Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part One THE WORLD OF BELIEF
- Chapter 1 The use and value of Greek legal documents
- Chapter 2 Roman perceptions of Roman tablets: aspects and associations
- Chapter 3 The Roman tablet: style and language
- Chapter 4 Recitation from tablets
- Chapter 5 Tablets and efficacy
- Part Two THE EVOLUTION OF PRACTICE
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Chapter 5 - Tablets and efficacy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part One THE WORLD OF BELIEF
- Chapter 1 The use and value of Greek legal documents
- Chapter 2 Roman perceptions of Roman tablets: aspects and associations
- Chapter 3 The Roman tablet: style and language
- Chapter 4 Recitation from tablets
- Chapter 5 Tablets and efficacy
- Part Two THE EVOLUTION OF PRACTICE
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
Recitation from tablets was a distinctive and authoritative form of reading, as tablets themselves were a distinctive and authoritative form of writing. As was clear from the descriptions of prayers and curses, the contexts of recitation could be very distinctive too – complex, detailed, and ceremonial. Such was also true of a number of different acts not yet examined in detail, like the taking of the census, or the making of treaties, laws, and vows and dedications. All of these intricate ceremonial acts, interesting in themselves and for the way tablets are recited in them, also point to the most important aspect of tablets, that they were not merely used or useful but were considered to have an active role in establishing or changing something about the world, be it the composition of the citizen body or relations between states, men, or men and the supernatural: tablets, as will be seen, could be involved in the creation of, as well as embodiments of, a new, newly fixed reality. What these ceremonies were to achieve, their tablets were seen also to achieve, and this is the final characteristic that identifies tablets as members of the same family.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Legitimacy and Law in the Roman WorldTabulae in Roman Belief and Practice, pp. 91 - 120Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004