Pompa

Pompa (Latin, from Greek πομπή Pompe "escort, escort") was in Roman antiquity a pageant ( procession ) on feast days to play, funerals and triumphs , with statues of the gods on support frames or processional or gods wagon in a solemn procession were led around. In contrast to the Greek parades, a Roman pompa never involved the whole people, only special groups.

A distinction is made between several pompae:

Pompa circensis

With a pompa especially were circus games ( ludi circuses ) and theatrical performances ( ludi scaenici ) initiated. The pageant started at the Capitol , because there were carrying frames ( fercula, Pl. Ferculae f.), Processional floats or chariots ( tensa, pl. Tensae f.), As well as images of gods ( imagines ) and god attributes ( exuviae ) . The train then passed through the Roman Forum and Velabrum, through the central main gate of the Circus Maximus , then along the entire racetrack around the target pillars. The audience greeted the pompa with standing up, clapping and applause.

In addition, the sons of the noblest families who were still before puberty, provided they came from the equestrian order , moved in on horses, while the others, who were about to do military service with the foot soldiers ( pedestres ), followed on foot. Those were divided into wings ( alae ) and centuriae ( centuriae ), these into divisions ( classes ) and suborders ( ordines ). This was followed by the drivers of the carts and the individual horses, followed by the athletes who only wore a loincloth, then dancers dressed in red tunics and armed with swords and short spears (children and young people, but also men who also wore helmets) came. , then choirs, hornblowers, lyricists, plus dancers disguised as silenas in goat skins, who aped the preceding dancers to the amusement of the audience. These were followed by the actual sacrificial procession, first of all servants who carried silver and gold censer as well as public offerings. The conclusion was made by the images of gods carried on human shoulders; the attributes ( exuviae ) of the gods were driven on beautifully decorated, precious wagons that pulled mules, horses or elephants. Imperial images were also added during the imperial era . The end was formed by numerous priests and the magistrate who had to host the games, dressed like a triumphant with the toga palmata , the ivory scepter with the eagle in hand and a large oak wreath held by a public slave over his head, followed by a large one Crowd of friends and clients. Emperor Augustus allowed himself to be carried in a litter on the train several times. At the end of this procession, the idols were placed on the spina and the consuls and priests performed the ordinances.

Pompa funebris

The Greek writer Polybios († around 120 BC ) reports about a Roman funeral procession ( pompa funebris ) in his Ἱστορίαι ( Historiai ): At the funeral of distinguished Romans, musicians led the procession, followed by mourners , dancers, buffoons and other actors (Mimes), then the freed persons ( liberti ), to whom the deceased had given freedom in the will. The conclusion were actors who wax masks of famous ancestors ( imagines maiorum ) also contributed, clothing and insignia of those offices and honors, who held them dead, or about the toga praetexta the Senators or the Quadriga of the triumphant including the corresponding Lictors . The end of a pompa funebris was the dead person, who was rarely carried sitting on a display bed for reasons of visibility, followed by family members and friends. The procession led to the Rostra in the Roman Forum , where the eldest son of the deceased or some other close relative gave the funeral oration in which he presented the death as a loss for the entire people and highlighted the achievements of his famous ancestors. The pompa funebris with the defilation of the ancestors was one of the most important forms of representation of the individual families of the Roman nobility , which could demonstrate their age and prestige and at the same time make a recommendation for young, aspiring family members. At the same time, the viewers were sworn to the mos maiorum as an example through the heroic achievements that the deceased who accompanied them had performed for the res publica . With the introduction of the monarchy by Augustus, this form of proud self-expression of the Senate aristocracy gradually came to an end. The pompa funebris was now reserved for members of the imperial family. The last funeral procession in traditional Republican form took place in the year 22, when Iunia Tertia , the widow of the Caesar murderer Gaius Cassius Longinus, was buried . The masks of twenty famous families were carried in their pompa .

Pompa theatri

Theatrical performances ( ludi scaenici ), like the circus games ( ludi circenses ), were introduced with a pompa .

