivals, the Compitalia: skewers and a curse painted on an altar of abundance remind us that the animal was shared and the parts of meat consumed in banquets. These ceremonies celebrated by the officials responsible for their worship were among the public holidays that brought together all the heads of households in the district (popularia sacra). At the crossroads, the Lares and the protective gods of the neighbourhood were honoured, but there is no apparent trace, as in Rome, of the genius of Augustus or the Augustan Lares: obviously, the place of cults linked to imperial power was, in Pompeii, in the public square and not in the neighbourhood associations, which constituted above all a local reality.

Fig. 4: The crossroads of a vicus on the rue de l’Abondance, the site of the Compitalia celebration, a celebration that brought together the neighbourhood association (Photographic Archives of the Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei). We can distinguish the XII gods lined up under a portico (painting on the left) and the sacrifice of the ministers of worship framed by the Lares gods (painting on the right). In the foreground, the fountain and the sacrificial altar.

Images of the gods were also displayed on the facades of houses and shops⁴ (Fig. 4). Halfway along the via dell’Abbondanza, going up to the forum on the right, passers-by could successively admire shopfronts with religious representations. On the wall of a workshop (IX 7, 1), there was Venus Pompeiana dressed in a cloak decorated with constellations, then a procession scene showing a goddess identified with Mater Magna and four paintings of Sol, Jupiter, Mercury and Luna, likely evocative of the calendar of activities taking place in the district. A few metres further on (IX 7, 7), the workshop of a textile entrepreneur exhibited another painting of the city’s tutelary goddess, Venus Pompeiana, on a chariot pulled by four elephants and also Mercury leaving a temple. Some of these deities were closely related to the commercial activities of the shops and workshops in question. This was undoubtedly the case of Mercury, the god of profit and gain, omnipresent in Pompeii. The other images on the exterior facades, notably Venus Pompeiana on a chariot pulled by four elephants or the devotees of the Great Mother, more likely refered to the pompae, the solemn and public processions of the participants in the games (ludi). Professional corporations took part in these parades and accompanied the images of the gods, with their symbols and attributes placed on floats carried through the streets of the city: at least that is what a well-known painting from Regio VI showing the carpenters’ float indicates. It is not surprising then to observe such representations also in the via dell’Abbondanza, the city’s main artery.

Fig. 5: Verecundus’ workshop, on rue de l’Abondance, facade painting depicting Venus Pompeiana, Fortuna and the genius.

Among these gods of the facades, others guarded the entrances of the houses as in VI, 9, 6–7 where Mercury and Fortuna were painted on each side of the door overlooking the street. Mercury (who was also the god of passages) was most frequently displayed, with Hercules at the entrance of house II, 12, 1 or on a facade of via di Nola, but there were a range of combinations (Fig. 5). Mercury accompanied Venus at the entrance of the sanctuary of Sabazios (II, 1, 12) or on the facade of the shop VII, 4, 22; he shared in the protection of the entrance of house IX, 9, 7 with Minerva. These gods associated with the entrances of the houses sometimes took their position in a niche arranged in the exterior façade at a height probably sufficient for the statuettes to be safe: examples are visible in an alley (I, 12, 7) overlooking via dell’Abbondanza and nearby, above a shop (I, 11, 1) and at the main entrance to the estate of Iulia Felix (II, 4, 6).

Fig. 6: Front of a shop located at a crossroads near the Vesuvius Gate (V, 6, 1). The inside of the room has not been searched, but the paintings on either side of the entrance, showing Mercury and Bacchus, probably identify an inn or a caupona, at least a place where wine was sold (Photographic Archives of the Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei).

