Practicing an Indo-European religion amidst the Modern Age is no easy thing. One seems endlessly caught between the twin considerations of ‘Authenticity’ contrasted with ‘Accessibility’.

The former correlates to the quite righteous desire to ‘do things properly’ (and so they actually work) – customarily by seeking to follow reasonably closely within the foot-tracks of one’s oft-archaically distant religious forebears.

The latter, the eminently empathizable enthusiasm to actually have something which one can practice – this effectively being contingent, of course, upon one’s capacities, resources, and the occasionally unavoidable necessity for getting around ‘gaps’ in the material that has come down to us.

It would be easy to infer that these two priorities are, in essence, antithetical to one another – and that those who seek to facilitate a greater ‘Accessibility’ for the practical side to the religion, are doing so at the direct expense of any seeming-shred as to ‘Authenticity’.

This has certainly been the presumption made by some of the more … vehement respondents whenever the notion of ‘ritual substitution’ has come into the picture. According to whom, the entire concept seems to represent some kind of absolutely ahistorical ‘anathema’ effectively congealed for the express purpose of a sop to the ‘squeamishness’ of ‘moderns’ – implicitly as part of an effort to hollow out or downright ‘Wiccanize’ what remains of the ‘traditional’ religion and its ‘working’ ethos as a whole.

Now let us be clear about this.

I absolutely do not dispute that there are some out there who seek to change religious custom for … little good reason – for aesthetic purposes or personal preferences, and undertaken due to an effective ethos which would see the whole suite as to the relevant religious heritage reduced down to a mere ‘props-closet’ with which to adorn their social media profile.

HOWEVER

i) it is a manifest fact that ‘ritual substitution’ practices were (and, for that matter, are) an attested and functionally viable component to various Indo-European religious spheres – we had detailed a certain suite of this in relation to my own IE faith, Hinduism, in Part One to this series. In short – it is not (necessarily) ‘inauthentic’ – certainly not axiomatically so – to contemplate such a thing.

ii) a key component to varying kinds of ‘substitution’ may be ‘necessity’. Which should not be insistently confused merely for the ‘convenience’ as to the persons undertaking the operations in question.

To take one example for the latter (which shall most certainly have broader cross-applicability for non-Hindus) – some weeks ago we had undertaken a most powerful Vedic Rite of Rudra, which was at once being conducted both in West Bengal and also here in New Zealand in an interlinked suite of proceedings. During the course of preparation for the Operation itself, we had a series of conversations with the head of the very traditional, orthodox Brahmin clan who would be providing most of the priestly manpower for the rite. These communications were, inter alia, for the purposes of ensuring that I had everything at my end to actually do what was necessary for my part to proceedings. And we quite rapidly arrived at the realization that some ‘ritual substitution’ was going to be in order.

Why? Because certain flowers which would be utilized in the Rite either a) did not occur here in New Zealand, or b) would not be in flower here for another few weeks due to the fact that the Southern Hemisphere, of course, has the opposite Season to the Northern (as in – when it is Winter here, it is Summer up there, where I anticipate most of you are reading this from). It does not take a great degree of extrapolation to see how this pair of factors is of significance as a consideration for others – for instance, we have occasionally pondered the logic behind Beltane / Samhain in the Southern Hemisphere holding to the same calendrical affixions as in the North, despite ostensibly the seasonal transitions in question being exactly the opposite way around for these dates; and I am sure that the Hindusphere is not unique in making active use of specific flowers, herbs, or other plants in particular offering-rites and contexts … which may not be so readily attainable in, say, the Americas (or various parts thereof) as they were within the relevant original European contexts for the IE religions in question in their heyday.

This is not simply a matter of geography, either. The ‘changed circumstances’ of contemporary time and place can also complicate the practicing of an Indo-European religion in a manner which renders ‘strict’ adherence to whatever one has conjured out of a given mythopoetic text to prove something of an impracticability. Attempting to carry out a human sacrifice, for example, is generally recognized to be the sort of thing which few would do unless seeking an up-close-and-personal perspective upon the Ásatrú saliency prominent in various Western countries’ prison-systems, for instance – and yes, this shall (perhaps surprisingly) prove rather pertinent in a moment when we come to discuss our actual Roman conceptry for this piece at long last.

As applies the general thrust to this series – we are motivated to write, in part, due to the rather vitriolic occasional spouts of ‘internet backdraft’ which we had encountered or otherwise observed previously when we had pointed out that the Indo-European religion(s) of our (various) ancestors were, in fact, evidently something a bit different (more complex, nuanced, and even – yes – ‘adaptable’, upon occasion … in ‘expression’ rather than ‘essence’) than that visage enshrined to concord with somebody’s personal ‘Pulp-Fantasy’ pastiche as to what the IE religion(s) in question ‘ought’ to look like.

And we are motivated to do this not merely via over-wordy polemic – but via an active exploration and communicative highlighting for some of the archaic customs and authentic religious conceptry thusly entailed.

While certainly of academic or ‘armchair’ intrigue – we also believe it to be an absolutely essential area to engage with if we are to seek to understand the essential metaphysical frameworks which empower and make a proper rite ‘go’.

The alternative is to witness our religion(s) reduced to either a museum-piece (wherein the only place one might observe the proper propitiation of the Gods being actually conducted – is behind dusty glass, as models or mannequins, and ‘frozen-in-time’ rather than living) because of our inability to do things exactly as our forebears had ‘always’ done; or rendered simply a suite of mechanistically repeated actions undertaken ‘because that’s what [we think] our ancestors had always done’ with no regard for operative outcome beyond that.

And that shall just simply not do.

And, with that … perhaps overly extensive pre-amble out of the way … on with the show.

So, ‘Ritual Substitution’, then – and specifically within a Roman context.