Pompa gladiatorum

The pompa gladiatorum is a parade of gladiators at the beginning of a ludus . Newly recruited gladiators obviously had to run a kind of gauntlet.

Pompa diaboli

Christian authors viewed the pompa as a massive representation of evil. Against the horizon of a fundamental moral skepticism towards the ancient theater culture, they criticized above all the unmistakable connection of the pompa with the deifying emperor worship and with the pagan polytheistic cult of gods, in which the lascivious, morally endangering Venus appeared as the main goddess in the pompa in particular (the theater was regarded as templum Veneris [Temple of Venus]). That is why it was part of the early Christian baptismal vow to "renounce the devil, the devil's entourage and his angels" ( diabolo et pompae et angelis eius renuntiare ).

literature

Franz Bömer : Pompa 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XXI, Stuttgart 1893ff., Sp. 1878-1993.
Ludwig Friedländer : Representations from the moral history of Rome in the time from Augustus to the exit of the Antonine. 10th edition, provided by Georg Wissowa . Leipzig 1922-24, Vol. II (1922), pp. 44f. ( pompa circensis : circus procession), p. 72f. ( pompa gladiatorum : parade of gladiators)
Helmut Gugel : Pompa. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 4, Stuttgart 1972, Sp. 1017-1019.
John Arthur Hanson: Roman Theater-Temples (Princeton Monograph in Arts and Archeology 33). Princeton, NJ 1959, especially pp. 81-87.
Heiko Juergens: Pompa diaboli. The Latin Church Fathers and the Ancient Theater ( Tübingen Contributions to Classical Studies 46). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1972 (IL, 336 pp.), There especially pp. 1 and 216f.
Jacob A. Latham: Performance, Memory, and Processions in Ancient Rome. The pompa circensis from the Late Republic to Late Antiquity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2016, ISBN 978-1-107-13071-5 .
Henri Le Bonniec: Pompa funebris. In: Lexicon of the Old World . Artemis, Zurich 1965, col. 2402.
Andreas Merkt: Procession. III. Christianity. In: Der Neue Pauly 10 (2001), Col. 479-481.
Simon RF Price: Procession. I. definition; II. Greco-Roman antiquity. In: Der Neue Pauly 10 (2001), Col. 477-479.
Lily Ross Taylor : The 'sellisternium' and the theatrical 'pompa'. In: Classical Philology 30 (1935), pp. 122-130.
Jörg Rüpke : The religion of the Romans. An introduction. CH Beck, Munich 2001, especially pp. 92-106.
Tilo Werner: Pageant . In: Gert Ueding (ed.): Historical dictionary of rhetoric . Darmstadt: WBG 1992ff., Vol. 10 (2011), Col. 305-318.
Georg Wissowa : Religion and Cult of the Romans (Handbook of Classical Classical Studies IV, 5). 2., revised. Edition CH Beck, Munich 1912 (unchanged. Reprint. 1971), there especially p. 452, note 4.
Gerhard Zinserling : Attic grave luxury laws and Roman pompa Funebris , Helikon 31/32 (1991/92) page 407-414.

supporting documents

^ Suetonius, Jul. 75
↑ Ovid, Amores III, 11, 43
↑ Ambrose, In Psalmos 43, 55, 3f .; Codex Theodosianus XV, 4, 1, 1 on this Gothofredus , ad loc., Esp.V, 392b
↑ A more detailed description can be found in Dionysius of Halicarnassus (taught 30–8 BC in Rome), Antiquitates Romanae VII, 72, in Apuleius, Metamorphoses XI, 8-11. 16-17 and in Tertullian , De spectaculis X, 2 (cf. also ders., Ad nationes I, 10, 29)
↑ Polybios, Historiai 6, 53.1-54.3
↑ Götz Lahusen , Roman portraits. Client - Functions - Locations , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2010, pp. 206–210.
Tacitus, Annals 3.76