This abundance of divine images reflects a reality that has disappeared from almost all archaeological sites: the gods lived in the company of men, in a proximity built and maintained by the various groups that made up urban space. The same was true inside the houses. Mythological scenes adorned the interior walls, involving the gods and their stories (Fig. 6). Wall paintings certainly made cultural references, but the choice of episodes depicted might have a precise link with the deities living in the city. On a panel decorating the ceremonial room of a house (VII, 7, 5) located opposite the great temple of Venus, the arrival of the goddess in Pompeii has been identified.⁵ We can also highlight the taste of house owners for painted panels associating Venus with Mars, which probably also had a connection with the status of the goddess in Pompeii. In the same vein, the great success of the Herculean paintings is clearly explained by the local tradition that associated in antiquity the foundation of Pompeii with the hero accompanied by the cattle of Geryon⁶ (the name of the city, Pompeii, supposedly derived from the Herculean pompa, his following). This is even more true in Herculaneum, the city of Hercules. Should we then speak of images with a decorative function or of religious images? Obviously, neither term is appropriate; these figurations had first of all a cultural role, affirming, in addition to the good education and rank of the owner, the local identity of the Roman citizen of Pompeii or Herculaneum. Featuring Venus, Hercules or the Capitoline Triad, the themes chosen for the wall decorations took into account the city’s divine residents. In the house of Ephesus (I, 7, 10), the attributes of the great Capitoline gods, Jupiter, Juno, Minerva decorated a cubiculum. Elsewhere, in a house on the via di Stabi (IX, 1, 7), the same triad, whose temple stood on the city’s forum, is represented in the form of portraits on round shields. An evocation of the Almighty Roman God, the image of Jupiter enthroned recurs from one house to another, in a room overlooking the atrium of the Vetti family and in so many other places. In the ›House of Epigrams‹ (Casa degli Epigrammi Greci, V, 1, 18), the owner surrounded himself with a gallery of medallions painted in the atrium, showing the divine patrons of his city: Minerva, Mercury, Juno, Mars, Venus, Vulcan and probably Jupiter. In the House of the Dioscuri (VI, 9, 6–7), the atrium was decorated with vignettes showing Fortune, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Victory, Saturn, Apollo, Ceres and Bacchus.

Fig. 7: At the Palace of Ares, the loves of Mars and Venus. The two deities resided in the city. House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto, V, 4 a (photo Johannes Laiho).

The gods were not only represented. They inhabited the houses as a graffito clearly indicates (CIL IV, 8417–18): Bonus deus/hic habitat in do/mo/Act(ii); »a good god lives here, in the house of Actius«, which is confirmed by the many sanctuaries, conventionally called lararia by scholars, which are found in various places of the house.⁷ The generic term lararium is certainly not well documented in the literature, but the word has the advantage of clarity: the Lares were indeed the protective gods of the house par excellence. The Latin texts more usually speak of sacrarium or aedicula, which has a more general meaning. In the aristocratic residence of Menander, a monumental aedicula, a veritable temple, stands in the atrium (Fig. 7): many similar examples show that it is often in this place that the main sanctuary of the Lares familiares, the ›Lares of the household‹, was established. There was also a second place of worship in the same house, installed in a corner of the peristyle and dedicated to other domestic gods carved in perishable material, probably wood⁸. In the House of the Golden Cupids, the main lararium was built in the peristyle. It contained, at the time of its discovery, statuettes representing the Lares, the entire Capitoline triad and Mercury. Two neighbouring dwellings in Regio I (I, 16, 3–4) are more modest in appearance, yet their sanctuary, a high podium topped by a pedimented aedicula, is an imposing element of domestic furniture. This one received all the attention of the owner as evidenced by the freshness of the paintings: on one side, we can distinguish the images of the genius of the paterfamilias associated with Minerva, protector of domestic work or the owner’s profession; on the other side, the divine presence is evoked by two coloured stucco snakes, symbolizing the presence of the two Lares (or the geniuses of the house’s master and matron). In the same district (I, 13, 2), one house has no less than three places of worship: a niche with a divine effigy in the atrium (largely erased, the painting probably represents the genius of the paterfamilias), another containing a statue of Minerva in the garden and then the Lares’ home in the kitchen. Other gods, who were probably taken out on certain occasions, were stored in the atrium cupboard.

Still in the private domain, it is worth considering the necropolises that developed outside the urban space, along the access roads to the city: the tombs were the domain of the Di Manes, the gods of the Netherworld, collective deities who represented the deceased once his remains had been buried. It is to these gods and the deceased that the offerings and libations made on the tombs during the feasts dedicated to the dead were destined. Here again, we are talking about ritual and religion. In the tomb of Vestorius Priscus, at the Porta Vesuviana, an altar stands above the burial chamber. Its religious character is marked by four medallions surmounted by snakes. The opening of the lead libation tube, visible on the altar’s top platform, indicates that the patron climbed onto the podium to celebrate the rituals due to the deceased, facing the city gate, in a setting adapted to the status of a tomb erected to celebrate the deceased’s social excellence. Recent excavations in the necropolis of the Porta di Nocera confirm that the Pompeians frequently visited their dead to pour perfumed oil on the ground, in front of the tomb or inside it through the libation tube, and to burn some fruits in honour of the infernal gods, according to a ritual modelled on the domestic religion: it was obviously the place and the context that gave meaning to the ritual action⁹.

Fig. 8: Larary of the house of the Menander (I, 10, 4): an aedicula located in the northwest corner of the atrium that housed the gods of the house (William Van Andringa cliché).