Now, some might say that this is a specifically Hindu thing – and we had some guy try and claim earlier that it was evidence, seemingly, of Hinduism being “modern day wokeism” [going back three and a half thousand years, assumedly … we are, it would seem, quite “ahead of the times”, as ever].

However, we can also find attestation for the concept occurring elsewhere within the Indo-European spectra of belief – and quite archaically, too, at that.

Macrobius’ Saturnalia, for instance, provides several examples; with various of these being temporally located back during the mythic age or the time when Rome was still under the monarchy.

To speak of the eponymous Saturnalia, one telling (that of Varro) has the Oracle at Dodona declaring a necessity for the sacrifice of “a tenth to Phoebus [Apollo] and offer heads to Hades and a man to the Father” [I 7 28, Davies translation]; an account corroborated by Dionysus of Halicarnassus’ referencing the testimony of one Lucius Mallius in the former’s Roman Antiquities [I 19 3, Cary translation] – who reportedly had seen “engraved in ancient characters upon one of the tripods standing in the precinct of Zeus” the corresponding declaration that the people in question were “to Phoebus send a tithe, / And heads to Cronus’ son, and send to the sire a man.”

Macrobius goes on to add that in accordance with this, “after having driven out the Sicilian inhabitants, they took possession of the land, dedicating a tenth of the spoil to Apollo, in accordance with the response given by the oracle, and raising a little shrine to Dis and an altar to Saturn, whose festival they named the Saturnalia.

For many years they thought to propitiate Dis with human heads and Saturn with the sacrifice of men, since the oracle had bidden them: “Offer heads to Hades and a man (φῶτα) to the Father.” But later, the story goes, Hercules, returning through Italy with the herds of Geryon, persuaded their descendants to replace these unholy sacrifices with others of good omen, by offering to Dis little masks cleverly fashioned to represent the human face, instead of human heads, and by honouring the altars of Saturn with lighted candles instead of with the blood of a man; for the word φῶτα means “lights” as well as “a man”.”
[I 7 30-32, Davies translation]

He further details “a substituted sacrifice, such as that which you have just mentioned, made in later times at the rites of the Compitalia, when games used to be held at crossroads throughout the city, that is to say, on the restoration of these games by Tarquinius Superbus, in honor of the Lares and of Mania, in accordance with an oracle of Apollo. For that oracle ordained that offering should be made “for heads with heads,” and for some time the ritual required the sacrifice of boys to the goddess Mania, the mother of the Lares, to insure the safety of the family. But after the expulsion of Tarquinius, Junius Brutus, as Consul, determined to change the nature of the sacrificial rite. By his order heads of garlic and poppies were used at the rite, so that the oracle was obeyed, in so far as it had prescribed “heads,” and a criminal and unholy sacrifice was discarded. It also became the practice to avert any peril that threatened a particular family by hanging up woolen images before the door of the house.”
[I 7 34-35, Davies translation]

To this we might add the detail observed in Ovid’s Fasti III, wherein the remarkable second king of Rome (and quite the religious (re-)former), Numa Pompilius, seems to have encountered a not entirely dissimilar situation.

Acting upon the advice of his most mystical wife (properly a Nymph, but with a suite of resonancy that leads us to a certain higher ‘suspicion’ as to Her true nature in comparative Indo-European consideration; certainly, ‘Dea’ is utilized in Her reference – viz. Ovid III 289, for example), Numa proceeded to engage in some rather creative ‘negotiations’ with certain intermediary deities so as to elicit Jupiter to come down ‘In Person’ to be received by the Roman ruler. We shall let Ovid (in the Frazer translation) continue the narrative for us:

“They drew (eliciunt) Thee from the Sky, O Jupiter, whence later generations to this day celebrate Thee by the Name of Elicius.
Sure it is the tops of the Aventine trees did quiver, and the Earth sank down under the weight of Jupiter.
The king’s heart throbbed, the blood shrank from his whole body, and his bristling hair stood stiff.
When he came to himself, “King and Father of the High Gods,” he said, “vouchsafe expiations sure for Thunderbolts, if with pure hands we have touched Thine Offerings, and if for that which now we ask a pious tongue doth pray.”
The God granted his prayer, but hid the truth in sayings dark and tortuous, and alarmed the man by an ambiguous utterance.
“Cut off the head,” said He.
The king answered him, “We will obey. We’ll cut an onion, dug up in my garden.”
The God added, “A man’s.”
“Thou shalt get,” said the other, “his hair.”
The God demanded a life, and Numa answered Him, “A fish’s life.”
The God laughed and said, “See to it that by these things thou dost expiate My Bolts, O man whom none may keep from converse with the Gods! But when to-morrow’s Sun shall have put forth His Full Orb, I will give thee pure pledges of Empire.”
He Spake, and in a loud Peal of Thunder was wafted above the riven Sky, leaving Numa worshipping.
The king returned joyful and told the Quirites of what had passed. They were slow and loth to believe his saying.
“But surely,” said he, “we shall be believed if the event follow my words. Behold, all ye here present, hearken to what to-morrow shall bring forth. When the Sun shall have lifted His Full Orb above the Earth. Jupiter will give sure pledges of Empire.”
They separated full of doubt, and thought it long to await the promised sigh; their belief hung on the coming day.
Soft was the earth with hoar frost spread like dew at morn, when the people gathered at the threshold of their king.
Forth he came and sat him down in their midst upon a throne of maple wood; unnumbered men stood round him silent.”

Now, it almost goes without saying that the above is a rather … bold approach to the whole thing. And perhaps, in that singular occurrence, that was why the whole process unfurled as it did. Because the Sky Father respected the boldness of the man in question – one who was prepared to front up and insist upon things even afore Him.

