Lituus (stick)

Coin of the mint master L. Pomponius Molo from the year 97 BC. Chr .: on the lapel a boy holding a goat in front of the sacrifice while Numa Pompilius prepares the sacrifice with a lituus; Obverse: Apollo

Coin of Gaius Cassius Longinus and Lentulus Spinther from 42 BC. Chr .; ritual implements, a jug and a lituus on the lapel; on the obverse the goddess Libertas

A lituus is a curved or spiral-shaped rod, which was an insignia for cultic and political officials among the Etruscans and in early Rome and was usually made of wood or metal.

The lituus originated in the Etruscan- Italian cultural area; its origins are believed to be relatively complex. There were several forms of lituus, one of which probably went back to a native form of the shepherd's staff. However, oriental influences on the lituus can also be proven, the form and use of which was influenced by the crook of the ancient oriental cultures, such as the Hittites or the Mesopotamian empires.

In Rome, the lituus was originally the official insignia of the kings . Later it became a symbol of imperial power and a symbol of the princeps . Even more important, however, is the ritual function of the lituus. The staff was a cult object and insignia of the augurs . They used the lituus to designate the regions of the sky or the templum . The staff is also of great importance from a mythological point of view because, according to legend, Romulus used it to determine the individual regions of the city of Rome. In iconography , the lituus staff is often the symbol for the augurs on works of art and coins. In mathematics, the lituus spiral was named after the stick.

Today's crook as one of the official insignia of a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church also goes back to the lituus.

literature

Commons : Lituus - collection of images, videos and audio files

Franziska Dick: Lituus and Galerus , University of Vienna, Vienna 1973 [dissertation]
Anne Viola Siebert : Lituus [1]. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 7, Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-476-01477-0 , Sp. 365-365.

Web links

The cult instruments. Excerpts from the exhibition of the Union of German Academies of Sciences

Individual evidence

^ Claus Ambos , Ingrid Krauskopf : The Curved Staff in the Ancient Near East as a Predecessor of the Etruscan Lituus. In: Lammert Bouke van der Meer (ed.): Material aspects of Etruscan religion (= Babesch. Supplementary volume 16). Peeters, Leuven 2010, ISBN 978-90-429-2366-9 , pp. 127-153.

[1] Claus Ambos , Ingrid Krauskopf : The Curved Staff in the Ancient Near East as a Predecessor of the Etruscan Lituus. In: Lammert Bouke van der Meer (ed.): Material aspects of Etruscan religion (= Babesch. Supplementary volume 16). Peeters, Leuven 2010, ISBN 978-90-429-2366-9 , pp. 127-153.