The Iguvine Tables (Tabulae Iguvinae) are among the most invaluable documents of Italic linguistics and religion. Seven bronze tablets discovered in 1444 in the Umbrian town of Gubbio (ancient Iguvium), they record the rites and sacral laws of a priestly brotherhood, the Fratres Atiedii, with a degree of detail unparalleled elsewhere in ancient Italy. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that combines philological and linguistic, as well as ritual analysis, Michael Weiss not only addresses the many interpretive cruces that have puzzled scholars for a century and a half, but also constructs a coherent theory of the entire ritual performance described on Tables III and IV. In addition, Weiss sheds light on many questions of Roman ritual practice and places the Iguvine Tables in their broader Italic and Indo-European contexts.
Michael Weiss, Ph.D. (1993) in Linguistics, Cornell University, is currently a Professor of Linguistics at Cornell University. He has taught in the Classics departments at Yale and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published articles on various aspects of Indo-European, Greek, and Latin linguistics. He is the author of An Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin (Beech Stave, 2009).
CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgments ....................................................... ix
Abbreviations and Symbols ............................................................. xi
Introduction ........................................................................................ 1
Section 1: Anna Karenina and the Tabulae Iguvinae ......... 1
Section 2: Scope and Methods ................................................ 3
Section 3: John B. Wilkins’s New Paradigm ........................ 9
Section 4: Overview of the Present Work ............................ 24
Section 5: A Note on Transcription, Transliteration, and
Other Matters ......................................................... 25
I. The Preliminary Events (TI III 1 –10) .................................... 29
Section 1: The Dating Formula .............................................. 30
Section 2: The Preliminary Purifi cation ................................ 60
Section 3: The Events Involving the uhtur .......................... 75
II. The Building of the Kletra (TI III 11–20) ............................. 97
Section 1: The Procession to the Field .................................. 99
Section 2: The kletra ................................................................ 106
Section 3: The Events in the Field ......................................... 114
III. The Arrival at the Grove (TI III 20–30) ................................ 135
Section 1: The Arrival at the Grove ....................................... 136
Section 2: The Placing of Fire ................................................. 147
Section 3: The Consecration ................................................... 156
Section 4: The Benefi ciary Phrases ......................................... 182
Section 5: The Specifying Formula ........................................ 200
Section 6: The Divinities .......................................................... 217
IV. The Off erings (TI III 30–IV 6) ................................................ 245
Section 1: The Offering of the sakre ..................................... 247
Section 2: eruku aruvia feitu ................................................. 271
Section 3: The Offering of the Sheep ..................................... 294
Section 4: The Distribution of the tefra ............................... 314
Section 5: The peřu(m)/perso(m) ........................................... 322
Section 6: The ereçlum ............................................................ 346
viii contents
V. The Supplementary Offerings (TI IV 6–27) .......................... 355
Section 1: The supa/sopa Problem ......................................... 358
Section 2: vempersuntres and persuntru ............................ 384
VI. The Concluding Acts (TI IV 27–33) ...................................... 399
Section 1: The erus ................................................................... 400
Section 2: The Second Use of Fire ......................................... 425
Conclusions ........................................................................................ 433
Section 1: Translation of III–IV ............................................. 433
Section 2: Findings ................................................................... 441
References ........................................................................................... 445
Indices .................................................................................................. 479
This work is of interest to Indo-Europeanists, classical philologists, and students of ancient religion.