Or perhaps there is something to the situation at the conclusion as to proceedings – which we shall, once again, dip into the Frazer translation in order to make sense of:

“Scarcely had Phoebus shown a rim above the horizon: their anxious minds with hope and fear did quake.
The king took his stand, and, his head veiled in a snow-white hood, lifted up his hands, hands which the gods already knew so well.
And thus he spoke: “The time has come to receive the promised boon; fulfil Thy Promise, Jupiter.”
Even while he spoke, the Sun had already lifted His full orb above the horizon, and a loud crash rang out from Heaven’s Vault.

Thrice did the God Thunder from a cloudless sky, Thrice did He Hurl His Bolts. Take my word for it: what I say is wonderful but true.
At the zenith the sky began to yawn; the multitude and their leader lifted up their eyes.
Lo, swaying gently in the light breeze, a Shield fell down.
The people sent up a shout that reached the stars.
The king lifted from the ground the gift, but not till he had sacrificed a heifer, which had never submitted her neck to the burden of the yoke, and he called the shield ancile, because it was cut away (recisum) on all sides, and there was no angle that you could mark.”

Now, there are a few things which we may pick up upon in subsequent course about what has just happened – but upon the Eleven Shields and Dancing Priests and Triple Bolt and the role of a certain Smith figure …well, another suite of stories and comparative theology for another time. (We might also refrain – for now – from a detailed examination of certain other of Numa’s religious codifications which are rather germaine to our broader theme and extant considerations, such as the offering to Terminus : which, per Numa, should be a bloodless one (assumedly, no, not smotherings) but which Plutarch observed had since become one involving live animal sacrifice by the time of his writing upon it. A curious case of the opposite tendency to what one might otherwise have apprehended in all of this)

The point, however, is that the ‘gifting cycle’ continues even following Jupiter’s response in Shield-bestowing boon. And yes, yes somebody shall no doubt point out that here, we have a living sacrifice of a heifer conducted. But this does not vitiate my core point – as even though it is a heifer that has been sacrificed … a heifer is not a human. And so, we can fairly argue, I think, a ritual substitution has indeed been undertaken. Even beyond the one aforementioned wherein an Onion, Hair, and Fish are rhetorically proffered in placation in lieu of a man’s head (a situation which, tantalizingly, may have some degree of co-occurrence in the Vedic ritual attestations given at SBr I 2 3 6-8 and Ait. Br. II 8 – and perhaps we might seek to return to examine these in greater depth & illumination alongside one another in the not-too-distant future).

Also, for completeness (or something hopefully veering close enough thereto), here’s an additional saliency from Macrobius’ Saturnalia:

“Epicadus relates that Hercules after killing Geryon drove his herds in triumph through Italy and from a bridge (now known as the Sublican Bridge), which had been built for the occasion, cast into the river a number of human figures equal to the number of the comrades he had chanced to lose on his journey, his object being to ensure that these figures might be carried by the current to the sea and so, as it were, to restore to their ancestral homes the bodies of the dead. This is said to have been the origin of the practice, which has persisted, of including the making of such figures in a religious rite.”
[I 11 47, Davies translation]

Now, to expand a bit upon this … here’s Ovid’s Fasti again (V 649-662):

“The victorious Hercules departed and carried off with Him the kine, the booty He had taken from Erythea.
But His companions refused to go farther: a great part of them had come from Argos, which they abandoned.
On these hills they set their hope and their home; yet were they often touched by the sweet love of their native land, and one of them in dying gave this brief charge:
‘Throw me into the Tiber, that, borne upon his waves, my empty dust may pass to the Inachian shore.’
His heir disliked the charge of sepulture thus laid on him: the dead stranger was buried in Ausonian ground, and an effigy of rushes was thrown into the Tiber in stead of him, that it might return to his Greek home across the waters wide.”
Thus far did Tiber speak, then passed into the dripping cave of living rock: ye nimble waters checked your flow.”
[Frazer translation]

This is quite remarkable – for here, it is not a sacrificial offering, but rather men’s spirits (it should seem) being borne toward the ‘appropriate place’ via such effigy means, and via also commitment to (the) waters. There is some obvious correlate of conceptry to be had here with other Indo-European understandings … in particular, the fairly active utilization of water (in this case, a river) as ‘liminal space’ so as to get something to a realm ‘beyond’. It concords, for obvious reasons, with the Sky-Is-Also-Sea derived Classical notions of being able to ‘sail’ to the Afterlife – the Isles of the Blessed, indeed; or, of course, Hades also being found proximate to a great flowing River. And, most pertinent of all, if we are to discuss ritual substitution – the custom of offerings, weapons and otherwise, into waters so prevalent in Europe in millennia past. As well as, to be sure, the ritual (re-)immersion of Goddess representations that is found in both Hindu and European custom around relevant festival observances so as to send Her back to Her Home.

In essence, even though men’s souls going to another realm are not – in this case, at least – a sacrificial offering, we can nevertheless extract a vitally useful precept from that which has been discussed above. Namely, that ‘ritual substitution’ is not simply something that the ‘thing that’s supposed to go to Gods’ is done with, but also the mechanism of transferal, itself, can be re-congealed in this fashion. That is to say – depositing into the body of water constitutes, itself, a ritual substitution for some other operation and locale. Whether that be actually shipping across the Aegean back to Greece the bodies of the men in question, or perhaps some other vector such as the cremation pyre … well, you see what I mean herein.

