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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 June 2021
This article examines the Roman tradition that Numa once negotiated with Jupiter about human sacrifice. Complete versions of the myth survive in Ovid, Plutarch and Arnobius (citing Valerius Antias). Previous studies of this tradition have proposed four main interpretations of it, which have done important service in modern reconstructions of the character of Roman religion. These scholarly treatments raise several questions. First, are they actually supported by, or the most convincing way of reading, the surviving ancient sources? If so, have they been correctly attributed? Why might a specific ancient author present the myth of Numa and Jupiter in a manner which suggests one interpretation rather than another? What ideological and theological work does the story do for Ovid, for Plutarch and for Arnobius? Finally, can this myth, in whatever version, support the weight of the implications put on it for the character of Roman religion? This article seeks to enhance our understanding of this myth in its surviving versions, not just by analysing the evidence for each of the modern interpretations, but also by considering why ancient authors tell the myth of Numa and Jupiter the way they do. It is argued that their choices illustrate best not one meaning of the myth nor one Roman way of piety but the richness and diversity of religious reflection in antiquity.
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and by a Naomi Lacey Memorial Fellowship at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities. A stay at the Fondation Hardt pour l’étude de l'antiquité classique provided precious library resources. For suggestions and assistance, my thanks go out to the participants at the conference ‘Numa Numa: The Life and Afterlife of the Second King of Rome’ (Ann Arbor, MI, 2017), where an earlier version of this paper was presented; to my SSHRC Research Assistants, Ms Kathrine Bertram (Durham University) and Ms Krystal Marlier; to Dr Lucia Nixon (University of Oxford); to Prof. Noreen Humble (University of Calgary); and to the anonymous readers and editor of CQ.
1 Wiseman posits a dramatic version predating our surviving references: Wiseman, T.P., ‘Tales unworthy of the gods’, in id., Roman Drama and Roman History (Exeter, 1998), 17–24, at 22Google Scholar; Wiseman, T.P., ‘Summoning Jupiter: magic in the Roman Republic’, in id., Unwritten Rome (Exeter, 2008), 155–66, at 165–6Google Scholar.
2 Plin. HN 28.14 (L. Calpurnius Piso, fr. 13 P = fr. 15b Cornell), with Cornell, T.J. (ed.), The Fragments of the Roman Historians, 3 vols. (Oxford, 2013), 3.200–1Google Scholar.
3 Arn. Adv. nat. 5.1 (Valerius Antias, fr. 6 P = fr. 8 Cornell).
4 Livy 1.19.4, 1.20.7, 1.31.6–8.
5 For dating, see Green, S.J., Ovid, Fasti I: A Commentary (Leiden and Boston, 2004), 15–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The edition used here is that of S.J. Heyworth (Cambridge, 2019). Translations are my own unless otherwise noted.
6 For dating, cf. Jones, C.P., ‘Towards a chronology of Plutarch's works’, JRS 56 (1966), 61–74Google Scholar; Pelling, C., Plutarch Caesar (Oxford, 2011), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wiseman (n. 1 [2008]), 159. The edition used here is that of K. Ziegler (Leipzig, 1973); the section divisions and the translation are those of B. Perrin (Cambridge, MA, 1914).
7 I accept a date of composition from c. a.d. 303: Simmons, M.B., Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian (Oxford, 1995), 47–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barnes, T.D., ‘Monotheists all?’, Phoenix 55 (2001), 142–62, at 152–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The edition used here is that of C. Marchesi (Turin, 19532). Unless otherwise noted, the translation follows that of H. Bryce and H. Campbell (Edinburgh, 1895).
8 E.g. J. Heurgon, Trois études sur le « Ver sacrum » (Collection Latomus 26) (Brussels, 1957), 50–1; Bayet, J., Histoire politique et psychologique de la religion romaine (Paris, 1957), 141Google Scholar; Dumézil, G., La religion romaine archaïque (Paris, 1966), 53–4Google Scholar; Capdeville, G., ‘Substitution de victimes dans les sacrifices d'animaux à Rome’, MEFRA 83 (1971), 283–323, at 291CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Poucet, J., Les origines de Rome: tradition et histoire (Brussels, 1985), 197CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. Turcan (transl. A. Nevill), The Gods of Ancient Rome: Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to Imperial Times (Edinburgh, 2000), 4.
