1 Earliest Rome

8.7 Priests of Magna Mater
the dead man was worth 50, 000 . But anyway, it was a charming do — even if
we did have to pour half our drinks over his poor old bones.'
1. Seviri, like Roman magistrates, were accompanied by official attendants.
2. The narrator, Encolpius, a guest at the party.
3. A fellow guest.
4. Garlands and unguents were commonly used on ceremonial occasions.
5. The host, who was also a sevir Augustalis.
6. Habinnas has been at a funerary celebration {novendtalis) given at the tomb after nine
days of mourning for the dead; see 4.13.
8.7 'Oriental' priests at Rome: priests of Magna Mater
Alongside the priests of traditional state cults at Rome, was a range of very different,
priestly officials associated with the cults of Magna Mater, Isis and other
of the so-called oriental' cults in the city. It is even harder to reconstruct any
clear picture of the character of these priesthoods than of the traditional priesthoods
of the city. They were in any case very varied, with individual cults having
many different types of officials - full-time, part-time, male, female, and so
on. But even more problematic is how to assess the wild, dangerous, odd'
image of these priests often presented in Roman literature, and to judge how
far that image reflects the 'real life' character of the priests. In this section we
discuss the priests of Magna Mater, in the next those of Isis.
See further: R. L. Gordon (1990c) 245-8*; and (with specific reference to
the cult of Magna Mater) Beard (1994)*; see also 2.7; 5.6; 6.7.
8.7a Restrictions on Roman involvement in the cult of Magna Mater
The cult officials of Magna Mater provided a notorious example of the strangeness
and 'difference' of oriental cults and their priests. In this passage Dionysius
claims that no native Roman was allowed to take part (as a worshipper or
official) in the more 'foreign' elements of the goddess' rituals. We do not know
how accurate this claim is, or (if accurate) how long the ban lasted. But,
whether true or not, it represents a clear attempt to mark a separation between
'oriental' rites (and priests) and 'proper' Roman traditions.
See further: Vol. 1, 97-8, 164-6, 280-1, 337-9; Wiseman (1984);
Wiseman (1985) 201-5*.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities II. 19.3—5
The most striking thing of all, in my view, is this: despite the influx into Rome of
countless foreigners, who are under a firm obligation to worship their ancestral gods
according to the customs of their homeland, the city has never officially emulated any of
these foreign practices — as has been the case with many cities in the past; but even
though the Romans introduced various rituals from abroad on the instructions of oracles,
they have got rid of all the fabulous mumbo-jumbo and celebrate them according to their
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