This book is the result of a colloquium organised by the HeRMA laboratory, which focuses on identities and intercultural phenomena in the ancient world. As Lafond defines in the introduction, the scientific approach is based on a social and cultural history, which presents a fertile basis for the three essential notions of the book: religion, memory and identities. The aim of the book is to reflect on how these concepts relate to one another, with a particular focus on the theme of memory. The contributors seek to understand the implications of this process in the construction of identity, through religious practices, which have the advantage of defining, and even validating, the social order.
The book opens with a foreword by P. Brulé, offering an insight into the richness of religion in the ancient world. Starting from the Athenian Ephebic oath, which lists a series of objects defined as hiera, Brulé proposes a discussion on the concept of the sacred/holy (hieros) and the process of consecration (kathierôsis). By comparing the Greek rite with the Christian eucharistic rite, he shows the freedom given to the ancients to enjoy consecration, whereas in the Christian world this action is the prerogative of the priest only.
This profusion of the sacred, through objects and places, provides a starting point for a memorial and identity anchoring of religious practices studied in the book in three main areas: the malleability of memory, the variety of communities and the strategies that govern the construction of memory. The first part looks at the different ways in which memory is transformed. Indeed, the mutation of communities, particularly following the Roman conquest, led to an evolution of religious practices that were based on a conscious or unconscious redefinition of places of remembrance.
J.-Y. Carrez-Maratray provides a significant example of these reworkings of memory, based on the festivals held by Ptolemy II in honour of his father, which took place in September on the Sacred Island, which corresponds to the plain of Canopus. The author presents the construction of Ptolemaic discourse based on a mythical memory, which links the dynasty to Homeric stories, and also the reconstruction of this memory under Augustus, to deprive the territory of its sacred value and its Lagid allegiance.
These memorial transformations of sacred spaces are also notable in border areas, such as the sanctuaries of western Emilia. S. Fogliazza and E. Mazzetti show, through a study of nine natural sites, the various evolutions of protohistoric sanctuaries in the Roman period. While some sanctuaries continued to build a memory that was constantly reinvented, due to their topographical location along major roads, others were abandoned in order to erase the memory of the community place and the risk of identity revolts.
This redefinition of community spaces after the Roman conquest is also reflected in R. Golosetti's study. Through 29 Gallic fortified sites reoccupied by a Roman sanctuary in Gallia Narbonensis, Golosetti observes a memorial reinvestment of these Iron Age settlements by the community of the new urban centre built below in the valley.
In the final chapter of this part M. Girardin presents a variation on this memorial reconstruction following the Roman conquest, focusing on the solutions adopted by the Jews to redefine their religious identity. He highlights a process of embellishment and even emphasis of the memory of the Temple of Jerusalem in rabbinic sources, in response first to pressure from the Roman authorities and then to the spread of Christianity.
Part 2 focuses on the protagonists of memorial construction and the different levels of their action, from individual impulse to community dynamics. The first article uses the concepts of the ERC-project ‘Lived Ancient Religion’ to interpret the uestigia of Roman sanctuaries in North Africa through the prism of the devotee's emotional perception. From twelve specimens of footprints or metal soles discovered in a sacred context V. Gasparini reconstructs the itinerary taken by devotees within the sanctuaries and the personal and visual link that unites them with the divinity. While this demonstration presupposes a prior adherence to concepts that are the subject of much historiographical debate, it illustrates once again the spatial anchoring of the memorial systems put in place by worshiping communities, as presented in the previous section.
These group dynamics are even more perceptible in the study conducted by X. Mabillard on an epigraphic formula of heroisation of the deceased, found on several epitaphs from the islands of Thera and Anaphe. This formula, which was in use between the Hellenistic and the Imperial periods, reflects the local nature of the memorial celebration and, above all, supports its community dimension. Thus, through the process of heroisation, the island's elites expressed their family prestige and built links with other heroes, such as the Spartan rulers or the founder Theras.
The memorial celebration of elites also involves the exaltation of virtues such as piety. This is what L. Pop observes by studying the 20 statues discovered in Delos that mention the eusebia of the person depicted. It appears that the celebration of piety was part of a codified process orchestrated by the Delian community to honour donors who had participated in the island's religious life, certainly by making a substantial financial contribution.
In the final chapter of this part G. Perrot highlights the contagion of religious practices between communities and their commemoration. She studies the evolution of epigraphic evidence across the civil and military communities of Strasbourg and concludes that the eighth legion had a significant influence on the construction of a protocivic religion.
Part 3 looks at the strategies used to construct memories in order to reinforce a civic and thus identity discourse. The example of the theft of the statues of Damia and Auxesia, presented by R. Roy, is compelling in this respect. Using Herodotus’ account, which treats the origin of the enmity between Aegina and Athens following the theft of the statues of Damia and Auxesia, Roy highlights the interweaving of levels of memorial discourse, combining historicity and the imaginary. The theft reveals the tensions surrounding Aegina's independence and its support for Thebes in its conflict with Athens.
It is through the prism, not of images, but of divine epithets that S. Lebreton reflects on the memorial strategies of cities. He examines the memorial issues inherent in the divine epithets attributed by a civic community. To do this, he analyses three Athenian case studies: the cult of Zeus Eleutherios, that of Zeus Epôpetes and Epops, and that of Artemis Agrotera and Zeus Tropaios. It thus appears that the Athenians updated the semantic scope of these epithets according to the geopolitical context of each period.
In the final chapter A. Mayorgas examines two controversial memorial figures from the origins of Rome who were worshipped, the prostitute and the traitor: Acca Larentia and Tarpeia. The chapter illustrates the complex relationship between polytheism and memory. While the altar dedicated on the Velabrum and the Tarpeium saxum constitute places of settlement of the memory of these women, the fact remains that the rite appears autonomous in the face of erudite speculations to reconstruct their myth, which varies from one author to another.
In the conclusion Ackermann and Vincent review the various contributions in the light of the main themes running through the book: the topography of memory, its local dissemination and spatial anchoring; the malleability of memory, its construction and continuous readjustment; the community dimension and its use for identity or even imperialistic purposes. While this synthesis makes it possible to create relevant links between the various demonstrations, the lack of a clearer historiographical definition of the main concepts (memory, religion and identities) is unfortunate. The absence of such a discussion leaves a vagueness that is probably unavoidable for a book resulting from a multidisciplinary colloquium covering the whole of antiquity.
