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105-521: In classical Roman religion , a genius loci ( pl. : genii locorum ) was the protective spirit of a place. It was often depicted in religious iconography as a figure holding attributes such as a cornucopia , patera ( libation bowl), or snake . Many Roman altars found throughout the Western Roman Empire were dedicated to a particular genius loci . The Roman imperial cults of the Emperor and

210-448: A patera in his right", which previously has been "erroneously identified as Asclepius ". The numinous spirits of places in Asia are still honored today in city pillar shrines , outdoor spirit houses and indoor household and business shrines . In contemporary usage, genius loci usually refers to a location's distinctive atmosphere or a " spirit of the place " rather than necessarily

315-505: A piaculum before entering their sacred grove with an iron implement, which was forbidden, as well as after. The pig was a common victim for a piaculum . The same divine agencies who caused disease or harm also had the power to avert it, and so might be placated in advance. Divine consideration might be sought to avoid the inconvenient delays of a journey, or encounters with banditry, piracy and shipwreck, with due gratitude to be rendered on safe arrival or return. In times of great crisis,

420-710: A Phenomenology of Architecture . Adaptations of the original concept of the genius loci appear in some modern fantasy works. Tom Bombadil in The Lord of the Rings has been described by Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey as the genius loci of the Old Forest , a wooded land bordering the Shire . In the Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 edition book the Epic Level Handbook , the genius loci

525-421: A broad, inclusive and flexible network of lawful cults. At different times and in different places, the sphere of influence, character and functions of a divine being could expand, overlap with those of others, and be redefined as Roman. Change was embedded within existing traditions. Several versions of a semi-official, structured pantheon were developed during the political, social and religious instability of

630-552: A guardian spirit. An example of contemporary usage might be "Light reveals the genius loci of a place." Alexander Pope made the genius loci an important principle in garden and landscape design with the following lines from Epistle IV, to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington : Consult the Genius of the Place in all; That tells the Waters or to rise, or fall, Or helps th' ambitious Hill

735-712: A high hedge, to deter the seemingly mobile trees from invading Buckland". The forest appears in the video game The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring . In the MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online , a quest to gather lilies for Goldberry at the foot of Old Man Willow is given to the player by Bombadil, who warns that the tree will "sing you right to sleep". Along with the adventure in Crickhollow, Tom Bombadil, and

840-426: A lawful oath ( sacramentum ) and breaking a sworn oath carried much the same penalty: both repudiated the fundamental bonds between the human and divine. A votum or vow was a promise made to a deity, usually an offer of sacrifices or a votive offering in exchange for benefits received. In Latin, the word sacrificium means the performance of an act that renders something sacer , sacred. Sacrifice reinforced

945-399: A long-form poem covering Roman holidays from January to June, Ovid presents a unique look at Roman antiquarian lore, popular customs, and religious practice that is by turns imaginative, entertaining, high-minded, and scurrilous; not a priestly account, despite the speaker's pose as a vates or inspired poet-prophet, but a work of description, imagination and poetic etymology that reflects

1050-446: A pig on behalf of the community. Their supposed underworld relatives, the malicious and vagrant Lemures , might be placated with midnight offerings of black beans and spring water. The most potent offering was animal sacrifice , typically of domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs. Each was the best specimen of its kind, cleansed, clad in sacrificial regalia and garlanded; the horns of oxen might be gilded. Sacrifice sought

1155-449: A priest on behalf of the community. Public religious ritual had to be enacted by specialists and professionals faultlessly; a mistake might require that the action, or even the entire festival, be repeated from the start. The historian Livy reports an occasion when the presiding magistrate at the Latin festival forgot to include the "Roman people" among the list of beneficiaries in his prayer;

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1260-773: A provincial Roman citizen who made the long journey from Bordeaux to Italy to consult the Sibyl at Tibur did not neglect his devotion to his own goddess from home: I wander, never ceasing to pass through the whole world, but I am first and foremost a faithful worshiper of Onuava . I am at the ends of the earth, but the distance cannot tempt me to make my vows to another goddess. Love of the truth brought me to Tibur, but Onuava's favourable powers came with me. Thus, divine mother, far from my home-land, exiled in Italy, I address my vows and prayers to you no less. Roman calendars show roughly forty annual religious festivals. Some lasted several days, others

1365-415: A sacred duty and privilege of office. Additional festivals and games celebrated Imperial accessions and anniversaries. Others, such as the traditional Republican Secular Games to mark a new era ( saeculum ), became imperially funded to maintain traditional values and a common Roman identity. That the spectacles retained something of their sacral aura even in late antiquity is indicated by the admonitions of

