The common trait which binds this collection of articles by the late Prof. Petersmann together is that they treat aspects of ancient religious phenomena which are explicable through the methods of comparative Indo-European grammar. The use of comparative grammar brings with it also comparative folklore of a rather Frazerian nature. The methodology is also in other ways somewhat old-fashioned, e.g., when the author mentions magic, he does not get involved in the recent controversies over magic in antiquity, but is content with the traditional notions of sympathetic magic, etc. All articles but the last one (“Das ursprüngliche Wesen der römischen Laren in neuem Licht”) have been previously published. That article was worked up by the author’s widow from lectures which her husband had given between 1991 and 1999. The articles are for the most part in German, but there is one in French, a tour-de-force in Neo-Latin, and two in English. Let us examine the articles in succession. The first (“Beobachtungen zu den Apellativen für Gott“) makes the interesting point that the Indo-European languages do not share a common word for “God.” P. rather divides the words into three categories: 1) words derived from how one approaches the divinity; 2) words derived from the nature, form and place that divine power manifests itself; and 3) words derived from the actions of the gods. The Germanic words for God provide an example of the first group. Being cognate to Greek
The second article (“Les dieux anciens et leurs professions”) speaks to the obvious point that Greco-Roman divinities had distinct fields of action, and that men thanked them for their efforts by sacrifice. An interesting point is that
The third piece (“Quam vim nomen in religionibus ac superstitionibus gentium habeat”) is a fairly general treatment of the power of names in antiquity. The Egyptians considered a person to consist of a body, a soul, and a name, all inextricably bound together. The word could be used to refer to an entire people, e.g. “nomen Latinum,” for “populus Latinus” in the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus.
We are still taught to pray “hallowed be thy name.” Later church authors use “nomina” to talk about church members. In general a name was considered identical to the person or thing it referred to. A person who knew the name of a deity or demon could summon, control, even turn himself into that deity or demon. Pagan gods are limited in space, need food, live a life similar to man’s. Hence the power of sacrifice to increase or diminish a god’s power. The simplest form of sacrifice involves only prayers, in which the name is all-important. An augur takes his name from the fact that he increases ( auget) the god’s powers. On the other hand the powers of a divinity could be diminished by the use of a bad name, a curse. The Romans tried to propitiate the gods by calling them by every conceivable name, the most spectacular example being the second chapter of the eleventh book of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. Even the dead have to come when their name is spoken thrice, as we see in the Nekyia of the Odyssey. The story of the sorcerer’s apprentice, first occurring in Lucian’s Philopseudes, illustrates the use of names both to animate objects and to turn them back to what they were. The curse tablets show vividly the importance of the name(s) of one’s opponent(s) in bringing them failure, pain and suffering. The word tabu has been adopted from an Australian language to indicate that a word has been taken out of human usage and made sacred to gods or demons. This can result in words completely disappearing from a language and being replaced by euphemisms. People could have secret names known only to their parents. Rome too had a secret name known only to the priests. This applies also to fierce animals. The Proto-Indo-European word for “bear,” reflected in Greek
The fourth article (“Religion, Superstition and Parody in Petronius Cena Trimalchionis) has as its main thesis the fact that Trimalchio is boorish and ignorant not only in fields such as literature but also in whatever concerns religion and superstition. It is clear that neither Trimalchio nor anyone else at the party had any serious religious views, but they are commonly held to be unduly superstitious. P.’s contribution is to show that they get the superstitions all wrong too. Trimalchio wears rings at meals — a gaffe according to Pliny’s Natural History. When a cock crows — normally a good omen — Trimalchio is perturbed and orders wine poured under the table (it should have been water, according to Pliny). Further, he orders the cock killed and served up. Since the cock is often a sacrificial animal, Trimalchio here may be assuming divine honors for himself, an impression already created by the parody of entering a temple when one enters Trimalchio’s abode. Furthermore Trimalchio has statues of three Lares brought out, with individual names of a materialistic nature (Lares do not have names), and Trimalchio appears as a fourth Lar, to be worshipped by the assembled guests. P. ventures the opinion that the whole Cena is intended as a parody of imperial cult in general and of Nero in particular, certainly a risky business. My difficulty in summarizing the article, however, may reflect a fuzziness in its construction. And P.’s linguistic interests are not to be found here.
They are back, however, with a vengeance in the curiously inconclusive (and where conclusive, perverse) little article (
By now the reader should have gotten a fair idea of the strengths and weaknesses of this book, so I will treat the remaining articles in more summary fashion. The sixth article (“Zu einem altrömischen Opferritual”) discusses the notoriously difficult chapter 141 of Cato’s de agricultura, especialy the ritual prayers of the suovetaurilia in the lustratio agri of the Ambarvalia. P. generally rehashes old scholarship, concluding that the word immolare is used in its etymological sense of sprinkling the victim with mola salsa and consequently refers to the preliminary part of the sacrifice, not to the actual slaying. As far as the slaying is concerned, in the corrupt sentence “nominare vetat Martem neque agnum neque vitulum,” “porcum” should be read instead of “Martem,” and we are dealing with a name-tabu which does not allow the actual victims to be named at the moment of sacrifice.
