Page 83 - All About History 48 - 2017 UK

Roman Mystery Cults
dance. Their flowing blood symbolically ensured believe that the blood was actually carefully Like Magna Mater and Isis, Demeter was a
the fertility of the world.
One particularly dramatic ritual of Magna
Mater that may have occurred was the
taurobolium – a baptism in bull’s
blood. A pit was dug and wooden
planks were placed over it. Next,
a man lowered himself into the
pit, and a bull was led onto the
planks. The animal was then
impaled by a spear, and its
blood was allowed to run down
through the spaces between
the planks, spilling onto the man
below. Once the bull had been
drained of its blood, the man emerged,
ritually purified for 20 years by the power of not die!” and “Osiris live! Stand up, unhappy the arrival of spring, Demeter is reunited with her
the Great Mother, acting through the bull’s blood. one who dost lie there! I am Isis!” Just as Isis raised daughter and life returns to the earth.
This account comes from a Christian source and Osiris from the dead, so would the dead worshiper Once an initiate had been inducted into the
is considered anachronistic, and many historians be raised again to life.
Diana
A maiden goddess
of the hunt, Diana
was the daughter
of Jupiter by
Latona and sister
to Apollo.
Talismans
and trinkets
The Romans encountered
theirgodseverywhere– in
thehomeand on theroad
The Roman home was protected by a
guardian spirit, and these were known
as lares. In origin, these were ancestral
family spirits that watched over the
household of its descendants. These
tutelary gods stood at the centre of the
family’s religious life. A shrine containing
a statuette of the spirit was set beside
the hearth, and each morning they were
greeted with prayers. At festival time,
the lares were offered food. Outside the
home, lares were thought to watch over
the crossroads where the family’s fields
met another’s. As such, they came to be
known as the gods of travellers also.
Another group of guardian spirits,
known as penates, were the gods that
protected the food pantry of a Roman
household and also watched over the
family as a whole. Said to have been
brought to Rome from Troy by the hero
Aeneas, these spirits were worshiped
at the hearth of the home where a fire
was always kept lit in their honour. At
mealtime, the family sacrificed a bit
of food to their household penates.
In addition to the domestic lares and
Roman mythology borrowed heavily from the Greeks, resulting
in many gods, heroes and stories getting a Roman makeover penates, there were also public spirits
that watched over the Roman state.
collected into vessels instead. mother goddess, and her mysteries at Eleusis
The Egyptian goddess Isis shared much commemorated her search for her daughter
in common with the Great Mother, as Persephone, or Kore, the maiden in Greek
they were seen as mistresses of life mythology. Carried off by Hades, Kore was held
and fertility. Her rites guaranteed captive in the Underworld. The inconsolable
a blissful afterlife for participants. Demeter roamed the Earth searching for her. Crops
The theme of these ceremonies would not grow, and plague and death stalked the
was the ritual re-enactment world. So bad did things become that Zeus himself
of the death and resurrection was forced to intervene and secure Kore’s freedom.
of her husband, Osiris. Osiris But because she had eaten pomegranate seeds
reborn also symbolised the while in Hades’ realm, she was forced ever after
rebirth of nature in springtime. A to spend a third of the year there as his consort.
dead person might be summoned Kore’s time in the Underworld is thus one of great
back to the realm of the living with sadness for her mother, and during this time, the
the words, “Raise yourself to life: you do season of winter, nothing grows upon Earth. With
Lesser Mysteries, he or she was allowed to take
Minerva Vulcan Vesta
The wise warrior Vulcan, son of Goddess of the
goddess Minerva Jupiter, was the hearth, Vesta
was the daughter smith of the gods, watched over the
of Jupiter and a producing wondrous fire of the Roman
staunch patroness items in his forge. household. She was
of mortal heroes. His wife was Venus. the sister of Jupiter.
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