Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European AntiquityThis book examines the figure of the returning warrior as depicted in the myths of several ancient and medieval Indo-European cultures. In these cultures, the returning warrior was often portrayed as a figure rendered dysfunctionally destructive or isolationist by the horrors of combat. This mythic portrayal of the returned warrior is consistent with modern studies of similar behavior among soldiers returning from war. Roger Woodard's research identifies a common origin of these myths in the ancestral proto-Indo-European culture, in which rites were enacted to enable warriors to reintegrate themselves as functional members of society. He also compares the Italic, Indo-Iranian, and Celtic mythic traditions surrounding the warrior, paying particular attention to Roman myth and ritual, notably to the etiologies and rites of the July festivals of the Poplifugia and Nonae Caprotinae, and to the October rites of the Sororium Tigillum. |
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Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity Roger D. Woodard Limited preview - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
aetiology Agni ancient archaic Aśvamedha attested Aventine Batraz Benveniste birth Bona Dea boundary Bṛhaspati Camillus Campus Martius celebration Circassian clairvoyant Colarusso combat Comitium crisis CúChulainn cult deity denote Dionysius of Halicarnassus disappearance of Romulus divine Dumézil element Emain Macha enunciative Epic episode erotic feminine expression Fasti festival fire flame flight gaze goddess gods Greek Hercules/Semo Sancus Hiltebeitel Horatius Indo-European myth Indo-European tradition Indra inter alia Iranian Irish Italic Khimish Latin Livy Macrobius magister Mahābhārata mythic tradition Nahușa Nart nefas Nonae Caprotinae Nones of July Ossetic Plutarch pomerium Poplifugia populus Romanus post-traumatic dysfunctional warrior priest primitive Indo-European Ps-Plutarch Quirinus rage Regifugium remote space Rex Sacrorum rites Roman Rome Romulus Romulus’s Śacī sacred space sacrifice Semo Sancus sexual slave-women slaying society Sororium Tigillum Táin Bó Cúailnge traumatized warrior Tutula Ulaid Upaśruti Vahagn variant Varro Volcanal Vṛtra warrior-crisis warrior-in-crisis women ἀπόρρητος δὲ καὶ τὴν τῆς τὸ τοῦ τῶν