9 See Sections 2, 3 and 4 below.
10 E.g. Krause, W., Die Stellung der frühchristlichen Autoren zur heidnischen Literatur (Vienna, 1958), 177Google Scholar; Schilling, R., Ovide: Les Fastes (Paris, 1992), 146Google Scholar; Mora, F., Arnobio e i culti di mistero: Analisi storico-religiosa del V libro dell'Adversus Nationes (Rome, 1994), 68, 112–13Google Scholar; M. Pasco-Pranger, ‘A Varronian vatic Numa? Ovid's Fasti and Plutarch's Life of Numa’, in D.S. Levene and D.P. Nelis (edd.), Clio and the Poets: Augustan Poetry and the Traditions of Ancient Historiography (Leiden, 2002), 291–312, at 297; Prescendi, F., Décrire et comprendre le sacrifice (Stuttgart, 2007), 195Google Scholar; Preseka, D., ‘Legendary figures in Ovid's Fasti’, AAntHung 48 (2008), 221–36Google Scholar, at 235; Wiseman (n. 1 [2008]). Cornell (n. 2), by contrast, exercises due caution, printing the purported quotation as a ‘reported or paraphrased version’ (see that edition's typographical conventions).
11 E.g. Scheid, J., The Gods, the State, and the Individual (Philadelphia, 2015), 114–16Google Scholar.
12 See A. Dubourdieu, ‘Paroles des dieux’, in F. Dupont (ed.), Paroles romaines (Nancy, 1995), 45–51, at 47–8; ead., ‘Divinités de la parole, divinités du silence dans la Rome antique’, RHR 220 (2003), 259–82, at 260.
13 The irregularity of this is well brought out by Wiseman (n. 1 [2008]).
14 Capdeville (n. 8), 291; Wiseman (n. 1 [2008]), 163.
15 M. Beard, J. North and S. Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1998), 1.31–2.
16 Heurgon (n. 8), 50–1; Bloch, R., Les prodiges dans l'antiquité classique (Paris, 1963), 124Google Scholar; Dumézil (n. 8), 53; Salat, P., ‘Comment Numa vainquit Jupiter dans une joute verbale’, Annales Latini Montium Arvernorum 11 (1984), 33–41Google Scholar, at 33; Ahl, F.M., Metaformations: Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets (Ithaca and London, 1985), 301–2Google Scholar; D. Porte, L’étiologie religieuse dans les Fastes d'Ovide (Paris, 1985), 137; Scheid, J., ‘Numa et Jupiter ou les dieux citoyens de Rome’, Archives de sciences sociales des religions 59 (1985), 41–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 48; Borgeaud, P., ‘Du mythe à l'idéologie: la tête du Capitole’, MH 44 (1987), 86–100Google Scholar, at 96–7; D. Porte, ‘Jupiter Elicius ou la confusion des magies’, in D. Porte and J.-P. Néraudau (edd.), Hommages à Henri Le Bonniec (Brussels, 1988), 352–63, at 352; Borghini, A., ‘La sardelle di Numa: un parallelo ed alcune considerazioni’, Aufidus 13 (1991), 45–53Google Scholar, at 46; Schilling (n. 10), 146 n. 98; Pasco-Pranger (n. 10), 303; Erker, D. Šterbenc, ‘Der Religionsstifter Numa im Gespräch mit Jupiter: Menschenbild in der römischen Religion’, in Ego, B. and Mittmann, U. (edd.), Evil and Death: Conceptions of the Human in Biblical, Early Jewish, Greco-Roman and Egyptian Literature (Berlin and Boston, 2015), 333–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 346; Scheid (n. 11), 115.
17 Green, S.J., ‘Save our cows? Augustan discourse and animal sacrifice in Ovid's Fasti’, G&R 55 (2008), 39–54Google Scholar, at 50 n. 42.
18 Dumézil (n. 8), 130; Prescendi (n. 10), 197–8.
19 See C. Sogno, ‘Persius, Juvenal, and the transformation of satire in Late Antiquity’, in S.M. Braund and J.W. Osgood (edd.), A Companion to Persius and Juvenal (Chichester, 2012), 363–85; M.G. Luopetegui Semperena, ‘Rhétorique et argumentation dans l'apologétique latine de la période constantinienne’, in A.J. Quiroga Puertas (ed.), Rhetorical Strategies in Late Antique Literature: Images, Metatexts and Interpretation (Boston, 2017), 44–72, at 56–8, 67, 71.
20 Overview in Liebeschuetz, J.H.W.G., Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford, 1979), 255Google Scholar; Bonniec, H. Le, Arnobe: Contre les Gentils, Livre I (Paris, 1982), 29–30Google Scholar. See especially Arn. Adv. nat. 4.30.
