Susan Satterfield, Rhodes College
Roman state prodigies and expiations were all about Rome. Prodigies portended dangers for Rome which expiations were intended to avert. It is no surprise, then, that the vast majority of prodigies were reported from the city of Rome or elsewhere in the Italian peninsula, and most expiations were performed in the Roman capital (on Roman prodigies: MacBain, Rasmussen, Santangelo). But not all. A number of prodigies came from Sicily and the Aeolian islands, with reports in nine separate years. Even more surprising, several expiatory rituals were performed there, in 135, 133, and 90 BCE, and (I will argue) in 108.
In this paper, I will examine prodigy reports and expiations from Sicily and the Aeolian islands. I will argue that Sicily’s centrality to the Roman state – as a breadbasket and as the springboard of Rome’s Mediterranean empire – gave it a special place in Roman cult. The Romans believed that religious and political events in Sicily impacted events in Rome. Having argued this point, I will use it to elucidate two curious moments in Roman religious history: the rituals performed to Ceres in Henna in 133 BCE; and the sacrifices that Obsequens places in insula Cimolia in 108.
Two expiations were conducted in Sicily during the First Sicilian Slave War: ceremonies to Zeus Aetnaeus in 135 after eruptions from Aetna (Diodorus Siculus 34/35.10.1; Brennan), and ceremonies to the antiquissima Ceres in Henna in 133 (Cicero Ver. 2.4.108). Scholars tend to explain the latter in one of two ways: it was about the death of Tiberius Gracchus, who, as tribune of the plebs, was sacred to Ceres (Spaeth 73-79); or it was about the Sicilian slave revolt, since Henna was the capital of the rebels (Le Bonniec 367-68; Dillon). I will argue that the rituals concerned events both in Sicily and in Rome. It was, as Dillon has suggested, a sort of evocatio calling for Ceres to help the Romans in their fight against Eunus; but it was also intended to restore peace to Rome after Tiberius Gracchus’ death. This was not because tribunes were sacred to Ceres, but because what happened in Sicily had a direct impact on affairs in Rome.
Finally, I will examine the prodigies of 108 BCE. Obsequens 40 lists a case of cannibalism in laotomiis (a unique spelling) as a prodigy in this year, then describes an expiation involving 60 children in insula Cimolia(on Obsequens: Schmidt, Miglietta). Scholars have long questioned why the Romans would perform such an elaborate ritual on Kimolos, which had no major cult sites and no clear role in Roman affairs at that period (Ruperti 4283; Rawson 201; Parke 206). Building from my argument that prodigies in Sicily were particularly concerning to the Romans, I will suggest that in insula Cimolia is a mistake in the Obsequens manuscript. The lautumiae or latomiai must have been those in Sicily. Obsequens confused Livy’s phrase in insula Sicilia, or in insula ad lautumias/latomias, for in insula Cimolia.