1470-459: A series of miraculous events. Romulus and Remus regained their grandfather's throne and set out to build a new city, consulting with the gods through augury , a characteristic religious institution of Rome that is portrayed as existing from earliest times. The brothers quarrel while building the city walls, and Romulus kills Remus, an act that is sometimes seen as sacrificial. Fratricide thus became an integral part of Rome's founding myth. Romulus

1575-524: A single day or less: sacred days ( dies fasti ) outnumbered "non-sacred" days ( dies nefasti ). A comparison of surviving Roman religious calendars suggests that official festivals were organized according to broad seasonal groups that allowed for different local traditions. Some of the most ancient and popular festivals incorporated ludi ("games", such as chariot races and theatrical performances ), with examples including those held at Palestrina in honour of Fortuna Primigenia during Compitalia , and

1680-503: A small altar for incense or libations . It might also display art works looted in war and rededicated to the gods. It is not clear how accessible the interiors of temples were to the general public. The Latin word templum originally referred not to the temple building itself, but to a sacred space surveyed and plotted ritually through augury: "The architecture of the ancient Romans was, from first to last, an art of shaping space around ritual." The Roman architect Vitruvius always uses

1785-418: A temple or shrine, where a ritual object might be stored and brought out for use, or where an offering would be deposited. Sacrifices , chiefly of animals , would take place at an open-air altar within the templum or precinct, often to the side of the steps leading up to the raised portico. The main room (cella) inside a temple housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple was dedicated, and often

1890-407: A white cow); Jupiter a white, castrated ox ( bos mas ) for the annual oath-taking by the consuls . Di superi with strong connections to the earth, such as Mars, Janus, Neptune and various genii – including the Emperor's – were offered fertile victims. After the sacrifice, a banquet was held; in state cults, the images of honoured deities took pride of place on banqueting couches and by means of

1995-404: Is a malign, powerful ooze that mimics the landscape and has no intelligence of its own. It can magically enslave a visitor whose mind affects the genius loci' s behaviour. It is spontaneously generated when a place is undisturbed for a long time. In The Dresden Files , a genius loci is an elemental spirit of a place. The island of Demonreach has a genius loci , also named Demonreach, which

2100-511: Is enhanced by the ominous crowding that herds the hobbits 'eastwards and southwards, into the heart of the forest'", exactly where they do not wish to go. Tolkien wrote that all inhabitants of Ea can be corrupted, and even "trees may 'go bad'". Matthew Dickerson notes in the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that Old Man Willow is a prime example. Tolkien's Old Forest has been compared to "Old England" in John Buchan 's 1931 The Blanket of

2205-419: Is exceptionally detailed. All due care would be taken of the animals. If any died or were stolen before the scheduled sacrifice, they would count as already sacrificed, since they had already been consecrated. Normally, if the gods failed to keep their side of the bargain, the offered sacrifice would be withheld. In the imperial period, sacrifice was withheld following Trajan 's death because the gods had not kept

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2310-514: Is omniscient regarding the island. Wizards can form a spiritual connection with a genius loci and the place it represents. The Rivers of London series of novels by Ben Aaronovitch feature many beings described as genii locorum , primarily those of the River Thames and its tributaries . Religion in ancient Rome Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by

2415-490: The spolia opima , the prime spoils taken in war, in the celebration of the first Roman triumph . Spared a mortal's death, Romulus was mysteriously spirited away and deified. His Sabine successor Numa was pious and peaceable, and credited with numerous political and religious foundations, including the first Roman calendar ; the priesthoods of the Salii , flamines , and Vestals; the cults of Jupiter , Mars, and Quirinus ; and

2520-556: The Barrow-wight and Tom Bombadil himself, first appeared in Tolkien's narrative poem The Adventures of Tom Bombadil , where Old Man Willow trapped Bombadil himself briefly. Willow is portrayed as a sentient and evil willow tree with powers including hypnosis and the ability to move his roots and trunk. Some characters of the story speculate that he may have been related to the Ents , or possibly

2625-571: The First Jewish–Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt . In the wake of the Republic's collapse , state religion had adapted to support the new regime of the emperors . Augustus , the first Roman emperor, justified the novelty of one-man rule with a vast program of religious revivalism and reform. Public vows formerly made for the security of the republic now were directed at the well-being of

2730-635: The Greek Olympians , and promoted a sense that the two cultures had a shared heritage. The impressive, costly, and centralised rites to the deities of the Roman state were vastly outnumbered in everyday life by commonplace religious observances pertaining to an individual's domestic and personal deities, the patron divinities of Rome's various neighbourhoods and communities, and the often idiosyncratic blends of official, unofficial, local and personal cults that characterised lawful Roman religion. In this spirit,