But let us return to Macrobius:

“In my opinion, however, a truer account of the origin of this practice is that which, I remember, I recently recalled, namely, that, when the Pelasgians learned, by a happier interpretation of the words, that “heads” meant heads of clay not heads of living men and came to understand that φωτός [‘photos’] meant “of a light” as well as “of a man,” they began to kindle wax tapers in honor of Saturn, in preference to their former ritual, and to carry little masks to the chapel of Dis, which adjoins the altar of Saturn, instead of human heads. Thence arose the traditional custom of sending round wax tapers at the Saturnalia and of making and selling little figures of clay for men to offer to Saturn, on behalf of Dis, as an act of propitiation for themselves and their families.”
[I 11 48-49, Davies translation]

He’s repeating himself, of course – as he duly acknowledges; and so are we. But the point is a simple enough one.

As you can see, the Romans changed from offering the heads of human victims to instead offering clay masks, ‘heads’ of vegetable etc.

Now, at this point, we had some interjections from that which we might charitably call “the cheap seats”. (Because yes, yes I was, in fact, throwing down an occasional fusilade of fire comprised of extended primary-texts-in-translation for Indo-European religions showing ritual substitution to be a thing … on twitter, at that time)

One guy had this to say:

“And look at what happened to Rome. It culture and religion lost to outsiders.”

Another:

“Huh, no wonder Roman civilization fell. #[ ]Dontcuck”

This is rather curious – because, of course, as the Roman texts we have just quoted fairly extensively from make rather abundantly clear … the situations of ritual substitution in question began (depending upon the operation in question) in a pre-historic mythic age prior to Rome’s foundation, when Rome was still under its Monarchy, or shortly after Rome became a Republic “after the expulsion of Tarquinius”.

That is to say – before Rome became a great power … and, indeed, as we have just also seen viz. the remarks from Ovid’s Fasti, with some ritual substitution conceptry rather heavily bound up in part of how (metaphysically speaking) Rome was to become such a great empire in the first place.

Or, in other words – it is a singularly peculiar thing to try and attribute to these ritual substitutions, any late imperial decline for Rome.

Not, of course, that such deft logic had much of an impact upon the Cheap Seats. To quote the reply I got for a more succinct encapsulation of the above from one of those insistent interlocutors aforementioned:

“Cope, sacrifice the animal or die a cuck.”

Charming.

Speaking as to Roman military glory , the following detail given in Livy’s ‘History of Rome’ (VIII 10 11-13) may also prove of some interest. It concerns the baleful ‘Devotio’ rite in which a Roman general, in dire straits, could pledge himself as sacrifice to the Gods and Spirits of the Underworld so as to secure a Roman victory. It is intriguing that a spirit of ‘displacement’ should appear to dominate proceedings here. The Consul, Publius Decius, offers himself along with (to quote the Foster translation) “the legions and auxiliaries of the enemy” [” legiones auxiliaque hostium”], with fairly immediate affect (and yes, yes I Do mean ‘affect’, there … although it’s also a tangible effect, as well) – to again quote the Foster translation:

“He then girded himself with the Gabinian cincture, and vaulting, armed, upon his horse, plunged into the thick of the enemy, a conspicuous object from either army and of an aspect more august than a man’s, as though sent from heaven to expiate all anger of the Gods, and to turn aside destruction from his people and bring it on their adversaries. Thus every terror and dread attended him, and throwing the Latin front into disarray, spread afterwards throughout their entire host. This was most clearly seen in that, wherever he rode, men cowered as though blasted by some baleful star [‘pestifero sidere’]; but when he fell beneath a rain of missiles, from that instant there was no more doubt of the consternation of the Latin cohorts, which everywhere abandoned the field in flight. At the same time the Romans —their spirits relieved of religious fears —pressed on as though the signal had just then for the first time been given, and delivered a fresh attack; for the rorarii were running out between the antepilani and were joining their strength to that of the hastati and the principles, and the triarii, kneeling on the right knee, were waiting till the consul signed to them to rise.”
[VIII 9 10-14, Foster translation]

It reminds one, perhaps, of the situation encountered in the Iliad wherein certain great and empowered heroes are compared to that Baleful Star of Sirius. But more upon this some other time.

Our key points herein are two. First – as Livy puts it, the essential ‘magic’ of the observance is one wherein a force is, seemingly, re-allocated: “to turn aside destruction from his people and bring it on their adversaries”, and perhaps also via propitiation “to expiate all anger of the Gods” [‘ sicut caelo missus piaculum omnis deorum irae’ – piaculum being the rather key word here] .

But second: to quote from Livy, again, per the Foster translation:

“It seems proper to add here that the consul, dictator, or praetor who devotes the legions of the enemy need not devote himself, but may designate any citizen he likes from a regularly enlisted Roman legion [ : ] if the man who has been devoted dies, it is deemed that all is well; if he does not die, then an image of him is buried seven feet or more under ground and a sin —offering is slain; where the image has been buried tither a Roman magistrate may not go up. But if he shall choose to devote himself, as Decius did, if he does not die, he cannot sacrifice either for himself or for the people without sin, whether with a victim or with any other offering he shall choose.”
[VIII 10 11-13, Foster translation]

Or, for additional clarity, the Spillan translation:

“It seems right to add here, that it is lawful for a consul, a dictator, and a prætor, when he devotes the legions of the enemy, to devote not himself particularly, but whatever citizen he may choose out of a Roman legion regularly enrolled: if the person who has been devoted die, the matter is duly performed; if he do not perish, then an image, seven feet high or more, must be buried in the ground, and a victim slain, as an expiation. Where that image shall be buried, there it is not lawful that a Roman magistrate should pass. But if he wish to devote himself, as Decius did, unless he who has devoted himself die, he shall not with propriety perform any act of religion regarding either himself or the public.”

