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The Cult of Volkanus1 at Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

H. J. Rose
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Extract

Few mythological names are more familiar than that of Vulcan; and few cults present more puzzling difficulties than his. I propose to review the chief points connected with this god and one or two of the main theories concerning him, ending by putting forward the view which seems to me the most likely.

What may be called the orthodox theory concerning him is to be found in the works of the late Professor Wissowa, and is as follows. He was a genuinely Roman god, a deus indiges. His department was fire, considered, not as the flame of the hearth or of the smith's forge, but as the destroying element, pure and simple. Hence, he was regularly worshipped outside the city walls, or at all events outside the pomerium. For this reason the Volcanal at Rome was at one end of the Forum, outside the original Palatine settlement and the ‘Servian’ city ; the later temple of the god, of date about 540/214, was in the Circus Flaminius ; perhaps also at Perusia he was worshipped outside the walls ; at all events, the fire of 714/40, which destroyed all the rest of the city, spared his temple and, according to Cassius Dio, that of Juno likewise.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , 1933 , pp. 46 - 63
Copyright
Copyright ©H. J. Rose 1933. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1A Roscher s.u. (latest); see also RKR 2 pp. 229–232.

2 Appian, BC, v, 49; Dio, xlviii, 14, 5.

3 Fasti Antiates and Aruales under that date.

4 CIL v, 4295 Dessau 3295.

5 CIL vi, 802═Dessau 3306.

6 Ovid, Trist. ii, 296.

7 The evidence is fully and conveniently set forth by Carcopino, Virgile et les origines d'Ostie, p. 42 sqq.

8 Altheim, F., Römische Religionsgeschichte i. (Sammlung Göschen, 1935), p. 58Google Scholar; see also M. P. Nilsson Alter des vorcäsarischen Kalendars (in Strena Philologica Upsaliensis), p. 4.

9 Rose in Atti del 1° congresso internazionale etrusco, pp. 147–157 =SMSR, iv, pp. 161–178.

10 Altheim op. cit., p. 29 sqq.; cf. also his Griechische Götter im alten Rom (=RGVV, xxii, 1), pp. 2, 196. Cf. Koch, C., Gestirnverehrung im alten Italien (Frankfurt a.M., 1933), p. 81Google Scholarsqq.

11 Livy, viii, 9, 6.

12 Georg., i, 498.

13 Gesam. Abband., p. 179.

14 Cf. Rose, in JRS XII (1922), p. 131.Google Scholar

15 Pliny, NH, xxxv, 157.Google Scholar

16 Griechische Götter, p. 172.

17 Roscher, , Lexikon, vi, 357Google Scholar, 37 sqq.

18 Mart. Cap., i, 4.9, ‘Tellurus Terraeque pater Vulcanus et Genius.’ I am inclined to think the —que a mistake and to suppose that the author means ‘Tellurus, father of Terra.’

19 ‘;Nonnulli eundem Solem et Vulcanum dicunt.’ Serv. Dan. in Aen. iii, 35.

20 See Thulin, , Die Götter des Martianus Capella, p. 42Google Scholar.

21 Thulin, op. cit., p. 53.

22 Altheim, , Griechische Götter, p. 172Google Scholar.

23 N. d. Scavi, xxi, p. 67.

24 Evidence most conveniently assembled by Cook, , Zeus, ii, pp. 946–48.Google Scholar

25 Wissowa, in Roscher, , Lexikon vi, 356Google Scholar, 56 sqq.

26 See, e.g., Peet, Stone and Bronze Ages, index under Crete.

27 See L. Malten in P-W art. Hephaistos.

28 In Rev. hist, rel., ciii (1931), pp. 136–143.

29 Virg. et les origines d'Ostie, pp. 93 sqq., 597 sqq.

The arguments seem to me partly mere misunderstandings, partly confusions of Roman cult with mythological or theological speculation of late date, partly transferences to Rome of what is vouched for only in Etruria.

30 Carcopino op. cit., pp. 42–82.

31 Tacitus Ann., xi, 26, 7; 31, 4; Carcopino op. cit., p. 137 sqq. I pass over sundry difficulties of detail here. He points out that autumn was reckoned to begin when Lyra sets, a date variously given as Aug. 8 or 11, see Pliny, NH, xviii, 271, 289.Google Scholar

32 Carcopino op. cit.y p. 82 sqq.

33 See the authorities cited sup., n. 2.

34 See Taylor, L. R., Local Cults in Etruria, p. 126Google Scholar; Wissowa RKR 2 p. 224, n. 8.

35 Clitumnus; Pliny, Epp., viii, 8Google Scholar, 1, 5, Clitumni fontem … adiacet templum priscum et eligiosum. However, rivers were worshipped elsewhere than at their sources, as the Numicus, and the Tiber itself at Rome.

36 Aen., viii, 65.

37 Carcopino op. cit., p. 526 sqq.

38 Fowler, W. W., Aeneas at the Site of Rome, p. 37Google Scholar sqq.

39 Röm. Religionsgesehichte, ii, p. 62 sqq.

40 The authorities are collected by Preller-Jordan, Röm. Myth.,3 ii, p. 286Google Scholarsqq., and various later writers.

41 Verg. Aen., viii, 198.

42 Mnemosyne, N.S., liii (1925), p. 410 sqq., and more briefly Prim. Cult, in Italy, p. 80; Handbook of Greek Myth., p. 320. The ancient authorities are: Dionysios of Halikamassos, Ant. Rom., iv, 2, 2–3Google Scholar; Ovid, Fasti, vi, 621Google Scholarsqq.; Pliny, NH, xxxvi, 204Google Scholar; Servius and the scholia Veronensia on Verg. Aen., vii, 678, Solinus, p. 36, 5 Mommsen; these three all represent Cato, Origines, ii, frag. 22 Jordan; Promathion, ἱστορία Ἱταλική, ap. Plut., Romul. 2.

