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. |
Contents
AND ROMULUS DISAPPEARS | 35 |
AT THE SHRINES OF VULCAN | 50 |
WHERE SPACE VARIES | 78 |
WARRIORS IN CRISIS | 90 |
STRUCTURES MATRIX AND CoNTINUUM | 100 |
REMOTE SPACES | 120 |
EROTIC WOMEN AND THE UNAVERTED GAZE | 130 |
CLAIRVOYANT WOMEN | 202 |
IO WATERY SPACES | 216 |
RETURN TO ORDER | 229 |
FURTHER CONCLUSIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS | 238 |
| 269 | |
| 279 | |
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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 affiliated Agni ancient archaic attested Aventine Batraz Benveniste Bona Dea boundary Boyle and Woodard Camillus Campus Martius celebration clairvoyant Colarusso combat Comitium crisis CuChulainn cult deity denote Dionysius Dionysius of Halicarnassus disappearance of Romulus divine Dumézil element Emain Macha enunciative Epic erotic feminine expression Fasti festival fiery fig fight figure finds fire first flame flees flight flood gaze Goat’s Marsh goddess gods Greek Halicarnassus Hercules/Semo Sancus Horatius identified Indo-European myth Indo-European tradition Indra inter alia Iranian Irish Italic Khimish Latin Livy Macrobius magister Mahabharata mythic tradition Nahusa Nart nefas Nonae Caprotinae Nones of July Ossetic Plutarch pomerium Poplifugia populus Romanus post-traumatic dysfunctional warrior priests primitive Indo-European Ps-Plutarch Quirinus rage reflex Regifugium remote space Rex Sacrorum rites ritual complex Rome Rome’s Romulus Romulus’s disappearance Saci sacred space sacrifice Semo Sancus significance slave-women slaying society traumatized warrior Tutula Ulaid Upas'ruti Vahagn variant Volcanal Vrtra warrior-crisis women