Talk:Argei

This isn't Greek mythology; I'm taking that stub and category off. Ben Tibbetts 23:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Other ungiven interpretations

Ovid gives us in book 5 of his Fasti all of the then known interpretations and I wonder why they are not given in the article.

The first one is connected with an instruction given to the Romans by Jupiter and is indeed a sacrifice to his father Saturnus. For each Roman gens a doll should be thrown into the river. This is of course interesting and puzzling at the same time as Saturnus had been detronized, castrated and then exiled to Italy by his son. Looks as a sort of expiation, the burden being put on the Romans for unknown reasons.

The second one is the one given in this article but it is refused by Ovid.

The third is the one Ovid seems to endorse by putting it in the mouth of the god of the river Tiber. It says that it is a memory of the fact that some of the most ancient inhabitants of the place who were Greeks, the last of them from Argo, asked to be buried in the waters of the river as a substitute to their will of being taken back for burial to their old homeland. This looks very interesting and is probably the correct interpretation as water burial is a very widely attested ritual worlwide. Such a ritual carries the meaning of crossing waters by the deceased in their journey to the land of the ancestors or the nether world.Aldrasto (talk) 05:41, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

If you're familiar with the text from Ovid, I'd encourage you to be bold and go for it.EastTN ([[User

talk:EastTN|talk]]) 21:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I edited the text according to Ovid's version. I deleted as little as possible from the previous one. I apologise to the former editor for not making my point here in advance. The theory that the ritual of the Argei is a kind of substitute or support for the lustrative ineffectiveness of the Lupercalia is groundless: these were considered on the contrary so effective that they continued to be performed til well after the end of the Roman empire, about 100 years after Christianity had become the only admitted religion (ie edict of Theodosius 399 AD). However as I wrote here above I think this ritual looks to imply an expiation and might have a lustrative meaning. I was just mistaken in writing Romans, in fact the instruction was given to their predecessors who were traditonally believed to be Greeks come with Evandros. Finally the last statement of the article seems groundless too. we are informed that Romans held twice human sacrifices of two Greeks and Celts, in times of political and religious necessity, ie peril for the survival of Rome, according to religious law. These episodes are well documented and have nothing to do with the rituals of the Argei.Aldrasto (talk) 13:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm no expert in this area, but your additions look good to me. Do you know of any sources that we can quote saying that Dionysius was mistaken?EastTN (talk) 22:02, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think Aldrasto has a great deal to contribute to this topic and I hope he does so. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:25, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you to you both. I had no authority to call into question Dionysius but I found one in Cornell's Beginnings of Rome that does so saying this Greek myth (of Heracles and others) is typical of Greek historiography that traced the origin of every Mediterranean people back to some Greek hero and as such does not deserve any credit. In Rome there are some good instances of human sacrices e.g. that of children held under Tarquinius the Proud to Mania at the Compitalia for an oracle of Apollo, abolished by Iunius Brututs. Macrobius too is inclined to believe the Argei were a memory of human sacrifices, i.e. a ritual (of) substitution, while he too cites the burial ritual interpretation. Etruscans of Tarquinia too held child sacrifices (De Grummond 2006).

My personal view (of course I might be wrong) is that it does not look much as a ritual sacrifice for the Vestals were dressed in mourning cloths. Perhaps if this was a sacrifice carried out to obey an oracle the fact does not create conflict.

A question: what is the authority saying the Argei were supposed to be the attraction tools and the repository of the (moral) filth of Rome? If this is a good one then it is clearly a scapegoat ritual.Aldrasto11 (talk) 13:08, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I've not dug deep enough to suggest a satisfactory source for your last question, let alone an answer; but modern scholarship seems to shrink from scapegoat ritual, at least by that name. Rüpke (1992) has '"scapegoat", possibly' - the scarequotes are his. The scholarship on Argei as scapegoat ritual (no scarequotes) seems clustered between the late 1800's and 1940's. There's not much of it; some of it suggests Argei as pharmakos. So I tried that, and pharmakoi. Pretty much all I got was Davis (1956) on May marriages - or rather, their taboo. Lots of Frazer on the first page, which may be cause for caveat. Jstor has WW Fowler's review of something by Wissowa on Argei; I've not read it. Haploidavey (talk) 14:14, 19 November 2010(UTC)

Wildfang (Vestals in ancient Rome) has Argei-related bibliography, mostly "hard to find" stuff. Wildfang sticks to "purification"; p.151 has a footnote, Nagy, B. (1985) The Argei puzzle, AJAH, 10; 1 - 27. Perhaps puzzle is a reasonable summary. Haploidavey (talk) 15:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the help. I found an article by Harmon on ANRW but it does not add much. I agree that should it be seen in the light of what Davis writes, it would so be possible to explain it in the light of the dying god rite framework: mourning dress of the Vestals and uncombed hair of the flaminica dialis. What nobody seems to have taken into account in this regard is its connexion with the Liberalia of March, visit of the argeorum sacella (Ovid) for two days 16 and 17th. Is not Bacchus the dying god?Aldrasto11 (talk) 13:20, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I read Ovid again and I tend to think the explanation should lie in lines 789-808 of book III: i.e. the relationship between Iupiter, Saturn and Liber. A bull generated by Earth whose body lower half was a snake had been confined in the underworld: he who should burn his entrails would be able to win the gods. Saturn upon being expelled by Heaven asks the Titans to do this for him. But a few lines above Ovid has already said Bacchus is a bull (cornua vertas)...