2835-560: The Huorns . However, unlike Ents or Huorns, he is portrayed more like a tree, with roots in the ground, and without the ability to move from place to place. Tom Bombadil had power over Old Man Willow, and checked the evil as much as he could, or was willing. According to Tom Bombadil, at the dawn of time, long before even the Awakening of the Elves , trees were the only inhabitants of vast stretches of

2940-515: The Ludi Romani in honour of Liber . Other festivals may have required only the presence and rites of their priests and acolytes, or particular groups, such as women at the Bona Dea rites. Other public festivals were not required by the calendar, but occasioned by events. The triumph of a Roman general was celebrated as the fulfillment of religious vows , though these tended to be overshadowed by

3045-560: The Palladium , Lares and Penates from Troy to Italy. These objects were believed in historical times to remain in the keeping of the Vestals , Rome's female priesthood. Aeneas, according to classical authors, had been given refuge by King Evander , a Greek exile from Arcadia , to whom were attributed other religious foundations: he established the Ara Maxima , "Greatest Altar", to Hercules at

3150-571: The Second Age . The settlers soon found themselves under threat from the forest. They felt that the trees of the Old Forest were in some manner 'awake', and were hostile. The trees swayed when there was no wind and whispered at night, and they daunted intruding hobbits by tripping them, dropping branches, and driving them deeper into the forest. Deep within the Old Forest was the Withywindle Valley,

3255-562: The Senate 's efforts to restrict the Bacchanals in 186 BC. Because Romans had never been obligated to cultivate one god or one cult only, religious tolerance was not an issue in the sense that it is for monotheistic systems. The monotheistic rigor of Judaism posed difficulties for Roman policy that led at times to compromise and the granting of special exemptions, but sometimes to intractable conflict. For example, religious disputes helped cause

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3360-686: The druids as a positive consequence of the conquest of Gaul and Britain. Despite an empire-wide ban under Hadrian , human sacrifice may have continued covertly in North Africa and elsewhere. The mos maiorum established the dynastic authority and obligations of the citizen- paterfamilias ("the father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate"). He had priestly duties to his lares , domestic penates , ancestral Genius and any other deities with whom he or his family held an interdependent relationship. His own dependents, who included his slaves and freedmen, owed cult to his Genius . Genius

3465-532: The fetial priests. The first "outsider" Etruscan king, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus , founded a Capitoline temple to the triad Jupiter, Juno and Minerva which served as the model for the highest official cult throughout the Roman world. The benevolent, divinely fathered Servius Tullius established the Latin League , its Aventine Temple to Diana , and the Compitalia to mark his social reforms. Servius Tullius

3570-454: The genius loci of the Roman Empire as a whole. Roman examples of these genii can be found, for instance, at the church of St. Giles, Tockenham , Wiltshire, England, where the genius loci is depicted as a relief in the wall of a Norman church built of Roman material. This shows "a youthful and curly-haired Roman Genius worked in high relief, holding a cornucopia in his left hand and

3675-421: The harmonisation of the earthly and divine , so the victim must seem willing to offer its own life on behalf of the community; it must remain calm and be quickly and cleanly dispatched. Sacrifice to deities of the heavens ( di superi , "gods above") was performed in daylight, and under the public gaze. Deities of the upper heavens required white, infertile victims of their own sex: Juno a white heifer (possibly

3780-435: The "Willow" tree and the "Old Man" character had not yet become a single "indivisible being". Instead, Tolkien writes of "how that grey thirsty earth-bound spirit had become imprisoned in the greatest Willow of the [Old] Forest." Flieger writes that in this draft and in the 1943 "Manuscript B", Tolkien links "a tree and a spirit, a 'non-incarnate mind'" which is "imprisoned" in an individual tree. She comments that Tolkien solved

3885-565: The Biblical Fall of Man . The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger has observed that the Old Forest contradicts Tolkien's protective stance for wild nature and his positive views of trees in particular. Indeed, although the Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings had close shaves with the Black Riders , the first real antagonist which they encountered directly is Old Man Willow. She writes also that

3990-727: The Brandybucks, owned a private gate in the Hedge, through which they occasionally dared the threshold of the Old Forest. They also went in to maintain the cleared strip, which was still in existence during the War of the Ring . At least one non-Brandybuck visited the Old Forest: Farmer Maggot . The heir of the Brandybucks during the War of the Ring was Merry Brandybuck : a member of the Fellowship of

