The jet stone was used for amulets from antiquity to modern times. Legends and beliefs concerning it flourished. It is black and, being similar to amber, could be burned to obtain a smoke used for magical and medical purposes. Some religious ceremonies used it for attracting snakes. It was often confused with other stones, such as aetites and serpentine and even with agate because it was also called antachates.

AbstractEurydice could not come back to this world because Orpheus looked back at her. Persephone had forbidden this, but Orpheus disobeyed. Is there a logic for such a rule? A relief in the Archaeological Museum in Naples shows Orpheus looking at his wife after having removed a veil from her face, and the face of dead persons was a sensible element in ancient funerary art. We find two forms of hiding their face: by veiling it or by depicting the person but not the face, by leaving it unwrought. Euripides and several Roman sarcophagi depict Alcestis with her head veiled after her return to the house of her husband. On the other hand, some funerary busts from the necropolis of Cyrene show deceased women with their face flat and many sarcophagi of the Roman period are completely sculptured except the face of the buried person. The current explanation based on an untimely death cannot explain the large number of such cases; it would have been absurd to wait for the death of the customer before carving his or her portrait. There was a religious rule forbidding the vision of the face of dead persons, but it is impossible to ascertain what kind of people abided by this law and what religious stream forbade this.

The episode of Apollonius among the Indian ascetics, described by Philostratus, testifies to a good knowledge of Buddhist beliefs and customs. The magical bowl producing food and drink automatically is the pivotal element of different well-known accounts concerning Buddha. A Buddhist text, the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, provides us with a series of details also recurring in Philostratus. The magical bowl not only issues liquids as from a spring, but also does not let the liquid overflow and reach the rim. Tantalus should have been interpreted as a Buddhist philanthropic hero in the cultural milieu of the Indo-Greeks. A cup including a little statue of Tantalus who cannot touch the liquid surrounding him has been found in Vinkovci (Croatia). The wondrous cup of Tantalus explains a miracle performed by Septimius Severus in a desert and the mechanics of some spells and amulets for either stopping or producing hemorrhages.

Why did the Romans worship a Persian god? This book presents a new reading of the Mithraic iconography taking into account that the cult had a prophecy. It is likely that the Mithraic reliefs alluded to it and the scenes in the upper panels depict the Golden Age which was the final result of many apocalyptic, prophetic texts including the 4th Eclogue of Virgil. The Avesta, the Vedas, and Herodotus associate Mithras with the morning star and the dawn and this god was the mediator between darkness and light. Additionally, Mithras was a protector of rulers and, similar to Apollo, arbiter and mediator between opposite elements, and saviour of humankind. For these reasons he was ideal to become the god of Augustus and the Roman emperors.

Some Roman rituals with political value ware provided with the power of a curse whose mechanics was similar to that of Greek defixiones . Those who injured a plebeian tribune were consecrated to the gods or to the gods of the dead. The consecratio of a man was sometimes enacted when the blood of a citizen or the tears of a parent were poured. Blood was particularly efficacious in unleashing a curse on the person responsible for something wrong and offensive to the gods and the Roman people.

The title of the Apokolokynthosis includes clues suggesting an identification of Claudius with a fritillus, a box for throwing dice. The fritillus was also deemed the king of Saturnalia while Claudius was also described as a Saturnalicius rex. On the other hand, archaeological evidence allows us to identify the fritilli with terracotta small objects whose form is similar to that of pumpkin flowers. Therefore it seems to be reasonable to recognize a transformation of the emperor into the flower rather than the fruit of pumpkin.

3 0000 100 638 166 Attilio Mastrocinque examines the intriguing link between magic and Gnosticism. There were two main reasons why Christian thinkers identified Gnosticism with magic: the fact that the roots of Gnosticism lay in the Hellenistic Judaism influenced by the Chaldeans and the Magi, and the need felt by orthodox Christians to distinguish themselves from Christian Gnostics by proving that the latter were magICIans.

