The gate of the year

Marble relief of Augustan age (I century A.D.) representing a sacrifice scene, now in the Louvre Museum, Paris.
The sacrifice shown was called by the Romans suovetaurilia, a composite name which indicated the immolation of a pig (sus), a sheep (ovis), and a bull (taurus). Such an offering was devoted to diverse divinities during purification ceremonies, but was regarded as particularly suitable for the god Mars, to invoke his protection against diseases and pestilences. In the course of the Ambarvalia, religious feasts celebrated in May, the climax consisted in a procession of the three animals destined to sacrifice around the borders of the cultivated fields, in order to assure fertility and prosperity to the terrain enclosed by the ritual journey (Schilling-Guittard 2005b).
Each of the animals had a particular symbolic meaning. The pig had an augural significance: in the Aeneid (III, 390 ff.) it was anticipated to Aeneas that the proper place for the foundation of a city should be revealed by the appearance of a great sow, which was suckling thirty piglets. The abundant litter was symbol of fertility and of the reproductive power, characterizing, according to ancient Roman beliefs, the female of the pig. The sheep was one of the most frequent victims in the sacrifices celebrated in the ancient world, and in the old fables (Aesop and Phaedrus) became the emblem of mildness and timidity (qualities which contributed to the choice of the lamb as a Christian symbol for the sacrifice of Christ). The bull, finally, has been the most prominent symbolic animal all through the Mediterranean basin since a remote antiquity. For both Greeks and Romans the bull was the most appreciated offering for the gods and the sacrifice of a bull occupied the central place in most religious ceremonies.

[Image: http://www.engramma.it/eOS2/index.php?id_articolo=1461]




Animals

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Marble relief of Augustan age (I century A.D.) representing a sacrifice scene, now in the Louvre Museum, Paris. The sacrifice shown was called by the Romans suovetaurilia, a composite name which indicated the immolation of a pig (sus), a sheep (ovis), and a bull (taurus). Such an offering was devoted to diverse divinities during purification ceremonies, but was regarded as particularly suitable for the god Mars, to invoke his protection against diseases and pestilences. In the course of the Ambarvalia, religious feasts celebrated in May, the climax consisted in a procession of the three animals destined to sacrifice around the borders of the cultivated fields, in order to assure fertility and prosperity to the terrain enclosed by the ritual journey (Schilling-Guittard 2005b). Each of the animals had a particular symbolic meaning. The pig had an augural significance: in the Aeneid (III, 390 ff.) it was anticipated to Aeneas that the proper place for the foundation of a city should be revealed by the appearance of a great sow, which was suckling thirty piglets. The abundant litter was symbol of fertility and of the reproductive power, characterizing, according to ancient Roman beliefs, the female of the pig. The sheep was one of the most frequent victims in the sacrifices celebrated in the ancient world, and in the old fables (Aesop and Phaedrus) became the emblem of mildness and timidity (qualities which contributed to the choice of the lamb as a Christian symbol for the sacrifice of Christ). The bull, finally, has been the most prominent symbolic animal all through the Mediterranean basin since a remote antiquity. For both Greeks and Romans the bull was the most appreciated offering for the gods and the sacrifice of a bull occupied the central place in most religious ceremonies. [Image: http://www.engramma.it/eOS2/index.php?id_articolo=1461]