Description
Book SynopsisSENSORIVM: The Senses in Roman Polytheism explores how a range of cults and rituals were perceived and experienced by participants through one or more senses. The present collection brings together papers from an international group of researchers all inspired by ‘the sensory turn’. Focusing on a wide range of ritual traditions from around the ancient Roman world, they explore the many ways in which smell and taste, sight and sound, separately and together, involved participants in religious performance. Music, incense, images and colors, contrasts of light and dark played as great a role as belief or observance in generating religious experience. Together they contribute to an original understanding of the Roman sensory universe, and add an embodied perspective to the notion of Lived Ancient Religion. Contributors are Martin Devecka; Visa Helenius; Yulia Ustinova; Attilio Mastrocinque; Maik Patzelt; Mark Bradley; Adeline Grand-Clément; Rocío Gordillo Hervás; Rebeca Rubio; Elena Muñiz Grijalvo; David Espinosa-Espinosa; A. César González-García, Marco V. García-Quintela; Jörg Rüpke; Rosa Sierra del Molino; Israel Campos Méndez; Valentino Gasparini; Nicole Belayche; Antón Alvar Nuño; Jaime Alvar Ezquerra; Clelia Martínez Maza.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations Notes on Editors Notes on Contributors Introduction Antón Alvar Nuño, Jaime Alvar Ezquerra, and Greg Woolf 1 Faces of Death: Lucretius, Religio, and Vision at Rome Martin Devecka 2 Lucretius and the Body-Environment Approach Visa Helenius 3 Hirpi Sorani and Modern Fire-Walkers: Rejoicing through Pain in Extreme Rituals Yulia Ustinova 4 Empowered Tongues Attilio Mastrocinque 5 Favete linguis and the Experience of the Divine: A Cognitively Grounded Approach to Sensory Perception in Roman Religion Maik Patzelt 6 The Triumph of the Senses: Sensory Awareness and the Divine in Roman Public Celebrations Mark Bradley 7 Sensorium, Sensescapes, Synaesthesia, Multisensoriality: A New Way of Approaching Religious Experience in Antiquity? Adeline Grand-Clément 8 Day and Night in the Agones of the Roman Isthmian Games Rocío Gordillo Hervás 9 Multisensory Experiences in Mithraic Initiation Rebeca Rubio 10 Imperial Mysteries and Religious Experience Elena Muñiz Grijalvo 11 Pro consensu et concordia civium: Sensoriality, Imperial Cult, and Social Control in Augustan Urban Orientations David Espinosa-Espinosa, A. César González-García, and Marco V. García-Quintela 12 Finding Religion in Reported Sensorial Experiences: A Case Study of Propertius 4.6 Jörg Rüpke 13 Sensory Experiences in the Cybelic Cult: Sound Stimulation through Musical Instruments Rosa Sierra del Molino and Israel Campos Méndez 14 Isis’ Footprints: The Petrosomatoglyphs as Spatial Indicators of Human-Divine Encounters Valentino Gasparini 15 Assiduo sono and furiosa tibia in Ovid’s Fasti: Music and Religious Identity in Narratives of Processions in the Roman World Nicole Belayche 16 Total Sensory Experience in Isiac Cults: Mimesis, Alterity, and Identity Antón Alvar Nuño, Jaime Alvar Ezquerra, and Clelia Martínez Maza Index of Literary Sources (Beatriz Pañeda Murcia) Index of Epigraphic and Papyrological Sources (Beatriz Pañeda Murcia) General Index (Beatriz Pañeda Murcia)