4095-655: The Bucklanders cutting and burning of hundreds of trees along the Hedge is not different from the destruction caused by Saruman 's orcs in the woods around Orthanc . She notes further that Old Man Willow first appears as "a predatory tree" in the 1934 poem " The Adventures of Tom Bombadil ", and that the character is developed in The Lord of the Rings , as documented in The Return of the Shadow . In an early draft from 1938, she writes,

4200-488: The Church Fathers that Christians should not take part. The meaning and origin of many archaic festivals baffled even Rome's intellectual elite, but the more obscure they were, the greater the opportunity for reinvention and reinterpretation – a fact lost neither on Augustus in his program of religious reform, which often cloaked autocratic innovation, nor on his only rival as mythmaker of the era, Ovid . In his Fasti ,

4305-544: The Compitalia shrines, were thought a symbolic replacement for child-sacrifice to Mania, as Mother of the Lares . The Junii took credit for its abolition by their ancestor L. Junius Brutus , traditionally Rome's Republican founder and first consul. Political or military executions were sometimes conducted in such a way that they evoked human sacrifice, whether deliberately or in the perception of witnesses; Marcus Marius Gratidianus

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4410-588: The Dark , where the protagonist Peter Bohun disappears in the English Midlands around Evesham . The West Midlands were beloved by Tolkien because the maternal part of his family, the Suffields, were from this area. Tom Shippey has proposed that the Old Forest contains a more fundamental symbolism. Frodo , the central protagonist of The Lord of the Rings , describes the forest as "the shadowed land"; Shippey draws on

4515-561: The Elder declared that "a sacrifice without prayer is thought to be useless and not a proper consultation of the gods." Prayer by itself, however, had independent power. The spoken word was thus the single most potent religious action, and knowledge of the correct verbal formulas the key to efficacy. Accurate naming was vital for tapping into the desired powers of the deity invoked, hence the proliferation of cult epithets among Roman deities. Public prayers ( prex ) were offered loudly and clearly by

4620-647: The Emperor safe for the stipulated period. In Pompeii , the Genius of the living emperor was offered a bull: presumably a standard practise in Imperial cult, though minor offerings (incense and wine) were also made. The exta were the entrails of a sacrificed animal , comprising in Cicero 's enumeration the gall bladder ( fel ), liver ( iecur ), heart ( cor ), and lungs ( pulmones ). The exta were exposed for litatio (divine approval) as part of Roman liturgy, but were "read" in

4725-600: The Late Republican era. Jupiter , the most powerful of all gods and "the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested", consistently personified the divine authority of Rome's highest offices, internal organization and external relations. During the archaic and early Republican eras, he shared his temple , some aspects of cult and several divine characteristics with Mars and Quirinus , who were later replaced by Juno and Minerva . A conceptual tendency toward triads may be indicated by

4830-622: The Ring . He had been into the Old Forest "several times", and had a key to the gate. On Merry's advice, Frodo Baggins (the bearer of the One Ring ) decided to attempt a traversal of the dreadful forest in order to evade the pursuit of Black Riders . Old Man Willow is a malign tree-spirit of great age in Tom Bombadil 's Old Forest, appearing physically as a large willow tree beside the River Withywindle, but spreading his influence throughout

4935-510: The Ring), the Bucklanders found that the Hedge was under "attack" by the forest. Trees began to plant themselves against the Hedge and lean over it. To counter this attack, the hobbits cleared a narrow strip of land on the outside of the Hedge, felling and burning many trees. They cleared a space some way inside the forest; this later became known as the Bonfire Glade . The ruling family of Buckland,

5040-600: The Senate could decree collective public rites, in which Rome's citizens, including women and children, moved in procession from one temple to the next, supplicating the gods. Extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary sacrifice: in one of the many crises of the Second Punic War , Jupiter Capitolinus was promised every animal born that spring (see ver sacrum ), to be rendered after five more years of protection from Hannibal and his allies. The "contract" with Jupiter

5145-504: The Temple of Janus , whose doors stayed open in times of war but in Numa's time remained closed. After Numa's death, the doors to the Temple of Janus were supposed to have remained open until the reign of Augustus. Each of Rome's legendary or semi-legendary kings was associated with one or more religious institutions still known to the later Republic. Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius instituted

5250-506: The afterlife, were a matter of personal choice for an individual, practiced in addition to carrying on one's family rites and participating in public religion. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, conditions that conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of " magic ", conspiratorial ( coniuratio ), or subversive activity. Sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists who seemed to threaten traditional morality and unity, as with

5355-757: The air, till it had under its dominion nearly all the trees of the Forest from the Hedge to the Downs." In the First Age , Tom Bombadil "was here before the river and the trees". In the Spring of Arda , plants emerge, possibly including Old Man Willow. In the Years of the Trees , Elves skirted the forest on their primeval migration to Beleriand and the West ; they were observed by Bombadil. By