Or, because I rather like it, the Rev. Roberts translation:

“I ought to add here that a consul or Dictator or praetor, when he devotes the legions of the enemy, need not necessarily devote himself but may select any one he chooses out of a legion that has been regularly enrolled. If the man who has been so devoted is killed, all is considered to have been duly performed. If he is not killed, an image of the man, seven feet high at least, must be buried in the earth, and a victim slain as an expiatory sacrifice; on the spot, where such an image has been buried, no Roman magistrate must ever set his foot. If, as in the case of Decius, the commander devotes himself but survives the battle, he can no longer discharge any religious function, either on his own account or on behalf of the State.”

And, to briefly pick up upon something from earlier – that notation for “a sin-offering is slain” / “a victim slain, as an expiation” … the Latin term utilized therein is the aforementioned ” piaculum” (and the verb, the rather violent “caedi” – to cut or hack to pieces); the Walters & Conway iteration of the Latin chooses to present the phrasing as ” piaculum [hostia] caedi” , with the “hostia” you find there, as it should happen, being the root underpinning the modern Christian ‘Host’ of the sacrament in that particular religion (itself … multiple layers of ‘ritual substitution’, one might fairly argue, I think – but that is for another to do at some other point, should they wish to in earnest). We emphasize this due to the nature of the ‘piaculum’ as ‘sin-offering’ – and therefore, the relevant placement within the comparative ritual metaphysics as to why such an offering need be made.

A ‘hostia’, one would usually understand as, perhaps, a sacrificial animal (although no doubt other prospects may be countenanced in this specific context by the suitably gory-minded); and so what we are being told is that should the man who has offered himself up (or, apparently, another Roman soldier … hopefully a volunteer … whom he has offered up in his stead) as a sacrifice not be killed, then another (multi-layer, it would seem) ritual substitution operation may be entered into: one wherein both a very large-scale figure is figuratively ‘sent to the Underworld’ via being literally buried, and a death (of the ‘hostia’ aforementioned) also accompanies it. It is, we may say – a ‘ritual substitution’ for a ‘ritual substitution’. The rectification via ritual substitute post-facto for something not being quite done in the original ritual operation that had sought to substitute the death of one man (of the Roman side – and, assumedly, quite a number as to the enemy) for the deaths and (worse) defeat of Rome at large in the field.

However, this ‘corrective’ substitution should seem to be ‘imperfect’ in its ‘capturing’ or ‘encapsulation’ as to the requisite energies thusly entailed.

Hence, even after the rite has been brought to its ostensible conclusion – that place where the massive effigy has been buried is to be avoided by those who are charged with the sacred metaphysical potency held on behalf of the state: the Magistrates. This is assumedly the case, lest the ‘hungry’ essence of the ‘incompleted’ rite draw in off the Magistrate some measure of his entrusted power (and perhaps also some or even all of the life-force of the magistrate, himself!). Meanwhile, as applies the scenario should the Roman leader acting in the manner of Decius directly (i.e. pledging himself as the sacrifice) not somehow die in the course of the ritual’s proceedings – well, it almost seems that he has metaphysically ‘died’ in some sense in any case; as he no longer is held to have the vital potency to be able to conduct rites either for himself or for the state thereafter. He still lives – yet not fully.

There is, predictably, much more which we could venture in relation to various of the above – yet I think we shall be equally well served by leaving much of it for our future explorations within this field.

The final point – for now – that we would make is that the circumstance we had sought to explore in some depth for the Hindusphere does also seem to have existed amidst the Romans. That being the notion of ‘ritual substitution’ in the case of (living) animal sacrifice with representations made from other materials. Our associate, Gottfried Yann Karlssohn, had directed our attention to a most interesting passage located within the commentary of Maurus Servius Honoratus upon the Aeneid [II 116]:

Therein, he discusses the circumstances pertaining to human sacrifice (quite a theme for us, here, isn’t it?) with initial recourse to Agamemnon’s necessity for propitiating Diana / Artemis (following his killing of one of Her Deer) in order to alleviate pestilence and unfavourable winds so that he might make war upon Troy.

Now, of course, this is a favoured theme for a few rather … diverse tellings pertaining to the event, both ancient and modern. Some present Iphigenia as being sacrificed – and we might make an interesting potential inference as to another layer as to ‘ritual substitution’ going on there. ‘Blood for Blood’ , indeed, with Agamemnon offering up ‘his blood’ [“Agamemnonio sanguine”, per Servius] … except in the form of his daughter rather than himself or from him more directly. However one also hears (c.f. Hyginus Fabulae 98 – which also adds ‘insult’ to ‘injury’ as applies Agamemnon’s impious crimes) of Iphigenia having been specifically singled out for the offering by the seer Calchas as the necessary ‘balancing’ for the previous act … and so, again contingent upon precisely which version of the myth we are running with, the notion as to ‘substitution’ may prove to be less pertinent as applies the style of thing immediately aforementioned.

Hyginus’ account also adds an actual ‘ritual substitution’ therein – carried out by the Goddess Herself, wherein at the point Agamemnon would have sacrificed his daughter, She instead in pity for the innocent human victim, shrouds the girl with an obscuring mist and conjures a doe in her place for the offering [this, too, is broadly in-line with what we find in Servius]; before then proceeding to transport Iphigenia to ‘terram Tauricam’ (the “Tauric land”) to become Her Priestess (‘Sacerdotem fecit’ – more literally ‘She made’ her such ). As a curious point of interest, Pausanias [I 43] also makes mention of an assertion apparently to have been found in Hesiod’s [now-lost] ‘Catalogue of Women’ for Iphigenia to seemingly have been (or, perhaps, ‘become’) Hekate (I shall have to delve more closely into whether ‘γνώμη’ is, indeed, what Jones & Ormerod had sought to translate as ‘[by] the Will of]’ Artemis therein – I somewhat suspect something else might, in truth, have been going on there; not least due to the point which Pausanias himself cites, of Herodotus’ Histories [IV 103] concerning the human-sacrifices to an ‘Iphigenia’ worshipped among the Tauri proximate to Scythia (which produce ‘Heads-on-stakes’ to ward one’s dwelling with – perhaps resonating with the similar custom replaced via masks or heads made of clay per Macrobius amidst the Romans) … but more upon all of this, perhaps, some other time).

