Mamuralia
In
The craft of Mamurius
According to legend, Mamurius was commissioned by Numa, second king of Rome, to make eleven shields identical to the sacred ancile that fell from the heavens as a pledge of Rome's destiny to rule the world. The ancile was one of the sacred guarantors of the Roman state (pignora imperii),[2] and the replicas were intended to conceal the identity of the original and so prevent its theft; it was thus a kind of "public secret."[3]
The shields were under the care of Mars' priests the Salii, who used them in their rituals. As payment, Mamurius requested that his name be preserved and remembered in the song sung by the Salii, the Carmen Saliare, as they executed movements with the shields and performed their armed dance.[4] Fragments of this archaic hymn survive, including the invocation of Mamurius.[5] Several sources mention the invocation of the hymn and the story of the smith, but only Lydus describes the ritual as the beating of an old man.
Mamurius was also supposed to have made a
"Mamurius Veturius" became the nickname of Marcus Aurelius Marius Augustus, a former smith or metalworker who was briefly Roman emperor in 269.[9]
Calendar and name
The divine shield is supposed to have fallen from the sky on March 1, the first day of the month Martius, named after the god Mars. In the earliest Roman calendar, which the Romans believed to have been instituted by Romulus, the ten-month year began with Mars' month, and the god himself was thus associated with the agricultural year and the cycle of life and death. The number of ancilia corresponds to the twelve months in the reformed calendar attributed to Numa, and scholars often interpret the Mamuralia as originally a New Year festival, with various explanations as to how it was moved from the beginning of the month to the midpoint.
The Mamuralia is named as such only in calendars and sources dating from the 4th century of the
H.S. Versnel has argued that adjustments made to the calendar over time caused the Mamuralia to be moved from an original place as the last day of the year (the day before the
Because the name Veturius can be explained as related to Latin vetus, veteris, "old," the ritual figure of Mamurius has often been interpreted as a
The
William Warde Fowler, in his 1899 work on Roman festivals, agreed with Mommsen that the story of Mamurius might be "one of those comparatively rare examples of later ritual growing itself out of myth." The name of Mamurius as chanted by the Salii in March may have become attached to the March 14 Equirria, which is omitted from sources that list the Mamuralia.[20]
Ritual
The fullest description of the ritual known as the Mamuralia is given by
The lateness of this account has raised questions about the festival's authenticity or antiquity, since references in
Lydus's understanding of Mamurius may be connected to medieval lore of the
Statua Mamuri
A bronze statue of Mamurius stood near the Temple of Quirinus along the Alta Semita, in Regio VI Alta Semita. It is likely to have been connected with the Curia Saliorum Collinorum, the curia of the Colline Salii, who may have dedicated it.[29]
Clivus Mamurius
"Mamurius Street" appears in medieval records, and took its name from the statue. According to
References
- ^ Michele Renee Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), pp. 124 and 128–129; William Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1908), pp. 44–50.
- ^ Joseph Rykwert, The Idea of a Town: The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World (MIT Press, 1976, 1988), p. 96.
- ^ In the terminology of Michael Taussig, as discussed by Thomas Habinek, The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), p. 10ff.
- ^ The ancient sources for the story of Mamurius include Livy 1.20; Ovid, Fasti 3; Plutarch, Life of Numa 13, Bill Thayer's edition at LacusCurtius.
- ^ See C. M. Zander's 1888 edition, Carminis Saliaris reliquiae, p. 8 online, with notes (in Latin).
- ^ Propertius 4.2; Daniel P. Harmon, "Religion in the Latin Elegists", Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.16.3 (1986), pp. 1960–61.
- ^ W.A. Camps, Propertius: Elegies Book IV (Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 77.
- ^ John F. Hall, "From Tarquins to Caesars: Etruscan Governance at Rome," in Etruscan Italy: Etruscan Influences on the Civilizations of Italy from Antiquity to the Modern Era (Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 179.
- ^ Historia Augusta 2.104. Habinek, The World of Roman Song, p. 25.
- ^ Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 45.
- ^ Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 45.
- ^ Robert Schilling, "Anna Perenna," in Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1992, from the French edition of 1981), p. 112.
- Fastias a "rubbish heap" of "conjectures."
- H.H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 42–43.
- ^ H.S. Versnel, Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion: Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual (Brill, 1993, 1994), vol. 2, pp. 301–304.
- ^ Georges Dumézil, Déesses latines et mythes védiques, Collection Latomus 25 (Brussels, 1956), p. 30.
- ^ Hendrik Wagenvoort, "Characteristic Traits of Ancient Roman Religion," in Pietas: Selected Studies in Roman Religion (Brill, 1980), p. 242.
- Varro, De lingua latina 6.49: "Meminisse, 'to remember,' comes from memoria, 'memory,' since there is once again movement back to that which has stayed in the mind; this may have been derived from manere, 'to remain,' like manimoria. And thus the Salii when they sing 'O Mamurius Veturius' signify a memoria, 'memory'. From the same word comes monere, 'remind,' because he who reminds is just like memory; so are derived monimenta, 'memorials'" (Meminisse a memoria, cum <in> id quod remansit in mente rursus movetur; quae a manendo ut manimoria potest esse dicta. Itaque Salii quod cantant: Mamuri Veturi, significant memoriam veterem. Ab eodem monere, quod is qui monet, proinde sit ac memoria; sic monimenta … ), as translated in Mary Jaeger, Livy's Written Rome (University of Michigan Press, 1997), p. 15.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Numa 13.7. In his edition at LacusCurtius, Bill Thayer notes that the Loeb Classical Library has "Mamertius."
- ^ Fowler, Roman Festivals, pp. 44–49; Lesley Adkins and Roy A Adkins, Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome (Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 283.
- John Lydus, De mensibus 4.36.
- ^ Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 46.
- ^ Pierre Grimal, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology (Blackwell, 1996, originally published 1951 in French), p. 271.
- ^ Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 45.
- ^ Servius, note to Aeneid 7.188, as cited by Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 47.
- ^ Minucius Felix, Octavius 24.3, as cited by Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 47.
- ^ H. Stern, "Note sur deux images du mois de Mars," REL 52 (1974) 70–74.
- ^ Alison Williams, Tricksters and Prankster: Roguery in French and German Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Rodopi, 2000), p. 125.
- ^ Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 370.
- ^ Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 89.