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5460-529: The broad humor and burlesque spirit of such venerable festivals as the Saturnalia , Consualia , and feast of Anna Perenna on the Ides of March , where Ovid treats the assassination of the newly deified Julius Caesar as utterly incidental to the festivities among the Roman people. But official calendars preserved from different times and places also show a flexibility in omitting or expanding events, indicating that there

5565-466: The context in which they are located. A priori , archetype , and genius loci are the primary principals of Neo-Rationalism or New Rationalism. Pioneered by the Italian architect Aldo Rossi , Neo-Rationalism developed in the light of a re-evaluation of the work of Giuseppe Terragni and gained momentum through the work of Giorgio Grassi . Characterized by elemental vernacular forms and an adaptation to

5670-465: The context of the disciplina Etrusca . As a product of Roman sacrifice, the exta and blood are reserved for the gods, while the meat (viscera) is shared among human beings in a communal meal. The exta of bovine victims were usually stewed in a pot ( olla or aula ), while those of sheep or pigs were grilled on skewers. When the deity's portion was cooked, it was sprinkled with mola salsa (ritually prepared salted flour) and wine, then placed in

5775-425: The context to suggest that the forest could be an allusion to Death. John Garth writes that the name "Old Forest" seems plain, but is "pregnant" with meaning: "Forest" derives from medieval Latin forestem silvam , "the outside wood", in turn from Latin foris , "out of doors". He glosses this as meaning unfenced woodland, noting that the Old Forest is "very emphatically fenced out by a strip of scorched earth and

5880-542: The deities and cults of other peoples rather than try to eradicate them, since they believed that preserving tradition promoted social stability. One way that Rome incorporated diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within the hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the side-by-side worship of local and Roman deities, including dedications made by Romans to local gods. By

5985-447: The emperor. So-called "emperor worship" expanded on a grand scale the traditional Roman veneration of the ancestral dead and of the Genius , the divine tutelary of every individual. The Imperial cult became one of the major ways in which Rome advertised its presence in the provinces and cultivated shared cultural identity and loyalty throughout the Empire. Rejection of the state religion

6090-480: The existing environment, the Neo-Rationalist style has adherents beyond architecture in the greater world of art. In the context of modern architectural theory, genius loci has profound implications for place-making, falling within the philosophical branch of phenomenology . This field of architectural discourse is explored most notably by the theorist Christian Norberg-Schulz in his book, Genius Loci: Towards

6195-399: The family's domestic deities were offered. Neighbourhood shrines and sacred places such as springs and groves dotted the city. The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances. Women , slaves , and children all participated in a range of religious activities. Some public rituals could be conducted only by women, and women formed what is perhaps Rome's most famous priesthood,

6300-404: The festival had to be started over. Even private prayer by an individual was formulaic, a recitation rather than a personal expression, though selected by the individual for a particular purpose or occasion. Oaths—sworn for the purposes of business, clientage and service, patronage and protection , state office, treaty and loyalty—appealed to the witness and sanction of deities. Refusal to swear

6405-510: The few survivors of the primordial forests which had covered much of Eriador before the Second Age . Indeed, it had once been but the northern edge of one immense forest which reached all the way to Fangorn forest, hundreds of miles to the south-east. The vicinity of the Old Forest was the domain of three nature-spirits: Tom Bombadil , Goldberry , and Old Man Willow . The powers of these beings doubtless contributed to its survival when other forests were destroyed. Old Man Willow, along with

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6510-512: The fire on the altar for the offering; the technical verb for this action was porricere . Human sacrifice in ancient Rome was rare but documented. After the Roman defeat at Cannae two Gauls and two Greeks were buried under the Forum Boarium , in a stone chamber "which had on a previous occasion [228 BC] also been polluted by human victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings". Livy avoids

6615-505: The forest was dominated by " oaks and ashes and other strange trees", which were generally replaced by pines and firs in the north. Beeches and alders were found here and there in the forest, and willows were dominant along the Withywindle. Many of the trees were covered "with moss and slimy, shaggy growths". The understorey was congested with bushes and other undergrowth, including brambles . A variety of plants grew in

6720-428: The forest's occasional glades: grass, hemlocks , wood-parsley , fire-weed , nettles and thistles . In one of his letters, Tolkien explained that "the Old Forest was hostile to two-legged creatures because of the memory of many injuries." When Gorhendad Oldbuck and his clan of Hobbits settled Buckland , they began to encroach upon the Old Forest, thus re-awakening the hostility that had first been aroused back in

