The Roman Evocatio

Abstract

Die evocatio deorum war jener Ritus, mit dem die Römer die Schutzgottheit der eingeschlossenen feindlichen Stadt baten, auf ihre Seite überzutreten. Danach erhielt die Gottheit gemäß des durch Macrobius überlieferten votum im carmen evocationis einen Tempel und einen Kultus in Rom. Das carmen wurde von Priestern vorgetragen und enthielt die Präventivformel „sive deus sive dea“.

In der evocatio spielte die Kultstatue, durch welche der Gott seinen Willen mitteilte, eine sehr wichtige Rolle. Der Ritus gehört zu dem Problemkreis der Übertragung neuer Kulte nach Rom, in dem oft auch kulturelle und politische Faktoren eine Rolle spielen. Die evocatio steht in einer engen Beziehung mit der interpretatio Romana und ist nicht, wie häufig geschehen, mit der exauguratio zu verwechseln.

Belege für die Praktizierung der evocatio finden sich seit 396 v. Chr. (Eroberung von Veii) bis 75 v. Chr. (Eroberung von Isaura Vetus) und stehen fast immer im Zusammenhang mit kriegerischen Handlungen. Die eroberte Stadt konnte, nachdem sie von ihrer Schutzgottheit verlassen wurde, auch eine exsecratio erleiden. [1]

With the term evocatio we usually mean the rite [2] by which, shortly before the last attack on the besieged city, the Romans asked its tutelary deity to take her favour away from those whom she had granted it until then in order to give it to them. The fundamental reasons for this practice were: the search for the support of the city’s deity, without whose agreement conquering the city would have become extremely difficult, if not impossible [3]; the need to avoid a sacrilege; the effect of motivating the army, giving it the certainty of the success [4]; the appropriation of the essential nucleus of the enemy city, the one by which the city could have been renewed, using it to increase the divine presence in Rome and therefore its own power. This, of course, together with the more specific political purposes. After the city’s capture, the deity usually received a cult and/or a temple in Rome, where the cult statue was moved.

The evocationes that we know through literary or epigraphic evidence can be referred exclusively to the war context and to a period of time which goes from the fourth to the first century BC, that is from the evocatio of Iuno Regina from Veii (396 BC) to the one of the tutelary deity of Isaura Vetus (75 BC circa).

Through the centuries, thanks to the progressive enlargement of its borders, Rome came into contact with a large number of deities. Anyway, only a little part of them was officially recognized; the final decision was up to the Senate: ne quis templum aramve iniussu Senatus dedicaret [5].

The limits concerning the acceptance of foreign gods in Rome are clearly stated by Festus: «Foreign cults are the ones called, who either have been transferred after an evocation of the deities during the siege of cities, or have been fetched in times of peace because of certain religious reasons, like the Magna Mater from Phrygia, Ceres from Greece, Aesculapius from Epidauros: and these [cults] are celebrated in the same way by those whom they have been taken from» [6]. The expression peregrina sacra (in its turn a subgroup of the sacra publica) applies then to a precise category of foreign gods, which Festus divides into two groups according to the context in which the transfer has taken place: martial, through an evocatio, or pacific, ob quasdam religiones.

The evoked gods, although recognized in Rome as official deities, remained separated from the other foreign deities: only them, as regards Italy, were classified as peregrina sacra of the captured enemy cities. The cults of the cities conquered without an evocatio could remain on the spot [7], or, if carried to Rome, they were sometimes subject matter only of a private cult [8]. The evoked deities instead were usually moved to Rome [9] where they obtained, according to the solemn votum present in the carmen evocationis, a public cult and a temple, but outside the pomerium [10]. An alternative might be a cult in the temple of the deity which the evoked one had been assimilated to [11]. This doesn’t mean, however, that the cult of the deity disappeared from the place of origin or that the cult statues were all brought to Rome [12].

Festus doesn’t tell in which way this cult was bestowed. With regard to this, Plinius says only that the Romans with the evocatio promised the tutelary deities the same or a greater cult in Rome [13]. On the contrary, we know enough about the quae coluntur eorum more, a quibus sunt accepta of the other group: Valerius Maximus states, for example, that the Romans called from Elea a priestess of Ceres, even if that city wasn’t a civitas foederata yet, to worship the goddess in accordance with the original Greek rites [14]. However, it is sure that the cult lost in Rome, more or less substantially, its former features, and, moreover, the carmen wasn’t specific about this: the definition of the cult in Rome was decided anyway by the college of pontiffs; in addition, the evoked deities lost the importance they had in their place of origin [15].

Apart from Festus, there are a few other authors who mention the evocatio deorum. Anyhow, it doesn’t seem very far from the truth the theory according to which exactly its frequence and “banality” are the causes of its scarce evidence: it could have been mentioned only in famous cases like those of Veii and Carthago and understood in all the others [16].

Plinius speaks, basing himself on Verrius Flaccus, about a rite which takes place on the occasion of sieges, officiated by priests and addressed to the god under whose protection the city stands, god whom a cult is vowed to, more magnificent than that of his place of origin [17]. It is important to notice that in Plinius’ times (first century AD), this sacrum was still alive and operative in the disciplina pontificalis and, the other side of the coin, it was still kept carefully secret the figure of Rome’s tutelary deity in order to avoid suffering an evocatio from the enemy.

• [1] This article is a resume of: G. Ferri, L’evocatio romana – i problemi, in Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 72 (n. s. XXX, 2), 2006, pp. 205-244.
  [2] Wissowa 1912, 383-384; cf. Rüpke 1990, 155.
  [3] Rüpke 1990, 162.
  [4] Van Doren 1954, 495.
  [5] Liv. IX 46; cf. Tert. Apol. 5; L. Preller, Römische Mythologie, New York, 1978, 138.
  [6] Fest. 268 L. Festus’ source is probably Verrius Flaccus’ De verborum significatu: cf. G. Rohde, Die Kultsatzungen der römischen Pontifices, RGVV XXV (1936), 22.
  [7] Always, for Bouché-Leclercq (1926, 573).
  [8] Arnob. III 38.
  [9] Always, for Van Doren (1954, 490).
  [10] Bouché-Leclercq 1926, 573.
  [11] Le Gall 1976, 523.
  [12] Blomart 1997, 103. Cf. Tac. Ann. III 71, 1; Fest. 146 L; Wissowa 1912, 48 and 520; M. Humbert, Municipium et civitas sine suffragio. L’organisation de la conquête jusq’à la guerre sociale, Paris 1978, 307.
  [13] N. H. XXVIII 18.
  [14] Val. Max. I 1, 1; Cic. Pro Balbo 55.
  [15] Rüpke 1990, 163. Cf. Min. Fel. 25, 6 f.; J. B. Carter, Die Etrusker und die römische Religion, in Röm. Mitt. 1910, 74.
  [16] Cf. Le Gall 1976, 524.
  [17] Plin. N. H. XXVIII 18.