21 P. Santorelli, ‘Un dio da distruggere: modalità del discorso polemico in Arnobio’, in A. Capone (ed.), Lessico, argomentazioni e strutture retoriche nella polemica di età cristiana (III–V sec.) (Turnhout, 2012), 189–214.
22 Cf. Mora (n. 10), 113–15.
23 E.g. Monceaux, P., Histoire littéraire de l'Afrique chrétienne (Paris, 1905), 250–1Google Scholar, 264, 279, 284–6; Le Bonniec (n. 20), 40, 92; H. Le Bonniec, ‘L'Exploitation apologétique par Arnobe du De natura deorum de Cicéron’, in R. Chevallier (ed.), Présence de Cicéron: Hommage au R.P.M. Testard (Paris, 1984), 89–101; Coniglio, M., ‘Nello «scriptorium» di Arnobio’, Scholia 2 (2000), 71–101Google Scholar; Lubian, F., ‘Christian polemic and mythological degradation: Venus militaris and puerorum stupra in the fourth book of Arnobius’ Aduersus nationes’, Eisodos 1 (2014), 33–41Google Scholar; Panegyres, K., ‘The rhetoric of religious conflict in Arnobius’ Adversus Nationes’, CQ 69 (2019), 402–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Arnobius’ originality in Book 5 specifically, see Mora (n. 10).
24 Arnobius introduces the fragment with: in secundo Antiatis libro … talis perscripta est fabula. An ancient reader would not necessarily have taken this as the prelude to an unedited quotation. Arnobius’ preferred verb for introducing quotation is inquit. He frequently uses scribo for ‘pagan’ content which he is summarizing rather than quoting. Since he uses perscribo only here, it is difficult to tell whether he means it in the sense of ‘to write out in full’, ‘to describe in detail’ or simply ‘to record’ (see OLD s.v. perscribo).
25 My thanks to the anonymous reader for CQ for their help on this point.
26 Dumézil (n. 8), 53–4; Borghini (n. 16), 45–6.
27 Scheid (n. 16), 48–50; id., ‘La mise à mort de la victime sacrificielle: à propos de quelques interprétations antiques du sacrifice romain’, in A. Müller-Karpe et al. (edd.), Studien zur Archäologie der Kelten, Römer und Germanen in Mittel- und Westeuropa: Alfred Haffner zum 60. Geburtstag gewidmet (Rahden, 1998), 519–29, at 528; Prescendi (n. 10), 195–8, 201–2; Scheid (n. 11), 115–16.
28 E.g. Livy 22.57.6; Strabo 4.4.5; Plut. Marc. 3.3–4; Plin. HN 30.4.13; discussion in Schultz, C.E., ‘The Romans and ritual murder’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78 (2010), 516–41CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
29 Plut. Mor. 283F–284C. I follow Schultz's reconstruction (n. 28) of Roman distinctions between human sacrifice and other forms of ritual death.
30 Traces of such a view may linger in the fact, acknowledged by Prescendi (n. 10), 195, that our sources do not present the settlement between king and god as doing away with human sacrifice altogether but only as pertaining to this particular case.
31 Arnobius also tries to claim that the very existence of remedies for lightning constitutes an undermining of divine will, on the grounds that any expiation would render what the god had decided ‘vain and empty’ (<ut> quod fieri statui inane fiat et uacuum et sacrorum <ui> uanescat, 5.2). Arnobius’ willingness to distort and disregard the logic of ‘pagan’ rituals is patent here.
32 According to Arnobius, the expiations at issue were necessitated by the god's ‘wrath and passions’ (iras eius atque animos, 5.2), speaking with him could only be done ‘dangerously’ (periculosius, 5.2), and in the end he was still ‘vexed’ (doleas, 5.4). In Ovid and Plutarch, by contrast, Jupiter is said to be pleased by the results of the exchange: he smiles or laughs (risit) in Ovid, and goes away ‘gracious’ (ἵλεως) in Plutarch.
33 See especially Adv. nat. 4.24–5, 7.3–9, 7.15, 7.35–6; Le Bonniec (n. 20), 73–80.
34 Salat (n. 16), 36–7; Borghini (n. 16), 46.
35 15.1: μύθοις ἐοικότας τὴν ἀτοπίαν λόγους; 15.6: ταῦτα … τὰ μυθώδη καὶ γελοῖα.