6825-560: The forest. He casts a spell on the hobbits , trapping two of them; they are rescued by Tom Bombadil . Bombadil explains that the tree was wholly evil, and had grown to control most of the Old Forest. Tolkien made a drawing of Old Man Willow, from an unpollarded tree by the river in Oxford, to support his writing. The evil tree has puzzled critics, as it does not fit with Tolkien's image as an environmentalist "tree-hugger"; others have noted that trees too are seen by Christians as affected by

6930-452: The form of a holocaust or burnt offering, and there was no shared banquet, as "the living cannot share a meal with the dead". Ceres and other underworld goddesses of fruitfulness were sometimes offered pregnant female animals; Tellus was given a pregnant cow at the Fordicidia festival. Color had a general symbolic value for sacrifices. Demigods and heroes, who belonged to the heavens and

7035-483: The foundation and rise of the city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities but a pervasive sense of divinely ordered destiny. For Rome's earliest period, history and myth are difficult to distinguish. According to mythology, Rome had a semi-divine ancestor in the Trojan refugee Aeneas , son of Venus , who was said to have established the basis of Roman religion when he brought

7140-414: The founding of the Latin League under Servius Tullius. Many temples in the Republican era were built as the fulfillment of a vow made by a general in exchange for a victory: Rome's first known temple to Venus was vowed by the consul Q. Fabius Gurges in the heat of battle against the Samnites , and dedicated in 295 BC. All sacrifices and offerings required an accompanying prayer to be effective. Pliny

7245-399: The gods, especially Jupiter , who embodied just rule. As a result of the Punic Wars (264–146 BC), when Rome struggled to establish itself as a dominant power, many new temples were built by magistrates in fulfillment of a vow to a deity for assuring their military success. As the Romans extended their dominance throughout the Mediterranean world, their policy in general was to absorb

7350-425: The heav'n to scale, Or scoops in circling theatres the Vale, Calls in the Country, catches opening glades, Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades, Now breaks or now directs, th' intending Lines; Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs. Pope's verse laid the foundation for one of the most widely agreed principles of landscape architecture , that landscape designs should always be adapted to

7455-475: The height of the Empire, numerous international deities were cultivated at Rome and had been carried to even the most remote provinces , among them Cybele , Isis , Epona , and gods of solar monism such as Mithras and Sol Invictus , found as far north as Roman Britain . Foreign religions increasingly attracted devotees among Romans, who increasingly had ancestry from elsewhere in the Empire. Imported mystery religions , which offered initiates salvation in

7560-531: The historical period influenced Roman culture , introducing some religious practices that became fundamental, such as the cultus of Apollo . The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks ( interpretatio graeca ), adapting Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature and Roman art , as the Etruscans had. Etruscan religion was also a major influence, particularly on

7665-452: The histories of Rome's leading families , and oral and ritual traditions. According to Cicero, the Romans considered themselves the most religious of all peoples, and their rise to dominance was proof they received divine favor in return. Rome offers no native creation myth , and little mythography to explain the character of its deities, their mutual relationships or their interactions with

7770-403: The hostility of the Old Forest and of Old Man Willow contradicts Tolkien's otherwise protective stance for wild nature. Scholars have discussed the symbolism of the Old Forest, likening it to "Old England", and, given that the protagonist Frodo Baggins calls it "the shadowed land", to Death. The Old Forest lay near the centre of Eriador , a large region of north-west Middle-earth. It was one of

7875-438: The human world, but Roman theology acknowledged that di immortales (immortal gods) ruled all realms of the heavens and earth. There were gods of the upper heavens, gods of the underworld and a myriad of lesser deities between. Some evidently favoured Rome because Rome honoured them, but none were intrinsically, irredeemably foreign or alien. The political, cultural and religious coherence of an emergent Roman super-state required

7980-524: The imperial house developed in part in connection with the sacrifices made by neighborhood associations ( vici ) to the local genius . These 265 local districts had their cult organised around the Lares Compitales (guardian spirits or lares of the crossroads), which the emperor Augustus transformed into Lares Augusti along with the Genius Augusti . The emperor's genius is then regarded as

8085-567: The later agricultural or plebeian triad of Ceres , Liber and Libera , and by some of the complementary threefold deity-groupings of Imperial cult. Other major and minor deities could be single, coupled, or linked retrospectively through myths of divine marriage and sexual adventure. These later Roman pantheistic hierarchies are part literary and mythographic, part philosophical creations, and often Greek in origin. The Hellenization of Latin literature and culture supplied literary and artistic models for reinterpreting Roman deities in light of

8190-408: The people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety ( pietas ) in maintaining good relations with the gods . Their polytheistic religion is known for having honoured many deities . The presence of Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of

