Holy Bull Blood!
The initial reviews of HBO’s “Rome” are in, and everybody seems to be talking about a certain Pagan ritual performed by Atia of the Julii.
“But HBO’s lavish series promises to be the grittiest of the lot. It’s got epic battle scenes, but it’s got bloody barroom brawls, too. It’s got genteel debate on the floor of the Senate, but it’s also got slap flights between senators. It’s got primitive brain surgery – ouch! – and weird pagan rituals, including one in which a woman is showered with blood that’s pouring out of a freshly sacrificed bull.” – Mike Kelley, Toledo Blade
“Atia is, naturally, ruthless. She’s not above murdering daughter Octavia’s (Kerry Condon) husband if it’ll get her a little cozier with Pompey, and she administers tough love to her young, weak-yet-wise son Octavian (Max Pirkis) to ensure her bloodline endures. She bathes in the blood of a slaughtered bull as it rains down over her head if she thinks that might help, and Marc Antony (James Purefoy) is but one of her lovers, dispensable if things don’t go as planned.” – David Kronke, LA Daily News
“We also see the first of what will apparently be a regular inculcation into the weirder religious practices of the day. We see Atia sitting underneath a platform where a large animal is slaughtered, its blood cascading down on her. Your first thought is of ‘Carrie,’ but this rite is one of purification rather than humiliation. Well, at least I assumed it is. As you may know, HBO has a thing about explaining too much to the audience.” – Aaron Barnhart, Kansas City Star
“I’m going to say it now, Attia is going to steal this show. She’s Caesar’s niece played masterfully by Polly Walker, and is the behind the scenes leader of the Caesar family. She has no reservations about using her own children as pawns in the game of power (in the first episode alone she sends her son (Octavian) into Britain just to deliver a horse to Unca Julius and forces her daughter (Octavia) to divorce her husband and marry Pompeii). But there is also something motherly in the way she does it, she’s rough on her kids but only because she wants the best for them. She wants her son to look good in Caesar’s eyes and wants her daughter to be the “1st lady” in Rome. There is a scene where she bathes in the blood of a sacrificial cow as it is being slaughtered above her that i’m sure will be the talk of the town.” – Ryan j Budke, TV Squad
“Rome also offers up acres of writhing naked flesh and oceans of gore (often both at the same time, as in the first episode, when a topless woman bathes in bull’s blood during a ritual sacrifice). At least in terms of sheer volume of nude scenes per hour, Rome is the dirtiest series I’ve seen yet on HBO.” – Dana Stevens, Slate
“The woman is simply too busy to get dressed. Though Atia does wear a flowing white gown in one of the show’s most shocking scenes, in which she stands under a gored bull and gets showered in blood as part of a purification ritual. It’s like “Carrie” with large livestock.“ – Marc Peyser, Newsweek
That ritual was/is called the “Taurobolium” and was practiced regularly in ancient Rome.
“While Mithras was worshipped almost exclusively by men, most of the wives and daughters of the Mithraists took part in the worship of Magna Mater, Ma-Bellona, Anahita, Cybele, and Artemis. These goddess religions practiced a regeneration ritual known as the Taurobolium, or bull sacrifice, in which the blood of the slaughtered animal was allowed to fall down upon the initiate, who would be lying, completely drenched in a pit below. As a result of their association with practitioners of this rite, Mithraists soon adopted the Taurobolium ritual as their own.” – David Fingrut
“In the late 3rd and the 4th centuries its usual motive was the purification or regeneration of an individual, who was spoken of as renatus in aeternum, reborn for eternity, in consequence of the ceremony (Corp. Insc. Lat. Vi. 510512). When its efficacy was not eternal, its effect was considered to endure for twenty years. It was also performed as the fulfilment of a vow, or by command of the goddess herself, and the privilege was limited to no sex nor class. The place of its performance at Rome was near the site of St Peters, in the excavations of which several altars and inscriptions commemorative of taurobolia were discovered.” -Wikipedia
Oh, and according to the Rogue Classicist it seems the rite was done in honor of Cybele. So it looks like it may be a Pagan Rome after all. Calming my fears that they would portray Rome as secular. No doubt I’ll expect to hear how “Rome” is leading teens to Wicca (or at least Religio Romana) any day now.
4 responses so far
To me, Rome is almost as American as applie pie. The gods ruled, and the goddesses (and women along with them) had been whittled down to male-like nubbins. Like modern America, Rome stood for competition over cooperation, war over peace, conquest over diplomacy. But if one goes truly back into the past, another millenia and a half back beyond the Roman Empire, one comes to the last “pure” Goddess society, the ancient Minoan. In that society, there’s really no evidence of war or violence, none of conquest, “no
ambition” (a phrase used ontinually about the Minoans), much less disparity between rich and poor, men and women, etc. And — and this I think is very important — very few (if any) father gods.
As I recall, the emperor Julian II (the last Pagan) went through the taurobolium twice. He was a curious mix of philosophical Neoplatonist and Pagan cultist, in the positive sense of the word “cult.”
The Minoan society Athena is blathering on about was generally remembered, and was even depicted in the Odyssey as weak and decadent, and it vanished in one night when Thera blew up. Coolest thing it had going for it was bull vaulting and the great breast exposing dresses the women wore.
Great posting about the HBO series Rome. I heard the Great Mother stuff but I thought I was seeing Mithraic worship. Thanks for clearing that up.
The taurobolium shown in “Rome” was not particularly proper. The series showed Atia undergoing the rite under the gaze of a male priest in order to have a divination made about Octavianus, who was on his way to Gallia.
To my knowledge, only castrated priests ever served the Magna Mater in the Republican period. The diviner in the series was thin and had a nice deep voice, and clearly not meant to be a eunuch. Likewise for the priests performing the sacrifice.
According to Prudentius, the method by which the bull was killed in the taurobolium was a stab with a spear, not a cut with a sacrificial knife as was shown in the series.
I am unaware of any instance in which the taurobolium was used for divination in the fashion displayed. After all, it was a rebirth rite. Instead, a bull might be sacrificed and its entrails read by a haruspex, the flight of birds might be observed by an augur, or the smoke of the fire in which the bull’s entrails were burned might be watched for omens. Of course, none of those methods is as lurid as the taurobolium, which is why HBO chose to use it.
Finally, the first evidence we have of a taurobolium being performed in Italy comes from the 130s CE. That’s over 170 years after the events portrayed in “Rome”, well after the fall of the Republic. And that makes Atia’s use of the taurobolium an outright historical howler.