This volume of fourteen essays is a Festschrift for Giulia Sfameni Gasparro, the prolific historian of religion. Reflecting the research focus of the honoree, the volume is devoted to four female divinities, Demeter, Isis, Vesta and Cybele. Divided into four sections, one for each goddess, the volume explores the goddesses’ diverse facets along with their intercultural features. While the essays employ a variety of methodologies and approaches (e.g. archaeological, literary and linguistic) and cover a wide range of time periods and locations, from the Archaic age to Christianity and from Greece to the western part of the Roman Empire, coherence is successfully achieved through pervasive emphasis on phenomena of intercultural religious appropriation, syncretism and innovation. That coherence would have been enhanced if there was a dialogue among the papers devoted to each goddess, as for example in the case of the discussion of the Thesmophoria, which is described in detail in three essays and employed for different purposes.
The first essay by A. Bernabé, ‘A Brave Netherworld: the Orphic Hades as Utopia’, argues convincingly that the underworld for the initiates of Orphism is not only ‘a model of a perfect world’, a utopia, but also ‘an alternative reality’, a real life, which serves as ‘an antithesis of the imperfect life’ (p. 11). Drawing from various sources Bernabé illustrates the benefits of thiasos in the underworld, where in the absence of personal and social shortcomings the initiates assume a godly state.
J.N. Bremmer, ‘Demeter in Megara’, provides a fresh overview of Demeter's cult in Megara, its approximation to and differentiation from the Thesmophoria. He aptly shows the goddess’ important role in the city, along with Megara's competition with Athens as it appropriates the traditional myths in Eleusis.
In ‘Koré-Perséphone entre Déméter et Hadès’ L. Bruit Zaidman discusses the role of Kore/Persephone and her relationship to her mother and her husband in various ritual and cultural configurations in and outside Eleusis, and shows the transformation of the myth of the daughter's abduction found in the panhellenic and feministic Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
In ‘Demeter and Athena at Gela: Personal Features of Sicilian Goddesses’ G.S. explores the notion of colonial religion as ‘an original cultural creation, and deeply rooted in the local reality of the various poleis’ (p. 63), where the gods in a polytheistic context were adapted to different cultural situations. She shows in the case of Gela the complementarity of the cults of Athena and Demeter, and by discussing particularly the myth of Persephone's abduction and its variants in the Sicilian tradition, she establishes the association of the Thesmophoria with the farmer economy in the colony and the adaptation of a cult of the motherland based on the needs of the locals.
L. Bricault, ‘Associations isiaques d'Occident’, explores the evidence for collegia of Isis and Serapis in the Oriental world, their religious (or not) nature and their associations with Roman collegia for other gods, noticing the openness of these unions to both men and women and their potential role in worship.
In ‘Neotera and Her Iconography’, the first essay on Isis, M. shows that Neotera, who was not an Egyptian goddess, referred in each culture to a certain goddess who had an older divine counterpart. He then suggests that Cleopatra's assumption of the epithet Neotera was very appropriate considering first that Neotera was associated with Kore and thus Persephone, the wife of Hades, and second that Antony was also identified with Osiris/Hades. He convincingly argues that Neotera echoes ‘the theological adaptation of Eleusinian traditions to the beliefs of Alexandrian culture’ (p. 113) and that Cleopatra influenced Neotera's iconography.
‘Isis, Cybele and Other Oriental Gods in Rome in Late Antiquity: “Private” Contexts and the Role of Senatorial Aristocracy’, written by Gasparro's daughter, C. Sfameni, and dedicated to her, showcases the persistence of Oriental cults during Late Antiquity within the higher strata of Roman society in opposition to the emerging Christianity. While official locations of worship of Oriental gods were abandoned the senatorial class observed pagan religious traditions in private contexts.
G. Tallet, ‘Isis, the Crocodiles and the Mysteries of the Nile Floods: Interpreting a Scene from Roman Egypt Exhibited in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (JE 30001)’, provides a new and well-argued interpretation of the iconography of the Cairo slab, exploring Isis’ connection with crocodile gods in Roman Memphis. Contextualising successfully the slab in the Roman period and acknowledging the involvement of Roman administration with cult, Tallet identifies the figures of the slab, including Horus, the son of Isis, a Roman official and Egyptian gods presented as Roman soldiers. She concludes that the slab depicts the ritual of semasia in Memphis and was dedicated in a local temple by a religious association of soldiers.
In the next section on Vesta, S. Baschirotto, ‘Vesta and the Vestals, Protectors of Rome’, connects the burial of Vestals as punishment for impurity with foundation sacrifices. Baschirotto presents parallels of human victims in foundation rites from Rome but also from Asia, Africa and the Balkans in order to show that Vestals could in times of danger ‘be sacrificed for the salvation of the city and the re-establishment of the pax deorum’ (p. 178), resembling human sacrifices at the foundation of a city.
J. Rüpke, ‘Flamines, Salii, and the Priestesses of Vesta: Individual Decision and Differences of Social Order in Late Republican Roman Priesthoods’, discusses case studies ‘which show individual interpretations of traditional priest roles’ (p. 183). Rüpke shows that this radical individual behaviour demonstrates the superiority of the patricians in the religious foundation of the Roman community, which is reflected also in the lawsuits against Vestals.
In the last section R. Gordon, ‘Ut tu me vindices: Magna Mater and Attis in some new Latin Curse-Texts’, explores the evidence of lead tablets found in Portugal and Germany, which request that these gods punish the ones ‘who are alleged to have wronged the principal’ (p. 196). Gordon provides eight texts with translations and employs iconography to explain why these gods were associated with justice. He argues that these tablets employ the knowledge of cultic practice (either cultic events or objects) ‘as suasive resource’ (p. 203) in order to assert the right to demand that gods inflict revenge.
In a linguistic paper, ‘The Name of Cybele in Latin Poetry and Literature: Cybela, Cybebe or Cybele/Cybelle?’, C. Guittard shows that the official name of Cybele in Roman religion and literature is Magna Mater Idaea Deum, as a Romanised goddess, while the appellations of Cybele and Cybebe are used when she is considered to be a non-Roman goddess, or when a Greek and poetic form is preferred.
F.M. Simón, ‘On Bulls and Stars: Sacrifice and Allegoric Pluralism in Julian's Times’, argues that the archaeological finds of Cybele's domestic sanctuaries devoted to taurobolic rituals in Roman villas at the end of the fourth century suggest the revival of pagan sacrifices by Julian. Simón then shows that Julian's bull coinage may have a mystic or soteriological message for some viewers, where sacrifice is the medium for ascending to the gods in a spiritual and ritual synthesis, but may also suggest the emperor's message to return to animal sacrifices.
R. Turcan, ‘Le circuit rituel de la lavatio’, based on the back side of the coin of Faustina Mother that displays the idol of Cybele and Attis, provides a reconstruction of the procession of the statue of Cybele for the ritual of lavatio. He concludes that the lavatio symbolises eternal life for the followers of Attis and that the imagery is appropriately employed for the empress Faustina, who in her apotheosis on the Antonine column is carried by the wings of eternity.
Reflecting Gasparro's interests and methodologies including Oriental cults in the Roman empire and archaeological evidence for ancient religions, the essays show an impressive command of a variety of sources and provide thorough documentation for some vexing issues of history of religions. The illustrations are very helpful and aid the demonstration of the arguments. The volume could have benefited from more careful editing as there are some typographical errors, albeit few (e.g. because In fact p. 10, obviosly p. 13, Netherword p. 18, cultual p. 171). A general index would have been useful.