Now our interest as applies the commentary of Servius concerns the following passage:

“sed cum postea Romanis sacrorum crudelitas displiceret, quamquam servi immolarentur, ad Laconas est Diana translata, ubi sacrificii consuetudo adulescentum verberibus servatur, qui vocabantur Bomonicae, quia aris superpositi contendebant, qui plura posset verbera sustinere. Orestis vero ossa Aricia Romam translata sunt et condita ante templum Saturni, quod est ante clivum Capitolinum iuxta Concordiae templum. VIRGINE CAESA non vere, sed ut videbatur. et sciendum in sacris simulata pro veris accipi: unde cum de animalibus quae difficile inveniuntur est sacrificandum, de pane vel cera fiunt et pro veris accipiuntur. hinc est etiam illud “sparserat et latices simulatos fontis Averni”. nam et in templo Isidis aqua sparsa de Nilo esse dicebatur.”
[II 116]

We shan’t go through and provide direct translation as to all of that – but suffice to say that the former component begins by noting that the Romans, having become ‘displeased’ [‘displiceret’] with the ‘cruelty’ or ‘severity’ [‘crudelitas’ – interestingly from our familiar PIE *krewh₂-, the ‘cold-blood’ term which also provides Sanskrit ‘Kruram’, etc. … as well as terms for raw, bloody meat etc.] of the sorts of human sacrifice as mentioned earlier in the passage, instead persisted only with “servi immolarentur” … that is to say the sacrificial ‘immolation’ of slaves. So that’s uh … alright then? He then goes on to attribute the well-remarked upon custom of the Bomonica observed amidst the Spartans , wherein young men would be whipped at the altar of Artemis Orthia (a fascinating theonymic we have written at some length upon elsewhere within comparative Indo-European contextuary) , it would seem , to another kind of ‘substitution’ for the much-aforementioned lethally direct form of human sacrifice to the Goddess.

Our main focal, however, is that which he sets out toward the end of his paragraph:

To quote from the Ando translation – “The maiden killed : not truly, but in seeming. Indeed, one should know that in rites the pretend is taken for the true: whence, when it is necessary to sacrifice an animal but they are hard to find, the sacrifice is made from bread or wax and these are accepted in the place of the true.”

Or, phrased more directly – ‘ritual substitution’ is a recognized component in Roman religion (as Ando puts it – “substitutionalism as an essential component of the grammar of ritual at Rome was no doubt true, up to a point.”), in this instance driven via necessity and the unavailability of the formally required specific element. Which is … not as satisfying, it must be said, as that which we are rather accustomed to in various of the Hindu religious materials which we have parsed, wherein we often get rather more of a ‘metaphysical reasoning’ approach to discussing the somewhat related subject : although, of course, this is not a theological treatise that we are quoting from – but rather a literary commentary. So some lack of detailing on that front can, perhaps, be expected. Even if it might be rather useful to be given some greater degree of information as to why these particular substances – bread (‘pane’) and wax (‘cera’) – might be thusly utilized.

Some might also object, upon grounds that Servius is, indeed, neither a theologian nor a man writing at the heyday of Roman religion (his commentary is from the early 5th century AD) … yet it should seem no reason to doubt that in that passage he was making an analogy for his point with relation to Virgil’s text, via the deployment of a familiar religious custom known from Roman religion at the time.

And, as applies said custom itself – well, we know very well that the general concept of a ritual substitution was both represented and regarded as possessing evident metaphysical validity amidst the Romans in earlier times. And considering that the most overt declarations as to its occurrence pertain to those most serious and grave of operations, wherein human sacrifice is otherwise to have been entailed – it should seem most peculiar were the comparatively less rarified undertakings of animal sacrifice to somehow be exempt from the same potentialities. At least, in general terms.

Unfortunately, of course, we lack the correlate sorts of documentation for Roman religion which the Brahmanas (etc.) have so wonderfully represented for the Vedic Hindu. And so we are, via necessity, left pondering certain details as to the metaphysical ‘how’ and ‘why’ – perhaps to never find a directly satisfactory answer except via analogy and some measure of ‘practical undertakings’ to test.

I personally would suspect that there might be serious probative value to be had in contemplating the Vestal ‘Mola salsa’ with relation to all of this. It is, after all, the very ‘essence’ of the Sacrifice – when we encounter that phrasing “servi immolarentur” in Servius, above, the latter term … rendered in English directly as ‘immolate’ yet more aptly as ‘sacrifice(d)’ : this has that very ‘Mola’ (‘[Sacred] Flour’ – ‘Meal’, ‘Milled’) aforementioned at its core. ‘Immolation’, is, quite literally, the placement ‘upon’ (‘In-‘) the offering of this Mola : and, per Horace in his Odes [III 23 13-20], it should appear that in at least some circumstances this itself could prove potentially ‘in essence’ sufficient.

As Horace puts it:

“cervice tinguet: te nihil attinet
temptare multa caede bidentium
parvos coronantem marino
rore deos fragilique myrto.

inmunis aram si tetigit manus,
non sumptuosa blandior hostia,
mollivit aversos Penatis
farre pio et saliente mica.”

Rendered, per the Kline translation:

“there’s no need for you to try and influence
the Gods, with repeated sacrifice of sheep
while you crown Their tiny images
with rosemary, and the brittle myrtle.

