Sacramentum
In ancient Rome , the sacramentum was an oath made by the oathers sacer (dedicated to the gods), meaning that the gods would take revenge on the oath breaker. The sacramentum differed from the iusiurandum by its religious component . B. oath taken in court.
From the word sacramentum , the word " sacrament " , used in Christian theology, arose for an act that should clarify God's work. The use of the word by Apuleius as a designation for a religious initiation indicates this change in meaning .
Sacramentum as a pledge
Also sacramentum was one thing that was deposited as sacred pledge and was lost when the oath was broken. The lawsuit of the sacramentum legis actio provided that both parties to a legal dispute had to deposit a sum of money as sacramentum and had to swear that they would pursue the dispute in good faith. The later loser of the legal dispute was therefore considered to be an oath breaker and had to give up the money deposited as an atonement ( piaculum ), while the winner received his money back. The sacramentum lost in this way was usually used by the state to finance public ritual acts ( sacra publica ).
Sacramentum as oath of allegiance
The oath of the Roman legionaries was called sacramentum militare (also militum or militiae ) . Livy shares an important step in the development of the oath among the Romans in his description of the Second Punic War . New troops were raised in Italy before the Battle of Cannae . Up to this point in time, “the soldiers had sworn to each other voluntarily, that is, as a private promise, loyalty and brotherhood in arms: They would come on the orders of the consuls and not leave without orders; when they entered a decuria or centurie (that is, a cavalry of 10 or an infantry troop of 100 men), then the groups of ten horsemen and the hundreds of infantrymen swore voluntarily among themselves that, in order to flee or out of fear, they would not go away or leave the line-up, except to take a weapon, fight, attack the enemy or save a buddy. ”But then something new happened:“ This was carried over to the tribunes by a voluntary mutual agreement as a legal oath. ”The From now on new troops were officially sworn in by their superiors.
The oath had to be taken individually when starting work and was renewed jointly at the beginning of the year in a solemn ceremony. During this ceremony, which included both religious and political aspects, the signa were shown. Soldiers who kept the commemoration of the oath in a cult-like setting were called cultores sacramenti . In this way the oath of the ensign was given the status of a protective spirit, the genius sacramenti . An altar is known from the province of Syria, which veterans erected to this guardian spirit. From the 3rd century onwards, the sacred aspect got significantly more weight than at the beginning of the imperial era.
The text of the oath has been handed down to Vegetius :
- Iurant autem milites omnia se strenue facturos quae praeceperit imperator, numquam deserturos militiam nec mortem recusaturos pro Romana republica !
- (Translation: "But the soldiers swear that they will resolutely carry out everything that the emperor will command, that they will never leave the service and will not shy away from death for the Roman state").
With the renewal of the oath on Emperor Galba , there was a rebellion of the legions stationed in Germania on January 1st, 69 . These events culminated in the acclamation of Vitellius as emperor.
When they were released, the soldiers were released from their oath of service ( solutio sacramentum ). The soldiers were dismissed in a solemn ceremony, possibly in the presence of the emperor himself or the respective provincial governor; the solutio sacramentum always required the emperor's approval in principle.
literature
- Kurt Latte : Roman religious history. Beck, Munich 1960. 2nd unaltered edition 1976, ISBN 3406013740 ( Handbuch der Altertumswwissenschaft . 5th section, 4th part).
- Yann Le Bohec: The Roman Army. Steiner, Stuttgart 1993. New edition Nikol, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-86820-022-5 , pp. 277f.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jörg Rüpke , Domi Militiae: The religious construction of the war in Rome (Franz Steiner, 1990), pp. 76–80.
- ↑ Arnaldo Momigliano , Quinto contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico (Storia e letteratura, 1975), Vol. 2, pp. 975-977; Luca Grillo, The Art of Caesar's Bellum Civile: Literature, Ideology, and Community (Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 60.
- ↑ Apuleius , Metamorphoses 11.15.5; Robert Schilling, "The Decline and Survival of Roman Religion," in Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1992, from the French edition of 1981)
- ↑ D. Briquel "Sur les aspects militaires du dieu ombrien Fisus Sancius" in Revue de l 'histoire des religions , November 2012, pp. 150–151; JAC Thomas A Textbook of Roman law Amsterdam 1976, pp. 74 and 105.
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita 22:38
- ↑ quod nunquam antea factum erat (38.2)
- ^ AE 1960, 8 .
- ↑ Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte , p. 332.
- ↑ Le Bohec, The Roman Army , p. 277.
- ↑ Vegetius 2:15.
- ↑ Michael Alexander Speidel : Honesta Missio. On discharge certificates and related texts. , Special print from: MA Speidel, Heer und Herrschaft im Römischen Reich der Hohen Kaiserzeit, Stuttgart 2009, pp. 317–346, here pp. 330–332 ( online ).