The suovetaurilia was an ancient Roman sacrifice in which a pig, a sheep, and a bull were sacrificed.

The suovetaurilia or suovitaurilia was one of the most sacred and traditional rites of Roman religion: the sacrifice of a pig (sus), a ram (ovis) and a bull (taurus) to the deity Mars to bless and purify land. Roman mythology, the mythological beliefs of the people of Ancient Rome, can be considered as having two parts. ... Jupiter et Thétis - by Jean Ingres, 1811. ... Mars was the Roman god of war, the son of Juno and a magical flower (or Jupiter). ... This page is about the Roman god Quirinus. ... Gaius Julius Caesar (Classical Latin: IMP·C·IVLIVS·CAESAR·DIVVS) (b. ... Augustus (plural Augusti) is Latin for majestic or venerable. The greek equivalent is sebastos, or a mere grecization (by changing of the ending) augustos. ... Juno was a Roman goddess, the equivalent of the Greek Hera, queen of the gods. ... Vesta was the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman mythology, analogous to Hestia in Greek mythology. ... Minerva was a Roman goddess of crafts and wisdom. ... This article treats Mercury in cult practice and in archaic Rome. ... Vulcan, in Roman mythology, is the son of Jupiter and Juno, and husband of Maia and Venus. ... Ceres, in Roman mythology, equivalent to the Greek Demeter (see which for more details), daughter of Saturn and Rhea, wife-sister of Jupiter, mother of Proserpina by Jupiter, sister of Juno, Vesta, Neptune and Pluto, and patron of Sicily. ... Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, broadly, although not completely, equivalent to Greek Aphrodite and Etruscan Turan. ... Diana was the equivalent in Roman mythology of the Greek Artemis (see Roman/Greek equivalency in mythology for more details). ... Lares (pl. ... Fortuna governs the circle of the four stages of life, the Wheel of Fortune, in a manuscript of Carmina Burana In Roman mythology, Fortuna (Greek equivalent Tyche) was the personification of luck, hopefully of good luck, but she could be represented veiled and blind, as modern depictions of Justice are... The Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BCE (between 29 and 19 BCE) that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy where he became the ancestor of the Romans. ... Aeneas (Greek: Αινείας, Aineías) was a Trojan hero, the son of prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite (Venus in Roman sources). ... Romulus and Remus, (771 BC¹- July 5, 717 BC Romulus) (771 BC- April 21, 753 BC Remus), the traditional founders of Rome, appeared in Roman mythology as the twin sons of the priestess Rhea Silvia, fathered by the god of war Mars. ... Numa Pompilius (April 21, 753 BC - 674 BC) succeeded Romulus as the second King of Rome. ... King of Rome redirects here. ... Religion in ancient Rome combined several different cult practices and embraced more than a single set of beliefs. ... Alternate meanings: see Pontifex (disambiguation) In Ancient Rome, the Pontifex Maximus was the high priest of the collegium of the Pontifices, the most august position in Roman religion, open only to a patrician, until 254 BC, when a plebeian first occupied this post. ... A sacred king, according to the systematic interpretation of mythology developed by Sir James George Frazer in his influential book The Golden Bough, was a king who represented a solar deity in a periodically re-enacted fertility rite. ... A vestal Virgin, engraving by Sir Frederick Leighton, ca 1890: Leightons artistic sense has won over his passion for historical accuracy in showing the veil over the Vestals head at sacrifices, the suffibulum, as translucent, instead of fine white wool. ... The Flamen Dialis was an important position in Roman religion. ... A flamen was a priest of the Roman religion. ... The rex Nemorensis, (Latin: the king of Nemi or the king of the grove) was a sort of sacred king who served as priest of the goddess Diana at Aricia in Italy, by the shores of lake Nemi. ... The Augur was a priest or official in ancient Rome. ... Roman mythology was strongly influenced by Greek mythology and Etruscan mythology. ... Image File history File links Suovetaurilia. ... Image File history File links Suovetaurilia. ... Religion in ancient Rome combined several different cult practices and embraced more than a single set of beliefs. ... Sacrifice (from a Middle English verb meaning to make sacred, from Old French, from Latin sacrificium : sacer, sacred; sacred + facere, to make) is commonly known as the practice of offering food, or the lives of animals or people to the gods, as an act of propitiation or worship. ... Species Sus barbatus Sus bucculentus Sus cebifrons Sus celebensis Sus domesticus Sus heureni Sus philippensis Sus salvanius Sus scrofa Sus timoriensis Sus verrucosus Pigs are ungulates native to Eurasia collectively grouped under the genus Sus within the Suidae family. ... Species See text A Sheep is a mammal known as Keating, one of several woolly ruminant quadrupeds in the genus Ovis. ... Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle (called cows in vernacular usage) are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ... A deity or a god, is a postulated preternatural being, usually, but not always, of significant power, worshipped, thought holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, or respected by human beings. ... Mars was the Roman god of war, the son of Juno and a magical flower (or Jupiter). ... Look up Blessing on Wiktionary, the free dictionary A blessing (from to bless, Old English bleodsian or bletsian) originally meant sprinkling with blood during the pagan sacrifices, the Blóts (reference: AHD). ...

