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Chapter 4 - Nobody Is Gonna Rain on My Parade: Experiencing Salutaris’s Procession As a Ritual Event

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2024

By
Abigail Graham
Edited by
Blanka Misic  and
Abigail Graham
Blanka Misic
Affiliation:
Champlain College, Lennoxville
Abigail Graham
Affiliation:
Institute of Classical Studies, London
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Summary

Processions were among the earliest ‘moving pictures’ in which the brain could develop the cognitive process of ‘reading’ a landscape and embedding a memory through sensory experiences. Salutaris’ foundation, a text inscribed outside the theatre at Ephesus which records the organization of a ritual procession for Artemis, tends to be treated as a factual guide by scholars, rather than as aspirational script for an event: repeated legal clauses, claims of control and permanency, and the white marble on which it was carved, underwrite the vivid sensual experience and transiency of a ritual event. This paper endeavors to contextualize Salutaris’ foundation by incorporating directives of the text together with an analysis of the procession as a practical event and an emotional experience. As a sensorial experience, one can explore aspects of the performance that could not be controlled: the weather, the attitude of the audience, and the behaviour of the performers. Did aspirational directives of ritual behavior come to fruition in a ritual event? How did the experience of an event shape its role and meaning? This cognitive approach provides insights to both the ritual event and the ways that processions could be read by the viewer.

Keywords

Epigraphyemotionslived experiencemonumental contextritual processionsmemorycognitionritual failureSalutarisEphesusArtemis.
Type
Chapter
Information
Senses, Cognition, and Ritual Experience in the Roman World , pp. 118 - 166
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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