If pure hands have touched the altar, even though
they’ve not gratified with lavish sacrifice,
they’ll mollify hostile Penates,
with the sacred corn, and the dancing grain.”

And, in the somewhat more … ‘poetic’ Conington translation:

“No need of butcher’d sheep for you
To make your homely prayers prevail;
Give but your little Gods their due,
The rosemary twined with myrtle frail.
The sprinkled salt, the votive meal,
As soon their favour will regain,
Let but the hand be pure and leal,
As all the pomp of heifers slain.”

We mention this because, of course, the ‘ritual substitution’ rubricae we had beheld within the Vedic suite of comparanda had likewise focused upon the manufacture of an ‘essence’ based ‘alternative’ to animal sacrifice. Which, truthfully speaking, was not an ‘alternative’ – so much as a ‘fundamentals’ approach which sought to offer the essence with symbolic register around it. It certainly seems that the Mola salsa – made by ‘pure hands’ and of the custodians of the Vestal Flame (analogous to our own – Hindu – Altar Fire and Hearth … which, as it should happen, also houses a Goddess Within) – could be much coterminous thereto in certain regard.

In fact, in terms of this notion of ‘ritual fundamentals’ – we are additionally intrigued to note the detailing given by Ovid within his Fasti [I 337-348, and probably several lines further as well] –

“ante, deos homini quod conciliare valeret,
far erat et puri lucida mica salis,
nondum pertulerat lacrimatas cortice murras
acta per aequoreas hospita navis aquas,
tura nec Euphrates nec miserat India costum,
nec fuerant rubri cognita fila croci.

ara dabat fumos herbis contenta Sabinis
et non exiguo laurus adusta sono.
si quis erat, factis prati de flore coronis
qui posset violas addere, dives erat.
hic, qui nunc aperit percussi viscera tauri,
in sacris nullum culter habebat opus.”

Which we won’t translate all of the passage in question … but is, in effect, a declaration of the original situation of the Roman sacrifice having been just such a ‘simple’ offering; with the addition of ‘luxury’ foreign-import items such as incense and Indian kúṣṭha, or the ruddy (rubri) saffron (croci) representing quite the later innovation … and departure from the more rustic (and, perhaps, essentially ‘Roman’) offerings of merely the aforementioned Salted Flour (the Salt being of a ‘Lucida’ characterization). He goes on to elaborate that the Altar (Ara) was quite reasonably content with the burning of Sabine juniper and laurel [the term utilized for the former, ‘Sabinis’, is from a root effectively meaning ‘Self’, ‘Ours’, ‘Our Own’ – ref. , perhaps, ‘Swede’, interestingly enough, and ‘Suebi’, in addition to the obvious ‘Sabine’ of more frequent encountering elsewhere in Latin than as the ‘Savine’ herb aforementioned]; being able to afford to add violets to the floral crowns being the standard for a ‘fancy’ approach to proceedings.

There is something rather charming, I have to say, about all of this – and therefore, quite some resonancy even for us amidst the Modern Age as to this ‘back-to-basics’ style of approach. It is appropriate in its symmetry that that which Ovid asserts as the ‘archaic’ state of affairs be that which we find ourselves at within the far-distant future (from his time, at least); and also that as we are not easily able to properly flesh out (no pun initially intended) the more ‘ornate’ rites of animal (or human) sacrifice, that the ‘essence’ and ‘simple’ approaches are, nonetheless, potentially rather more accessible for us to engage with.

Of course, speaking as to animal sacrifice specifically, the last two lines in the Latin which I have quoted are just exactly that:

“hic, qui nunc aperit percussi viscera tauri,
in sacris nullum culter habebat opus.”

“This [Sacrificial Knife], who now opens thrusting the internal organs of the Bull,
in Sacred Operations the Knife had not Work / a Role”

We do not intend to take that literally and at entirely face value – as living sacrifices should surely have been a most archaic feature of the (Proto-)Indo-European religious milieu.

However, I do think that there may be some slightly refined truth to the matter (especially in light of certain Hellenic etc. evidence that we shall not examine – for now – herein) … insofar as the concept of animal sacrifice may have originally been a much rarer and more specifically contemplated thing, since significantly broadened out within both saliency and scope with the onset of increasing material abundance (or otherwise changed circumstances).

Certainly, it is not hard to see how what was once felt to be the ‘higher’, ‘remarkable’ scales of offering – with time can become the ‘minimum standard’ in the eyes of the more fervent. I have been guilty of this myself in various ways which I shall not elaborate upon here.

But I digress.

Our purpose in penning most of the above was not to seek to present a comprehensive compiling for all the ritual substitution conceptry to be found within the archaic Roman religion. So we haven’t.

Instead, the aim of the game was to actually set forth that such understandings could exist amidst the Romans, and give a few more tangible exemplars in order to demonstrate that as fact.

Why was this (arguably) necessary?

Well, at its simplest, because I rather suspect that when I start fusillading forth as to Hindu ritual-metaphysical understandings … some might suggest that these might be just exactly that – Hindu understandings, entirely endogenous in their articulation and conceptual underpinnings, and of little to no utility for those out there whose intended engagement with the field of ‘Indo-European’ religion is basically just the ‘European’ component (perhaps with occasional added ‘Indra’ characteristics).

Perish the thought.

The fact that the Roman religion, too, possessed evident ‘ritual substitutive’ understandings helps us to show that the Hindusphere was most certainly not alone amidst the IE peoples in being both aware of and making active usage of these precepts. Indeed, there are a number of further exemplars drawn from yet other IE realms as well, which further serve to substantiate the rather pervasive IE engagement as to the concept.

This should not surprise us.