36 Stoffel, E., ‘La divination dans les Vies romaines de Plutarque: le point de vue d'un philosophe’, CCG 16 (2005), 305–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 308–9, accepted by Prescendi (n. 10), 191 n. 683.
37 On the meaning of this adjective in Greek religion and philosophy, see de Romilly, J., La douceur dans la pensée grecque (Paris, 1979), 43–52Google Scholar, and 275–307 (on Plutarch); Hirzel, R., Plutarch (Leipzig, 1912), 23–32Google Scholar; Martin, H., ‘The concept of philanthropia in Plutarch's Lives’, AJPh 82 (1961), 164–75Google Scholar.
38 On divine ‘mildness’: Mor. 458B–C. On the good man's control of anger: especially De cohibenda ira.
39 Plut. Mor. 551B–C. On the philosophical ideal of ὁμοίωσις θεῷ, see F. Becchi, ‘Plutarco e la dottrina dell’homoiôsis theôi tra Platonismo ed Aristotelismo’, in I. Gallo (ed.), Plutarco e la religione (Atti del VI Convegno plutarcheo, Ravello, maggio 1995) (Naples, 1996), 321–35.
40 On Plutarch's understanding of the divine, see Dillon, J., The Middle Platonists (London, 1977), 192–229Google Scholar; papers collected in I. Gallo (ed.), Plutarco e la religione (Atti del VI Convegno plutarcheo, Ravello, maggio 1995) (Naples, 1996), especially Becchi (n. 39) and G. Sfameni Gasparro, ‘Plutarco e la religione delfica: Il dio «filosofico» e il suo esegeta’, 157–88; Stoffel (n. 36). On Plutarch's treatment of myth, see C. Pelling, ‘“Making myth look like history”: Plutarch's Theseus–Romulus’, in id., Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London, 2002), 171–95.
41 Mor. 83E, 443C–D; Publicola 6.5. On Plutarch's doctrine of ἀπάθεια, and its differences from that of other Platonists, see Becchi (n. 39), 331–3; also Dillon (n. 40), 193–8, 229; de Romilly (n. 37), 299; D. Babut, ‘Du scepticisme au dépassement de la raison: philosophie et foi religieuse chez Plutarque’, in id., Parerga: Choix d'articles de D. Babut (Lyon and Paris, 1994), 549–81.
42 Mor. 416C–F, transl. Dillon (n. 40), 217.
43 Num. 3.3–5.
44 Num. 15.6; cf. Ov. Fast. 3.327–8; Livy 1.20.7; Varro, Ling. 6.94 with Wiseman (n. 1 [2008]), 155.
45 Dumézil (n. 8), 53–4.
46 Salat (n. 16), 36–7; Pasco-Pranger (n. 10), 303; ead., Founding the Year: Ovid's Fasti and the Poetics of the Roman Calendar (Leiden and Boston, 2006), 97; Prescendi (n. 10), 198; Green (n. 17), 50 n. 42.
47 Hinds, S., ‘Arma in Ovid's Fasti Part 1: genre and mannerism’, Arethusa 25 (1992), 81–112Google Scholar; Hinds, S., ‘Arma in Ovid's Fasti Part 2: genre, Romulean Rome and Augustan ideology’, Arethusa 25 (1992), 113–53Google Scholar, especially 118–20; Barchiesi, A., The Poet and the Prince: Ovid and Augustan Discourse (Berkeley–Los Angeles–London, 1997), 176Google Scholar. On the complexity of Ovid's portrait of Jupiter, see S.J. Heyworth, ‘L'Instabilité des dieux dans le livre 3 des Fastes d'Ovide’, in H. Casanova-Robin, G. Sauron and M. Moser (edd.), Actes du colloque «Ovide 2017» (Paris, 2018), 181–211, at 197–202.
48 D. Feeney, ‘Si licet et fas est: Ovid's Fasti and the problem of free speech under the Principate’, in A. Powell (ed.), Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (London, 1992), 1–25, especially 12–13; R.J. Littlewood, ‘Imperii pignora certa: the role of Numa in Ovid's Fasti’, in G. Herbert-Brown (ed.), Ovid's Fasti: Historical Readings at its Bimillenium (Oxford, 2002), 175–97, at 188–9; Heyworth (n. 5), 12, 144–5, 148, 151; cf. Barchiesi (n. 47), 203. There is a lively debate about the political significance of Ovid's portrayal of Numa and how this pertains to his view of Augustus. For a balanced summary, see T. Habinek, ‘Ovid and empire’, in P. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambridge, 2002), 46–61, at 58.