43 Dion. Hal. loc. cit., 4; Livy, i, 39, I; for the rest see the last note.

44 Hdt., vi, 69.

45 Verg., Aen., ii, 682; vii, 73; Sil. Ital., xvi, 118 sqq.; Pliny, NH, ii, 241Google Scholar, citing Valerius Antias.

46 For the known facts about her, see Wissowa RKR 1, p. 229, 304–5, and the articles on her in the various lexica.

47 Gellius xiii, 23 (22), 2.

48 Macrobius, Sat., i, 12, 18; sec the whole passage, together with Lydus, de mens., iv, 80 (p. 132, 7 sqq., Wünsch) for die other facts mentioned in thie paragraph.

49 Calendars on Aug. 23; see, for the Fasti Antiates, Wissowa, in Hermes, lviii (1923), p. 386.Google Scholar

60 So at least I hold and have tried to prove, see CR xxvi (1932), p. 15 sqq.

51 De Ling. Lat., vi, 20.

52 Festus, p. 274, Lindsay (ed. min.), 345 (ed. maior).

53 Carcopino, op. cit., pp. 119–120, Toutain, in Rev. bist. rel., ciii (1931), p. 136Google Scholarsqq.

54 Pausanias, vii, 18, l2.

55 Toutain, op. cit., p. 140.

56 Polyainos, Strat. vi, 24.

57 Polyainos, vi, 17, viii, 32.

58 Eurip., Med., 840.

59 Athen., 297 D-F.

60 ibid., E, cf. 303 B.

61 Strabo, xiv, 4, 9, 667 c, ἡ πόλις Λυκιακή…τοῦ δὲ κοινοῦ τῶν Λυκίων οὔ μετέχει, καθ᾿ αὑτὴν δέ συνὲστηκεν. More or less Greek therefore; it produced at least one man of letters, Theodektes, Steph. Byz. s.u.

62 Anth. Pal., vi, 105 (Apollonides, first century A.D.).

63 See Dittenberger, Syll.,3 1106, 42=Paton and Hicks 36 b, 4, 24, with the notes of the editors, which give other examples.

64 Athen., vii, 325 A-D; other sacred fish, ibid., 287 A, 306 A; collected by Eustath. ad Iliad., p. 87, 28 sqq.

65 Glaube d. Hellenen i, p. 289, n. 3.

66 See Apuleius, Apol. 29 sqq., with the illustrations of the modern commentators, etc., especially Abt and Vallette.

67 ΙΧΘΥΣ, ii, pp. 309, 327, 359 and elsewhere. His suggestion of a fish-sacrifice to Hephaistos, ibid. p. 308, rests on a misunderstanding of Teles,. ap. Stobaios, florileg. tit. xcvii, 31Google Scholar (p. 815, 1–3 Hense).

68 Festus, p. 230/317, Lindsay.

69 Fasti, ii, 567 sqq.

70 Preisendanz, , Papyri Graecae magicae iv, 1391Google Scholarsqq.

71 Cf. Fasti v, 436; but the number seven, being oriental, is a bit of the hag's charm, not of the Roman rite.

72 Valerius Antias ap. Arnob., aduers. nat. v, 1.

73 Micah, vi, 6.

74 Grönbech, V., Culture of the Teutons, i, p. 370Google Scholar; Eitrem, S. in Festskrift til Hi. Falk, p. 245Google Scholarsqq.; Frazer, , Golden Bough, iv, 57, 160, 188Google Scholar; vi, 220; Verg. Aen. v, 483. Servius ad loc. calls this a hostia animalis, which I think to be the true meaning of the word, not that given in the note on Aen. iii, 231; cf. Seru. auctus on Aen. iv, 56.

75 Facts handily given in Wissowa op. cit., p. 166; latest discussion, Tabelling, Mater Larum, p. 14 sqq.

76 Latest discussions, Nilsson in JHS, xliii (1923), p. 142Google Scholar, cf. Minoan-Mycenaean Rel., p. 399; J. Herbillon, Les Cultes de Patras, p. 64 sqq.; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, , Glaube d. Hell. i, pp. 385–7.Google Scholar

77 Altheim, , Griechische Götter, p. 195Google Scholar. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, , Glaube d. Hellenen, ii, 330Google Scholar, says very pertinently ‘Es ist … ausgeschlossen, dass Vulcanus von Hephaistos stammen könnte, weil dieser an keinem Orte, der in der Sehweite Italiens lag, überhaupt einen Kult erfuhr.’ I quite agree.

78 For Hephaistos' origin, see the article by L. Malten in P-W, s.u.

79 Strabo, v, 4, 6, 246 c; ὑπέρκειται δὲ τῆς πόλεως (Puteoli) εὐθὺς ἡ τοῦ Ἡϕαίστου ἀγορά, πεδίον περικεκλειμένον διαπύροις ὀϕρύσι, καμινώδεις ἐχούσαις ἀναπνοὰς πολλαχοῦ καὶ βρομώδεις ἱκανῶς, κ.τ.λ.

80 Pliny, NH, ii, 240; ‘exit (flamma) in Mutinensi agro statis Volcano diebus.’

81 See, for example, Verg., Georg, ii, 224.