Luebker as quoted by Bernini writes that during March every two days the pointiffs attended sacrifices named sacra argeorum in those sacella. Frankly I do not know who is his authority. Perhaps he misread the two days into every two day?Aldrasto11 (talk) 10:08, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

proposed renaming

I'd like to hear thoughts on renaming this article Argei (ritual). Or something else. Definitely not "dolls." I should also note that a separate minimal stub called Argei (chapels) used to exist, and I've changed it to redirect to Argei (dolls). There's no benefit to treating the two separately (I don't even know how one would do so, since the sacella as far as I know have left no archaeological trace, and potential confusion and replication. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:56, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Just Argei would be perfect but I suppose we can't, because of Argei (manufacturer). Can we do anything about that? If not, Argei (ritual seems OK. Or at least, I can't think of anything better. Haploidavey (talk) 21:33, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I did wonder whether we could do that; we'd have to move the content of Argei to Argei (disambiguation) first, but the manufacturer already has a disambiguating phrase. That article is an orphan, so between these two obscure topics our ancient Roman Argei seem more traveled (nearly five times more traveled than the olive oil folks, and that isn't counting the chapels which now redirect here). However, you can't move this page to "Argei", because it will say the name is taken. You'd have to copy this content and paste it there, which is illegitimate because it doesn't move the page history, as if anyone cares. (Oh wait! They might want to check the era convention! Horrors!) But it can be done, and then you request that an admin move the page history by some sort of evocatio. Or not; this page will have been changed to a redirect. Sigh. I don't really effing care. But what is your hesitation re: "ritual"? I also thought about "cult" but liked it even less. I left a note asking Aldrasto's opinion. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:48, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I prefer Argei for simplicity's sake; it embraces dollies, chapels, rites and anything else - not that I can think of anything else. "Cult" would be undelicious. On the move-or-not-move business, I'll drop a note to a friendly and knowing admin's page in a day or two, or once Aldrasto's responded, whichever's first. As for the effing rest, I'm tempted to say "what page history?", followed by "what effing era convention?" but folks might think I know even less than I effing care. If you know what I mean. Haploidavey (talk) 23:32, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

There's a note to stick on the top if you want an admin to move a page history. I've done this once and the response was prompt. But you request this after the fact, presumably because you did a boo-boo, not a no-no, so I suppose it would be, ahem, disingenuous to do it deliberately. (Incidentally, I keep circling around Mars — the god, I mean, not the planet — and he keeps sending me on these odd tangents, like here. I find that very interesting about him.) Cynwolfe (talk) 00:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Funny how we get where we're going. I've been hanging around under the Saxum; suddenly, here I was. Haploidavey (talk) 00:27, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for asking my opinion. My view is to name the article simply Argei and then present and discuss the two meanings and their relationship.Aldrasto11 (talk) 07:15, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for overlooking the technical problem. Why not naming the article: Argei (Roman religion)?Aldrasto11 (talk) 11:31, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I think your first instinct is right (and Davey's), and we should try to make this happen: just Argei. I think I see how to do it. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:37, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm distracted from this today — it being one of the High Holy Days on the calendar of Pop Culture Saints (new Harry Potter movie opening! must chauffeur young teenagers to their various rites!) — but will get back to it as soon as I can, if no one else does. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, Gradel (I think it was) says 27 or 30 Argei. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

How many teenagers per gallon is that? If I tried the Rites of Redirection, the page would explode or go wormy. I'm not even muggle, I'm sub-muggle. But I'll look up Gradel, at least. Haploidavey (talk) 18:40, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Gradel's higher number's given in Dionysus, 1.38. The lower is Varro's highest, which I'm sure we already knew... Haploidavey (talk) 22:25, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Route

Palmer explores the route in detail, including contradictions in the sources; I think the entirety of his discussion of the route (though not the whole section on the Argei) is available online. See citations — footnote 1, I think it was. It's obviously far too technical and detailed for WP, but perhaps susceptible to summary. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

puppets

Unless a source says the figures were jointed or were manipulated to show movement (like marionettes), it seems to me that to the average Anglophone the word "puppets" (or "dolls") is going to conjure the wrong image. I think we're fine with effigies (to represent Latin effigies) or images (simulacra). Since I haven't read all the source material on this, it's quite possible that there's something in the texts to suggest that during the procession they were used as giant puppets à la Julie Taymor. Of course there are religious processions in which images of beings or creatures, often oversized, are used in just that way. See also wayang (and topeng, though that's more like a Roman funeral procession or satyristai at the pompa circensis). I'm not sure whether there's an indication of the size of the Roman figures — that is, how literally to take the being fashioned into human form in terms of dimension. But unless there a better explanation in the article, I think "puppets" is perhaps distracting, and "dolls" perhaps too diminutive. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

sacra Argeorum

Shouldn't sacra Argeorum mean "rites of the Argei"? Wouldn't shrines/chapels be sacraria or sacella Argeorum? I believe Aldrasto added this, so perhaps he can enlighten me. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sexagenarios_de_ponte entry contradicts this text by stating that absolutely not is this phrase referencing human sacrifice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.31.30.44 (talk) 02:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Correct! I'm deleting this line. -Eponymous-Archon (talk) 12:34, 4 September 2019 (UTC)