8295-460: The political and social significance of the event. During the late Republic, the political elite competed to outdo each other in public display, and the ludi attendant on a triumph were expanded to include gladiator contests. Under the Principate , all such spectacular displays came under Imperial control: the most lavish were subsidised by emperors, and lesser events were provided by magistrates as

8400-431: The powers and attributes of divine beings, and inclined them to render benefits in return (the principle of do ut des ). Offerings to household deities were part of daily life. Lares might be offered spelt wheat and grain-garlands, grapes and first fruits in due season, honey cakes and honeycombs, wine and incense, food that fell to the floor during any family meal, or at their Compitalia festival, honey-cakes and

8505-498: The practice of augury , used by the state to seek the will of the gods. According to legends , most of Rome's religious institutions could be traced to its founders , particularly Numa Pompilius , the Sabine second king of Rome , who negotiated directly with the gods . This archaic religion was the foundation of the mos maiorum , "the way of the ancestors" or simply "tradition", viewed as central to Roman identity. Roman religion

8610-399: The problem of how a spirit might become trapped in this way by turning them into a single being, at once a tree and a malevolent spirit. Old Man Willow is accompanied in the Old Forest, she writes, by "trees" that do what ordinary trees do – "dropping branches, sticking up roots", but which appear to be reacting to the presence of the hobbits, "giving an impression of motivation and intent that

8715-453: The root of all the terrors of the forest; it could be a dark, evil and malevolent place. The Bucklanders therefore planted and maintained a great Hedge (also known as the High Hay ) all the way along Buckland's eastern border, which ran right along the edge of the forest. This had occurred "many generations" before the War of the Ring. However at length (but still "long ago" before the War of

8820-431: The sacrificial fire consumed their proper portion ( exta , the innards). Rome's officials and priests reclined in order of precedence alongside and ate the meat; lesser citizens may have had to provide their own. Chthonic gods such as Dis pater , the di inferi ("gods below"), and the collective shades of the departed ( di Manes ) were given dark, fertile victims in nighttime rituals. Animal sacrifice usually took

8925-607: The site that would become the Forum Boarium , and, so the legend went, he was the first to celebrate the Lupercalia , an archaic festival in February that was celebrated as late as the 5th century of the Christian era. The myth of a Trojan founding with Greek influence was reconciled through an elaborate genealogy (the Latin kings of Alba Longa ) with the well-known legend of Rome's founding by Romulus and Remus . The most common version of

9030-607: The state-supported Vestals , who tended Rome's sacred hearth for centuries, until disbanded under Christian domination. The priesthoods of most state religions were held by members of the elite classes . There was no principle analogous to separation of church and state in ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), the same men who were elected public officials might also serve as augurs and pontiffs . Priests married, raised families, and led politically active lives. Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus before he

9135-585: The time Sauron had been defeated and driven from Eriador, most of its old forests had already been destroyed, leaving remnants such as the Old Forest. (Other vestiges included Woody End in the Shire, Chetwood in Bree-land , and Eryn Vorn in Minhiriath.) The Old Forest was now "hostile to two legged creatures because of the memory of many injuries." The Old Forest was about 1,000 square miles in area (some 2,600 km ). It

9240-407: The twins' story displays several aspects of hero myth. Their mother, Rhea Silvia , had been ordered by her uncle the king to remain a virgin, in order to preserve the throne he had usurped from her father. Through divine intervention, the rightful line was restored when Rhea Silvia was impregnated by the god Mars . She gave birth to twins, who were duly exposed by order of the king but saved through

9345-543: The underworld, were sometimes given black-and-white victims. Robigo (or Robigus ) was given red dogs and libations of red wine at the Robigalia for the protection of crops from blight and red mildew. A sacrifice might be made in thanksgiving or as an expiation of a sacrilege or potential sacrilege ( piaculum ); a piaculum might also be offered as a sort of advance payment; the Arval Brethren , for instance, offered

9450-463: The word templum to refer to this sacred precinct, and the more common Latin words aedes , delubrum , or fanum for a temple or shrine as a building. The ruins of temples are among the most visible monuments of ancient Roman culture. Temple buildings and shrines within the city commemorated significant political settlements in its development: the Aventine Temple of Diana supposedly marked

9555-503: The word "sacrifice" in connection with this bloodless human life-offering; Plutarch does not. The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BC, preparatory to an invasion of Gaul. Its religious dimensions and purpose remain uncertain. In the early stages of the First Punic War (264 BC) the first known Roman gladiatorial munus was held, described as a funeral blood-rite to the manes of a Roman military aristocrat. The gladiator munus

