By Torches, Bones, and Temples
Material Language in Ancient Roman Oaths
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54797/tfl.v53i2-3.16657Keywords:
Oaths, Oath-taking, Latin literature, Ancient Rome, Roman literature, Materiality, Agency, Swearing, oath formula, material language, objectifying wordings, physical language, Latin, poetryAbstract
Oath-taking during Roman Antiquity constitutes a telling example of how words and material matter interplay and relate to one another. Ancient Latin literature provides a myriad of representations of oaths sworn, both fictive and supposedly historical, which allude to contemporary notions of materiality. In this study, a selection of personal oaths (oaths sworn between individuals, as opposed to large-scale official ones) from Roman literature are explored in terms of materiality and agency. The chosen oath examples are all phrased using a ‘material language’ and their oath formulae include what is here termed as objectifying wordings, that is the reference to abstract things through material matter. The present article aims to demonstrate that Roman authors sometimes chose to (have their characters) swear by material matter – instead of something abstract and intangible – in order to better express what is actually sworn by or what is actually put up as deposit in the portrayed oath: in other words, how they could utilize contemporary notions of materiality as literary tools for the formulation of personal oaths.
Downloads
References
N.B. Original ancient literary and epigraphic sources are not included in the bibliography, but referenced to in the notes in accordance with the Abbreviation List found in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. https://oxfordre.com/classics/page/ocdabbreviations/abbreviations.
Agamben, Giorgio. The Sacrament of Language: An Archaeology of the Oath. Translated by Adam Kotsko. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
Blidstein, Moshe. “Invoking Humans in Roman-Era Oaths: Emotional Relations and Divine Ambiguity.” Numen 68, no. 4 (2021): 382–410. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341629. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341629
Blidstein, Moshe. “Loosing Vows and Oaths in the Roman Empire and Beyond: Authority and Interpretation.” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 18 (2018): 275–304. https://doi.org/10.1515/arege-2018-0016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/arege-2018-0016
Blidstein, Moshe. “Oaths as a Medium for Inter-Communal Contact in the Roman Empire.” Historia 72, no. 1 (2023): 86–108. https://doi.org/10.25162/historia-2023-0004. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25162/historia-2023-0004
Bruun, Christer & Edmondson, Jonathan. “The Epigrapher at Work.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy, edited by Christer Bruun & Jonathan Edmondson, 3–20. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195336467.013.001
Chioffi, Laura. “Death and Burial.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy, edited by Christer Bruun & Jonathan Edmondson, 627–648. New York/ Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195336467.013.029
Collard, Cristopher & Cropp, Martin. Fragments. Oedipus–Chrysippus. Other Fragments. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Corbeill, Anthony. Nature Embodied. Gesture in Ancient Rome. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691187808
Frankfurter, David. “Magic and the Forces of Materiality.” In Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic, edited by David Frankfurter, 659–677. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004390751_025
Giannakis, George. “The ‘Fate-as-Spinner’ motif: A Study on the Poetic and Metaphorical Language of Ancient Greek and Indo-European (Part I).” Indogermanische Forschungen 103 (1998): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110243444.1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110243444.1
Graham, Emma-Jayne. Reassembling Religion in Roman Italy. London/New York: Routledge, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315270562
Hersch, Karen. The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511762086. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511762086
Hickson, Frances. Roman Prayer Language: Livy and the Aneid of Vergil. Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner, 1993. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-12346-0
Hirzel, Rudolf. Der Eid: ein Beitrag zu seiner Geschichte. Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1902.
Hölkeskamp, Karl-Joachim. Reconstructing the Roman Republic: An Ancient Political Culture and Modern Research. Translated by Henry Heimann-Gordon. Princeton: Princeton University Press, [2004] 2010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400834907
King, Charles. The Ancient Roman Afterlife: Di Manes, Belief, and the Cult of the Dead. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2020.
Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark. Metaphors we live by. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Lewis, Charlton & Short, Charles. A Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059.
Mallory, James Patrick. “Indo-European Warfare.” Journal of Conflict Archaeology 2, no. 1 (2006): 77–98; https://www.jstor.org/stable/48601908. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/157407706778942312
McKie, Stuart. “The Legs, Hands, Head and Legs Race: The Human Body as a Magical Weapon in the Roman World.” In Occult Objects and Supernatural Substances, edited by Adam Parker & Stuart McKie, 115–125. Oxford/Havertown: Oxbow Books, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dnfj.13
McKie, Stuart. Living and Cursing in the Roman West: Curse Tablets and Society. London: Bloomsbury, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350103023
Parker, Adam & McKie, Stuart. “Introduction: Materials, Approaches, Substances, and Objects.” In Material Approaches to Roman Magic: Occult Objects and Supernatural Substances, edited by Adam Parker & Stuart McKie, 1–8. Oxford/Havertown: Oxbow Books, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dnfj.4
Parker, Adam & McKie, Stuart. Occult Objects and Supernatural Substances. Oxford/Havertown: Oxbow Books, 2018.
Peukert Stock, Olivia. “’Pro Iuppiter!’: Oaths in Roman Comedy.” New Classicists 7 (2022): 4–28. https://www.newclassicists.com/publications.
Pölönen, Janne. “Religion in Law’s Domain: Recourse to Supernatural Agents in Litigation, Dispute Resolution, and Pursuits of Justice under the Early Roman Empire.” RIDA 65 (2018), 163–193.
Radden, Günther & Kövecses, Zoltán. “Towards a Theory of Metonymy”. In Metonymy in Language and Thought, edited by Klaus-Uwe Panther & Günther Radden, 17–59. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s Publishing Company, 1999. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.4.03rad
Reekmans, Louis. “La dextrarum iunctio dans l’iconographie romaine et paléochrétienne.” Bulletin de l’Institut Historique Belge de Rome 31 (1958): 23–95.
Reinsberg, Carola. Die Sarkophage mit Darstellungen aus dem Menschenleben. Vita Romana. Die Antiken Sarkophagreliefs 1, Dritter Teil. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2006.
Sommerstein, Alan. “What is an Oath?” In Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece, edited by Alan Sommerstein & Isabelle Torrance, 1–5. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1515%2F9783110227369. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110227369
Walker, Susan. Memorials to the Roman dead. London: BMP, 1985.
Watson, Alan. The State, Law and Religion: Pagan Rome. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1992.
Watson, George Ronald. The Roman Soldier. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Categories
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Olivia Peukert Stock
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The author/authors retain copyright to the work.