Questo articolo vorrebbe indagare la natura del personaggio di Lucio Giunio Bruto nelle fasi più antiche della tradizione, conducendo la ricerca attraverso confronti interni alla tradizione romana sull'epoca monarchica, al fine di individuare somiglianze ed opposizioni significative. Non si tratterà di verificare la storicità o l'inconsistenza storica di Bruto il Vecchio, ma di studiarne la tradizione. Ne risulta che Bruto era ritenuto sommamente perspicace nell'intendere il volere degli dei, e dal confronto fra Tarquinio e Bruto quest'ultimo ebbe la meglio grazie alle sue doti mantiche e rituali, e per questo divenne il primo console. Se poi fosse vero che Tarquinio il Superbo fu cacciato da Porsenna, invece che da Bruto, come spesso si è sospettato, allora dovremmo pensare che la tradizione su Bruto interprete degli dei è quella che più anticamente si è imposta a Roma per giustificare la fine della monarchia e la scelta del primo console, indipendentemente dai successi militari e politici di Porsenna.

SummaryThe treatment of the consonant ‘T’ in the names Tharsus and Thartarus and some temporal clauses shows that theHistoria Apollonii regis Tyriwas written by a Phoenician native speaker. Comparisons with both coins and laws issued under Caracalla suggest that this work has been written at Tarsus under this emperor. The author’s major aim was that of maintaining that both the Tyche of the city (Tharsia) and its new founder (Caracalla) were Tyrians. He wanted to argue against the contemporary ambition of his fellow citizens to be Greek.

Summary A mithraeum always has long benches, which were called praesepiae, “places where cattle are fed in a stall” (CIMRM 233). The name is inappropriate for a dining room, which was usually called, instead, triclinium. Mithraeum is the current modern name, whereas the ancients called it spelaeum, antrum, templum. Another important name was Leonteum, which was not a separate cultic place for Leones only, because Porphyry states that the members of a Mithraic community were the Leones and the servants were called Korakes, the Ravens (Porphyr. de abst. 4. 16). The Mithraic menu apparently consisted of meat rather than of vegetables, even though one should take into account the fact that bones are better preserved than vegetables in an archaeological site, and therefore they are often published, whereas vegetal remains had never been investigated by means of chemical analyses. Lions are notoriously carnivorous and the praesepiae had to be filled with meat for the Leones. The initiation of Leones was supposed to be dry and fiery (Tert. Adv. Marcionem I 13), and we are also told that the Mithraic Leones avoided water for their purifications and washed their hands with honey (Porph. De antro 15–16). Moreover, a lion and a snake are often depicted on Mithraic reliefs as going to drink from a crater. It is possible to get some information from those facts about what Leones were used to drinking during their symposia: they were thirsty but their drink could not be water, but eventually, wine was permitted. Iustin. Apol. I 66 speaks of a cup of water, but only to mention some ritual acts during initiations and not during symposia.

On June 16–19, 2015, the Symposium Classicum Peregrinum met in Budapest, Hungary to discuss the topic, “Hera and Juno: The Functions of the Goddesses in Prehistoric and Historic Greece and Rome.” This Symposium was organized by Attilio Mastrocinque (Università di Verona), Patricia A. Johnston (Brandeis University) and László Takács (Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest). It was hosted by the Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest. Our concerns centered on questions concerning the original functions of Hera, and how similar were the functions of this Greek goddess to those of Roman Juno. Although these goddesses have been extensively portrayed as jealous wives (Burkert describes Hera as “the termagant” of Homer1), what was the original function and what was the meaning of her jealousy? How was Hera related to the life of women and men? Did Hera interfere with family life? Hera may have been the first deity to whom the Greeks dedicated an enclosed roofed temple sanctuary, at Samos about 800 BCE. Votive offerings unearthed at Samos show that Hera was not just a local Aegean Greek goddess, for her sanctuary was at the crossroads of trade and cultural exchanges with Armenia, Babylon, Iran, Assyria, and Egypt. The earliest temple at Olympia was dedicated to Hera, to whom two early Doric temples at Paestum were also dedicated, and there were numerous early temples dedicated to her on Delos, Argos, etc. In Roman Religion, Juno’s function is perhaps even more complex and disputed. She had a large number of significant and diverse names and titles, reflecting her var-