9660-459: The world. Because the Elves awoke far in the East, it was still a considerable time before any other beings spread into the vast primeval forests of western Middle-earth. A handful of trees survived from this time until the present day, who are angered at the encroachment of Elves and Men and their dominion over the earth; trees who bitterly remember a time long ago when they were as Lords of vast regions of

9765-477: The world. Bombadil relates that of the corrupted trees of the Old Forest, "none were more dangerous than the Great Willow; his heart was rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning, and a master of winds, and his song and thought ran through the woods on both sides of the river. His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in

9870-485: Was a gruesome example. Officially, human sacrifice was obnoxious "to the laws of gods and men". The practice was a mark of the barbarians , attributed to Rome's traditional enemies such as the Carthaginians and Gauls. Rome banned it on several occasions under extreme penalty. A law passed in 81 BC characterised human sacrifice as murder committed for magical purposes. Pliny saw the ending of human sacrifice conducted by

9975-508: Was also a 'catchment area' in another sense. The landscape, trees and bushes were aligned so that if any strangers attempted to traverse the forest, then they were funnelled towards the Withywindle, and into the clutches of Old Man Willow in particular. The valley of the Withywindle within the Old Forest was known as the Dingle . The Old Forest was a type of woodland nowadays described as temperate broadleaf and mixed forest . The west and south of

10080-430: Was an augur, saw religion as a source of social order. As the Roman Empire expanded, migrants to the capital brought their local cults , many of which became popular among Italians. Christianity was eventually the most successful of these beliefs, and in 380 became the official state religion . For ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life. Each home had a household shrine at which prayers and libations to

10185-636: Was bordered on the east by the Barrow-downs , a hilly area dotted with ancient burial mounds , where Frodo's party encountered the Barrow-wight . In the north it reached towards the Great East Road, and in the west and south it approached the Brandywine river. The Withywindle , a tributary of the Brandywine, ran through the heart of the forest, which covered most of the Withywindle's drainage basin . This

10290-546: Was credited with several religious institutions. He founded the Consualia festival, inviting the neighbouring Sabines to participate; the ensuing rape of the Sabine women by Romulus's men further embedded both violence and cultural assimilation in Rome's myth of origins. As a successful general, Romulus is also supposed to have founded Rome's first temple to Jupiter Feretrius and offered

10395-421: Was elected consul . The augurs read the will of the gods and supervised the marking of boundaries as a reflection of universal order, thus sanctioning Roman expansionism and foreign wars as a matter of divine destiny. The Roman triumph was at its core a religious procession in which the victorious general displayed his piety and his willingness to serve the public good by dedicating a portion of his spoils to

10500-434: Was murdered and succeeded by the arrogant Tarquinius Superbus , whose expulsion marked the end of Roman kingship and the beginning of the Roman republic, governed by elected magistrates . Roman historians regarded the essentials of Republican religion as complete by the end of Numa's reign, and confirmed as right and lawful by the Senate and people of Rome : the sacred topography of the city , its monuments and temples,

10605-522: Was never explicitly acknowledged as a human sacrifice, probably because death was not its inevitable outcome or purpose. Even so, the gladiators swore their lives to the gods, and the combat was dedicated as an offering to the Di Manes or the revered souls of deceased human beings. The event was therefore a sacrificium in the strict sense of the term, and Christian writers later condemned it as human sacrifice. The small woollen dolls called Maniae , hung on

10710-457: Was no single static and authoritative calendar of required observances. In the later Empire under Christian rule, the new Christian festivals were incorporated into the existing framework of the Roman calendar, alongside at least some of the traditional festivals. Public religious ceremonies of the official Roman religion took place outdoors, and not within the temple building. Some ceremonies were processions that started at, visited, or ended with

10815-416: Was practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des , "I give that you might give". Religion depended on knowledge and the correct practice of prayer, rite, and sacrifice, not on faith or dogma, although Latin literature preserves learned speculation on the nature of the divine and its relation to human affairs. Even the most skeptical among Rome's intellectual elite such as Cicero , who

10920-459: Was tantamount to treason. This was the context for Rome's conflict with Christianity , which Romans variously regarded as a form of atheism and novel superstitio , while Christians considered Roman religion to be paganism . Ultimately, Roman polytheism was brought to an end with the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the empire. The Roman mythological tradition is particularly rich in historical myths, or legends , concerning

11025-447: Was the essential spirit and generative power – depicted as a serpent or as a perennial youth, often winged – within an individual and their clan ( gens (pl. gentes ). A paterfamilias could confer his name, a measure of his genius and a role in his household rites, obligations and honours upon those he fathered or adopted. His freed slaves owed him similar obligations. Old Forest The scholar Verlyn Flieger has observed that

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