Our archaic ancestors were not stupid. They were practical – and they were also spiritual (with this not being taken in the sense so often modernly (mis-)intended of eschewing organized religion in favour of energy crystals – but rather, with the meaning of their being both metaphysically aware and actively engaged via same), as well as contemplative ; with these three things not proving the incompatible antitheses that some might otherwise depressingly infer them to be.

Hence, when they encountered changed circumstances through the course of their various Völkerwanderungen journeys post- leaving the Urheimat … they adapted to them. And they adapted and innovated rather than choosing to allow the Rites and Religion of their (our) further-back forebears (from said Urheimat, more directly) to wither away into nothing but memories through hidebound non-performance – which is what a strict and inflexible doctrine of, quite literally, ‘Accept No Substitutes’ would have assumedly contributed most strongly to.

This may sound rather utterly unremarkable – and yet, consider this. The fact that we are able, today, to have works such as Woodard’s “Indo-European Sacred Space: Vedic and Roman Cult” … is precisely because there are a whole span of obviously overt and significantly attestable coterminities yet still in evidence between these two Indo-European groups. Not simply in terms of myth or language or human genetics – but rather, as applies actual ritualistic operative elements and contexts themselves. This despite the fact that the physical distance between them represents some six thousand kilometers (or thereabouts) as a straight-line from Rome to India – and a much further distance again if the actual overland routes taken by each people’s IE forebears post their parting company from the Urheimat are taken into consideration.

Yet it is not mere physical distancing which these traditions have had to contend with. There were, perhaps, some two to three millennia between the rough period in which the post-PIE antecedents of both (Vedic / Indo-) Aryas and Romans would have effectively split off from being ‘part of the same people’ in reasonably direct terms. And we also can readily observe that the two descendant-groups had wound up in rather different loka-lized environs – as applies NorthWest India, and (Northern) Italy, respectively. Something which entails engaging with the different realities both climatological (for instance – Italy does not have a Monsoon) and biological (in terms of the native flora & fauna therein to be found) as compared to the places they may have both come from … or, at the very least, (and entirely from our modern post-facto perspective) as compared to each other in the ensuing ritualistic comparanda.

How to account for this rather remarkable fact of persistent religious conceptry … is a matter, I would suggest, of the very principle we have been extolling viz. ‘Ritual Substitution’ in motion.

That is to say – the preservation is NOT due simply to slavish adherence to prior custom and the non-practitioning of such where this aforementioned quite ‘two-dimensional’ approach is rendered impossible via changed local circumstance and consequent lack of ‘customary’ availabilities.

But INSTEAD, it is precisely because the Indo-European religion has prove itself (Herself ?) to be supple rather than brittle – and to have depth (Deepa?), to have a breadth to it rather than the ‘only one way is valid, and if not that then nothing’ as some absolutists would otherwise decree … that we are able to observe that it is such a closely coterminous … well, that it is a religion, with various ‘denominations’ within it, rather than a bunch of only semi-similar and functionally unconnected human constructs aching for the Divine.

This, then, is the nature – the true nature – of a Living Faith. That it grows and develops and that it is capable of doing so in active, vital engagement with the soil it finds itself rooted within. Not remaining as mere fossilized timber to await the future one-day some-day unearthing and consignment to the museum-cabinet’s unseeking, unseen, unseeing drawers.

And as applies the ‘Ritual Substitution’ phrase of conceptry – it is the notion that the essence as to the thing is provably more pertinent to proceedings than the merely exterior ‘expression’; that one can, indeed, therefore undertake such necessary variations as may prove required in order to ensure the coterminity, the continuance as to essence even amidst the variation as to more overtly tangible-material ‘expression’ within which it might otherwise prove housed.

Now lest I be misinterpreted upon these scores – it is absolutely not our intent to seek to suggest that one can just indulge in ‘substitution’ efforts at one’s excessive personal convenience , nor ‘just because’ and in absence of any proper metaphysical understandings nor (ideally) established guidance upon these matters. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Nor, most especially, is it our intent to seek to assert that “it’s all just the same thing, really” as applies the various Indo-European religious spheres in their operative approaches or other associative conceptry. Because – again – that is quite clearly not the case. Even within my native Hindusphere, the Vaidika (Vedic) and Tantrika (Tantric) spheres might make use of the exact same Mantra(s) to hail the exact same Gods, in manners which quite clearly have some ‘shared heritage’ of ritual operation to Each Other … and yet we do not say that these are simply ‘the same thing’, no ‘necessary difference’ and degrees of ‘distinctiveness’ extant between Them. Quite the contrary, in fact ! And with fairly active warnings against haplessly seeking to ‘cross the streams’ with narry a forethought as to the reasoning underpinning some of these differences of approach that ought be acknowledged as intrinsic to each individual expression’s metaphysical viability in the first instance.

Yet two ‘expressions’ need not be exactly identical in order to habour (indeed, be expressing) the same underlying essential ‘essence’.

Similarly – even two things that are the same in terms of their exterior expression, in the absence of the appropriate underlying metaphysics … might not harbour the same essence (or even be capable of doing so) after all.

But that is … a great series of commentaries for another time. Replete with more exemplars from additional Indo-European religious spheres for us to consider. As applies Rome and ritual substitution – for now, at least, we shall not waylay our readers further. Even as we acknowledge that there is more we might have liked to say – most especially in terms of direct side-via-side comparisons for some of the Roman conceptry alongside the Vedic and other broader Indo-European exemplars; and also a most interesting line of inquiry supported from certain Hellenic source-materials which would seem to suggest that at least some of the situations of animal offerings are, themselves, in fact the ‘ritual substitution’ rather than original stance. But, as I say … all of that for another time.

Furthermore, The Gods Must Be Honoured.

—

Part One can be found here:

On Ritual Substitution And Traditional Offerings [Part One: Understandings In Essence]