The ritual is preserved in Cato the Elder's De Re Rustica, "On Agriculture". The first step was to lead the three animals around the boundaries of the land to be blessed, pronouncing the following words: Marcus Porcius Cato (Latin: M·PORCIVS·M·F·CATO) (234 BC - 149 BC), Roman statesman, surnamed The Censor, Sapiens, Priscus, or Major (the Elder), to distinguish him from Cato the Younger (his great-grandson), was born at Tusculum. ...

Cum divis volentibus quodque bene eveniat, mando tibi, Mani, uti illace suovitaurilia fundum agrum terramque meam quota ex parte sive circumagi sive circumferenda censeas, uti cures lustrare.

"That with the good help of the gods success may crown our work, I bid thee, Manius, to take care to purify my farm, my land, my ground with this suovetaurilia, in whatever part thou thinkest best for them to be driven or carried around."

"Manius" in this passage may be an obscure deity, related to the Manes, or may be the equivalent of English John Doe. Then, before the sacrifice is performed, the following prayer to Mars must be made: In Roman mythology, the Manes were the souls of deceased love ones. ... In the USA, the name John Doe is used for a defendant or victim in a legal example or for a person whose identity is unknown or is intended to be anonymous. ... Prayer is an effort to communicate with God, or to some deity or deities, or another form of spiritual entity, or otherwise, either to offer praise, to make a request, or simply to express ones thoughts and emotions. ...

Mars pater, te precor quaesoque uti sies volens propitius mihi domo familiaeque nostrae, quoius re ergo agrum terram fundumque meum suovitaurilia circumagi iussi, uti tu morbos visos invisosque, viduertatem vastitudinemque, calamitates intemperiasque prohibessis defendas averruncesque; utique tu fruges, frumenta, vineta virgultaque grandire beneque evenire siris, pastores pecuaque salva servassis duisque bonam salutem valetudinemque mihi domo familiaeque nostrae; harumce rerum ergo, fundi terrae agrique mei lustrandi lustrique faciendi ergo, sicuti dixi, macte hisce suovitaurilibus lactentibus inmolandis esto; Mars pater, eiusdem rei ergo macte hisce suovitaurilibus lactentibus esto

"Father Mars, I pray and beseech thee that thou be gracious and merciful to me, my house, and my household; to which intent I have bidden this suovetaurilia to be led around my land, my ground, my farm; that thou keep away, ward off, and remove sickness, seen and unseen, barrenness and destruction, ruin and unseasonable influence; and that thou permit my harvests, my grain, my vineyards, and my plantations to flourish and to come to good issue, preserve in health my shepherds and my flocks, and give good health and strength to me, my house, and my household. To this intent, to the intent of purifying my farm, my land, my ground, and of making an expiation, as I have said, deign to accept the offering of these suckling victims; Father Mars, to the same intent deign to accept the offering of these suckling offering."

The original Latin of this prayer is crudely metrical and incantatory; even in Old Latin, the prayer contains many rhetorical figures such as alliteration and liberal use of merisms and antithesis. It illustrates the sing-song, metrical, and poetic format of polytheistic prayers. Cakes of bread were sacrificed along with the three animals. At the moment the sacrifices were made, the landowner was to say: In literature, meter or metre (sometimes known as prosody) is a term used in the scansion (analysis into metrical patterns) of poetry, usually indicated by the kind of feet and the number of them. ... An incantation is the words spoken during a ritual. ... The Forum inscription is one of the oldest known Latin inscriptions. ... Alliteration is a stylistic device, or literary technique, in which successive words (more strictly, stressed syllables) begin with the same consonant sound or letter. ... In rhetoric, a merism is a figure of speech by which a single thing is referred to by a conventional phrase that enumerates several of its parts, or which lists several synonyms for the same thing. ... Antithesis (Greek for setting opposite, from anti = against and thesis = position) means a direct contrast or exact opposition to something. ... Polytheism is belief in, or worship of, multiple gods or divinities. ...