49 See above, page 7.
50 ‘Remedies and arts’ may denote the expiations agreed upon by Numa and Jupiter (as in Arnobius’ remarks preceding the sentence at hand) or the rituals used by Numa to elicit Jupiter from heaven (to which Arnobius alludes in the sentence immediately following). Similarly, ‘intentions’ or ‘significations’ may refer to lightning as a signifier of divine wrath, to Jupiter's intention of demanding human sacrifice, or to his reluctance to be pulled down from heaven. The lack of clarity is probably deliberate, a product of Arnobius’ scatter-gun style of argument: see above, Section 1.
51 This could also hint at the polemicist's awareness of a ‘yielding Jupiter’ interpretation.
52 Adv. nat. 5.3: expiabis, inquit, capite fulguritia. inperfecta adhuc uox est neque plena proloquii circumscriptaque sententia.
53 Adv. nat. 5.3: quod cum nondum specialiter statuisset, essetque adhuc pendens et nondum sententia terminata. I differ here from Bryce and Campbell (n. 7), who, taking sententia as ‘decision’, think that it was Jupiter's mind, not his utterance, which was not yet made up.
54 Cf. Bonniec, H. Le, ‘Échos ovidiens dans l’Adversus nationes d'Arnobe’, Caesarodunum 17 (1982), 139–51Google Scholar, at 140 n. 4; Coniglio (n. 23), 80, 97.
55 On the likelihood of Arnobius’ tampering with Antias’ text, see above, Section 1.
56 Scheid (n. 16); Prescendi (n. 10), 197; Šterbenc Erker (n. 16), 350; Scheid (n. 11), 115.
57 Dumézil (n. 8), 53–4.
58 Heinze, R., Ovids elegische Erzählung (Leipzig, 1919), 15–17Google Scholar.
59 F. Bömer, P. Ovidius Naso: Die Fasten, 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1957, 1958), 2.166–7; Littlewood (n. 48), 185.
60 Fast. 3.334–6: altorum rexque paterque deum, | si tua contigimus manibus donaria puris, | hoc quoque quod petitur si pia lingua rogat. On the translation, see S.J. Heyworth, ‘Some polyvalent intra- and inter-textualities in Fasti 3’, in S.J. Harrison, S. Frangoulidis and T.D. Papanghelis (edd.), Intratextuality and Latin Literature (Berlin–Munich–Boston, 2018), 273–88, at 275; id. (n. 5), 149.
61 On the reading regna, as opposed to the more commonly accepted tecta or tela, see Heyworth (n. 5), 146.
62 Bömer (n. 59), 167; Heyworth (n. 5), 144.
63 Cf. Ov. Met. 1.170–6; Fast. 5.19–32; with Fantham, E., Latin Poets and Italian Gods (Toronto, 2009), 83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. Feldherr, Playing Gods: Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Politics of Fiction (Princeton, 2010), 146–7; Šterbenc Erker (n. 16), 344; Heyworth (n. 5), 146.
64 J.F. Miller, Ovid's Elegiac Festivals: Studies in the Fasti (Frankfurt, 1991), 35–43; Dubourdieu (n. 12 [1995]), 48–50; Šterbenc Erker (n. 16), 348.
65 Littlewood (n. 48), 185; also Scheid (n. 16), 46; Prescendi (n. 10), 193 n. 688.
66 Scheid (n. 16), 49–50.
67 Scheid (n. 16), 45, 48–9.
68 J. Scheid, ‘Les émotions dans la religion romaine’, in F. Prescendi and Y. Volokhine (edd.), Dans le laboratoire de l'historien des religions: Mélanges offerts à Philippe Borgeaud (Geneva, 2011), 406–15, at 409–11, 413–14. Similarly in 2015: Scheid (n. 11), 114–16.
69 Ahl (n. 16), 301–2; Dubourdieu (n. 12 [1995]), 48.
70 Bömer (n. 59), 166 notes that epiphanies were often said to produce such effects on nature and human beings. See further Petridou, G., Divine Epiphany in Greek Literature and Culture (Oxford, 2015), especially 21, 32–43Google Scholar, 98–105, 110, 231.
71 On the parallels Ovid draws between himself in exile and the Caesars as dangerous gods, cf. Heyworth (n. 60); id. (n. 5), 12, 151.
72 Morgan, T., Roman Faith and Christian Faith (Oxford, 2015), 39–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 65–74.
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