Lucus
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In ancient Roman religion, a lucus ([ˈɫ̪uː.kʊs], plural lucī) is a sacred grove.
Lucus was one of four
A saltus usually implied a wilderness area with varied topographical features.A lucus was a cultivated place, more like a wooded park than a forest, and might contain an aedes, a building that housed the image of a god, or other landscaped features that facilitated or gave rise to ritual.[3] It has been conjectured,[4] for instance, that the Lupercal, referred to as a "cave," was a small lucus with an artificial grotto, since archaeology has uncovered no natural cave in the area.
Apuleius records that "when pious travelers happen to pass by a sacred grove (lucus) or a cult place on their way, they are used to make a vow (votum), or a fruit offering, or to sit down for a while."[5]
Etymology
Some ancient sources as well as modern etymologists derive the word "from a letting in of light" (a lucendo); that is, the lucus was the clearing encompassed by trees.[6] The Old High German cognate lôh also means "clearing, holy grove." Lucus appears to have been understood in this sense in early medieval literature; until the 10th century, it is regularly translated into OHG as harug, a word never used for the secular silva.[7] Servius, however, somewhat perversely says that a lucus is so called because non luceat, "it is not illuminated," perhaps implying that a proper sacred grove hosted only legitimate daytime ceremonies and not dubious nocturnal rites that required torchlight.[8]
To clear a clearing
In his book
Whether thou be god or goddess (si deus, si dea) to whom this grove is dedicated, as it is thy right to receive a sacrifice of a pig for the thinning of this sacred grove, and to this intent, whether I or one at my bidding do it, may it be rightly done. To this end, in offering this pig to thee I humbly beg that thou wilt be gracious and merciful to me, to my house and household, and to my children. Wilt thou deign to receive this pig which I offer thee to this end.[10]
The word piaculum is repeated three times in the prayer, emphasizing that the sacrifice of the pig is not a freewill offering, but something owed to the deity by right (ius). The piaculum compensates the deity for a transgression or offense, and differs from a regular sacrifice offered in the hope of procuring favor in return (do ut des).[11]
It is tempting, but misleading, to read
Festival of the grove
The
Sacred groves of the Roman Empire
A lucus might become such a focus of activity that a community grew up around it, as was the case with the Lucus Augusti that is now
- Lucus Angitiae ("Sacred Grove of Angitia"), now Luco dei Marsi, a town in Italy
- Lucus Pisaurensis,[17] the Sacred Grove of Pesaro, Italy; discovered by Annibale degli Abati Olivieri, an 18th-century Italian aristocrat
- Lucus Augusti, the name of multiple sites, such as:
- Lugo, the city in Spain
- Luc-en-Diois, in France
- Lucus Feroniae ("Sacred Grove of Feronia") or Feronia, a now-disappeared city in Etruria, Italy; see Torre di Terracina, Italy
See also
- Fanum
- Lucina (goddess)
- Nemeton
References
- ^ Paul Roche, Lucan: De Bello Civili, Book 1 (Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 296.
- , Religion of the Romans (Polity Press, 2007, originally published in German 2001), p. 275, noting that he finds the distinction "artificial."
- ^ Rüpke, Religion of the Romans, pp. 177–178.
- ^ Rüpke, Religion of the Romans, p. 178.
- ^ Apuleius, Florides 1.1.
- ^ Entry on "Etymology," in The Classical Tradition (Harvard University Press, 2010), p. 343.
- ^ D.H. Green, Language and history in the early Germanic world (Cambridge University Press, 1998, 2000), p. 26.
- ^ Non quod sint ibi lumina causa religionis: Servius, note to Aeneid 1.441; Ken Dowden, European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Routledge, 2000), p. 74.
- ^ William Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People (London, 1922), p. 191.
- Robert E.A. Palmer, The Archaic Community of the Romans (Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 106, connects this ritual to the Lucariaand the clearing of sacred groves in general.
- ^ Cyril Bailey, Phases in the Religion of Ancient Rome (University of California, 1932), p. 91.
- ^ J. Donald Hughes, The Mediterranean: An Environmental History (ABC-Clio, 2005), p. 208.
- ^ Nicole Belayche, "Religious Actors in Daily Life: Practices and Related Beliefs," in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 286.
- ^ Henry David Thoreau, Walden p. 235 in the edition of Bill McKibben (Beacon Press, 1997, 2004).
- ^ Rüpke, Religion of the Romans, p. 189.
- ^ Dowden, European Paganism, p. 105.
- ^ Lucus Pisaurensis: Sacred Grove of Pesaro, Discovered by Annibale degli Abati Olivieri http://www.ilpignocco.it/en/about-us/lucus-pisaurensis/