Eiusque rei ergo macte suovitaurilibus inmolandis esto.

"To this intent deign to accept the offering of these victims."

If favourable omens as a response to the sacrifice were not forthcoming, the landowner was instructed to redo the sacrifice and offer a further prayer: This article is about Omens as divinatory portents. ...

Mars pater, siquid tibi in illisce suovitaurilibus lactentibus neque satisfactum est, te hisce suovitaurilibus piaculo.

"Father Mars, if aught hath not pleased thee in the offering of those sucklings, I make atonement with these victims."

If only one or two of the omens expected after the three sacrifices failed to appear, the landowner was instructed to offer an additional swine, saying:

Mars pater, quod tibi illoc porco neque satisfactum est, te hoc porco piaculo.

"Father Mars, inasmuch as thou wast not pleased by the offering of that pig, I make atonement with this pig."

The nature of the expected omens is unfortunately not given by Cato. The omens, however, were likely determined by the art of haruspicy, the examination of the entrails, and especially the livers, of sacrificed animals for divinatory signs. The bronze sheeps liver of Piacenza, with Etruscan inscriptions A haruspex was a sort of augur in the Roman religion who practiced divination, by inspecting the entrails of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep. ... The liver is an organ in vertebrates, including humans. ... This man in Rhumsiki, Cameroon, tells the future by interpreting the changes in position of various objects as caused by a fresh-water crab through nggàm[1]. Divination is the practice of ascertaining information from supernatural sources. ...

Both public and private suovetaurilias were performed in the Roman religion. Cato describes the ritual performed to purify, or "lustrate", a farm. A private rural suovetaurilia was sacrificed each May on the festival of Ambarvalia, a festival that involved "walking around the fields." Public suovetaurilias were offered at certain state ceremonies, including agricultural festivals, the conclusion of a census, and to atone for any accidental ritual errors. This article is about the month of May. ... Ambarvalia was a Roman agricultural fertility rite held at the end of May in honour of Ceres. ... A census is the process of obtaining information about every member of a population (not necessarily a human population). ...

If a temple were destroyed, the site of the temple must be purified by a suovetaurilia before a new temple could be reconstructed on the site. When the Capitolium was burnt as a result of a struggle for imperial succession in the year 69, a suovetaurilia was performed to reconsecrate the site. A public suovetaurilia was also offered to bless the army before a major military campaign. On Trajan's column, the emperor Trajan is depicted as offering a suovetaurilia to purify the Roman army. The Temple of Hercules Victor, near the Teatro di Marcello in Rome (a Greek-style Roman temple) // Pagan history and architecture Originally in Roman paganism, a templum was not (necessarily) a cultic building but any ritually marked observation site for natural phenomena believed to allow predictions, such as the flight... The Capitoline Triad was comprised of three deities of Roman mythology who were worshipped in an elaborate temple on Romes Capitoline Hill. ... The Roman Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Ancient Roman polity in the centuries following its reorganization under the leadership of Octavian (better known as Caesar Augustus), until its radical reformation in what was later to be known as the Byzantine Empire. ... Centuries: 1st century BC - 1st century - 2nd century Decades: 10s 20s 30s 40s 50s - 60s - 70s 80s 90s 100s 110s Years: 64 65 66 67 68 - 69 - 70 71 72 73 74 Events The Year of the four emperors: After Neros death, Galba, Otho and Vitellius are all Roman... Trajans Column. ... Roman Emperor is the term historians use to refer to rulers of the Roman Empire, after the epoch conventionally named the Roman Republic. ... Emperor Trajan Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus (September 18, 53 – August 9, 117), Roman Emperor (98-117), commonly called Trajan, was the second of the so-called Five Good Emperors of the Roman Empire. ... Soldiers of the Roman Army (on manoeuvres in Nashville, Tennessee) Rome was a militarized state whose history was often closely entwined with its military history over the 1228 years that the Roman state is traditionally said to have existed. ...

External link

• Cato the Elder: On Agriculture (from Lacus Curtius)

Reference

• Watkins, Calvert. How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (Oxford, 2001) ISBN 0195144139