In the seventh article (” Lustrum : Etymologie und Volksbrauch”) P. discusses various etymologies that have been proposed for the word. Some have to do with cleansing (luere, lavare) but there are problems with the quantity of the u, as well as with the fact that we have no other evidence of cleansing as part of this ritual. Others wish to connect it with luceo, lux,
The eighth article (“Springende und tanzende Götter beim antiken Fest”) begins with P.’s observation that there is no Indo-European word for dancing. Greek dancing is probably derived from pre-Greek sources. In Latin, dancing is connected with jumping (“salire” or “saltare”), something which does not occur in Greek. The Greek concept of a god joining his worshippers in a dance is inconceivable to the proper Roman, who never danced except in occasional rituals. These rituals involved Mars and the Lares, who themselves were called on to dance, and people danced in emulation of them. Best-known of the Roman war dances is the tripudium (three-step) of the Salii, whose blood-red garb also drove away demons and promoted fertility. Greek dances were on the other hand much more enjoyable things, especially where Dionysus was involved. Only the armed Pyrrhic dance remained of the old Indo-European heritage, but it too can be connected with the authochthonous dance tradition, as in the case of the Curetes. We come full circle when the Greek gods are also connected with jumping (
The ninth, rather rambling article (“Altgriechischer Mütterkult”) starts with the observation that mother goddesses are not as prominent in Greek religion as elsewhere among the Indo-Europeans. They are there, however, in the form of Demeter and Kore (Persephone). The Greeks also had group divinities (e.g. the Muses) just as other peoples had groups of mother goddesses. Demeter and Kore are inextricably bound and referred to frequently as
I will pass over the next four articles (“Der homerische Demeterhymnus, Dodona und südslawisches Brauchtum,” “Demeter in Dodona und Thrakien,” and “Persephone im Lichte des altorientalischen Mythos”), which are elaborations of some of the ideas put forward in the article just discussed.
The next article (no. 13, ” Tithrone also Epiklese der Athene”) is one of the most convincing of the lot. According to Pausanias, in the Attic deme of Phlya an Athena Tithrone is worshipped alongside Demeter Anesidora, Zeus Ktesios, Kore Protogone, and the Semnai. P. makes a sound linguistic argument connecting this adjective with the verb
The next three articles (nos. 14-16) concern themselves with Aeschylus’ Oresteia. The first (“Die Moiren in Aeschylus’ Eumeniden 956-967″) discusses a corrupt passage (lines 959-960), for which P. proposes and defends the reading
ἐξ οὐρανοῦ δὲ κάπὸ γῆς λιμώνιαι
δρόσοι κατεψάκαζον, ἔμπεδον σίνος
ἐσθημάτων, τιθέντες ἔνθηρον τρίχα.
P. is drawn to the passage by the use of a masculine participle (
The seventeenth article of the collection (“Vom Märchen zur epischen Sage”) concerns the Meleager-story of Iliad 9, which clearly has folktale elements in it. In a folktale the characters are types and need not have names. When the tale is incorporated into the epic, they acquire appropriate names: Althaia from
The eighteenth (“Neptuns ursprüngliche Rolle im römischen Pantheon”) shows perhaps most clearly of all articles the strengths and weaknesses of P.’s approach. This approach is certainly confident: “Erkennt man die etymologie eines Wortes oder Begriffes, so versteht man auch das eigentliche Wesen, das mit der entsprechenden Bezeichnung zum Ausdruck gebracht werden sollte.” But is this confidence justified? Neptune is already early on an important god in Roman worship. Apparently he is originally god of fresh water, becoming god of salt water and seafarers only through identification with Poseidon. Particularly the name of his spouse, Salacia, has been used to support the idea of him as god of the force of springs. (We lose sight of the fact in English that our word for a water source arises from their “jumping” out of the land.) It has also been used less convincingly by connecting it with sal, to see him as a god of salt, and salt-water. Now P. believes that “Neptunus” can be connected with such words as “nebula, Nebel” and
The nineteenth essay (” Lucina Nixusque Pares : Die Geburtsgottheiten in Ovids Met. IX 294″) falls into two parts. The first, Lucina, is a rambling discussion of the variants of the myth in which Juno tries by magical means to prohibit Heracles’ birth. P. sees an Homeric tradition and a local Theban tradition both at work. Ovid is given credit for successfully synthesizing elements of both in his account in the Metamorphoses. The second part of the article attempts to explain the mysterious “Nixus pares” who are invoked by Alcmena together with Lucina. The subject is fraught with difficulties in the manuscript readings, to say nothing of the scholarly conjectures that have been made. P. believes that the Nixus are masculine personifications of the birth pangs who are viewed as helping with the delivery. They may be Ovid’s invention but are more likely split-offs of Lucina’s function who came to be worshipped as separate entities.
The twentieth and last essay in this collection (“Das ursprüngliche Wesen der römischen Laren in neuem Licht”) has been patched together from versions of a lecture given at various venues between 1991 and 1999. It is internally divided in a clear fashion so as to make the argument followable. P. mentions that many authorities, ancient and modern, have regarded the Lares as ancestral spirits, but this interpretation is to be rejected as they are always kept distinct from the Manes. Rather P. sees them originally as guardian divinities of the hearth ( lares familiares), generally conceived of as a pair from the earliest times, some of whom become, so to speak, delegated to guard the family’s land and cattle. When several properties meet at one point ( compita, then the Lares of the various landowners become Lares compitales. But the hearth is also sacred to Vesta, even though she increasingly becomes a civic goddess, not one of the family. This leaves for the Lares the function of male fertility gods, represented by the hearth fire. The rest of the article is given over to finding testimonia for this idea, to the identification of the Lar with the Genius, as well as with Greek heroes, and the proposal of an etymology which would associate the name with such words as lascivus and go back to a basic meaning as “dancer,” something not incompatible with the representation of the Lares in art.
All in all, then, the essays in this volume cover a large amount of ground in both Greek and Roman religion. But the new approaches are relatively few, and when they do occur, are generally conjectures, such as the one about the name of Neptune, incapable of proof or disproof.