Private Citizens and the inferiae for Lucius
Scheid focuses his attention on the animal sacrifices and libations that public officials at Pisa offered to Lucius's manes. He argues that animal sacrifices were what separated family or private inferiae from public inferiae, performed by the state.
He emphasizes the infernal nature of the ritual: officiates wore black, the animals were black with black fillets, and they were completely burned rather than shared with the participants. The recipient had moved into the underworld to join the Di Manes. This emphasis is understandable but it minimizes the final aspect of the inferiae at Pisa. The decree directs that, after the civic leaders offered public inferiae, private citizens be given the opportunity to offer something as well, so long as no one gave more than a single taper, torch, or wreath. Other scholars have also generally overlooked or minimized this aspect of the rites (e.g., J. Linderski [2007, 183] emphasizes the elite nature of the participants in the rites without mentioning the privatim participation of others whose social status is not clear). However, it was unusual for private spectators to participate in the public rites of the state, which were performed on behalf of everyone by magistrates and official priests. As Beard, North, and Price point out, during public rites and festivals “the only obligation which was generally supposed to fall on the individual citizen was simply to abstain from work.... On no interpretation does the extent of the citizen's necessary involvement in public ritual go any further” (1998, 1.48). Of course, ritual attendants of various ranks and importance helped in public rites, but the privatim participants at Pisa were not functionaries in a public sacrifice, they were private actors.Given the oddity of private action in a public ritual, it is important to consider briefly who was responsible for its inclusion in the rites at Pisa.
Did the senate decree contain instructions that private citizens should be able to offer inferiae or did the Pisans include it in their municipal decree without prompting? The answer is not entirely clear, but probably the private participation was at least modeled on those at Rome. As Clifford Ando (2000, 173) points out, the Roman senate regularly served as a model to other corporate governing bodies concerning the appropriate language, actions, and responses to significant imperial events. The Pisan decree directly acknowledges its debt to a Roman model and requires that any subsequent instructions from the senate also be followed (ll. 31-33). On the other hand, the Pisans passed and displayed their own decree rather than simply erecting a copy of the Roman decree, which is what happened in later cases concerning the commemoration of Germanicus (the Tabula Siarensis and Tabula Hebana). There are specific parts of the decree that must have been drafted at Pisa; for example in the relatio, they added the fact that Lucius had been patron of Pisa to the official nomenclature that they received for him from Rome. The details of how to acquire the site for the inferiae at Pisa were also produced locally. Still, it is hard to imagine that the Pisans would have added a significant aspect to the rites without guidance from Rome.Some further support for a Roman origin can be found in Ovid. We are fortunate that our fullest description of the inferiae that happened on regular memorial days and Parentalia comes from a work written soon after Lucius's death by an author well versed in Augustan happenings: Book 2 of Ovid's calendar poem, the Fasti. The Fasti was first published around 8 CE and Ovid was undoubtedly familiar with the commemorative rites established for Lucius and again for Lucius's brother Gaius, who died in 4 CE. Ovid does not explicitly mention Gaius or Lucius in his treatment of the dies parentales, but he places his discussion of them in his poetic calendar on the anniversary of Gaius's death, 21 February, which was also the final day of the traditional dies parentales.
The fact that Ovid ascribes the origins of the dies parentales to Aeneas's commemoration of Anchises makes the conclusion that he was addressing the new imperial rites unavoidable. About 21 February, Ovid writes:Respect is shown at graves. Appease paternal spirits and bring small gifts to erected pyres. Spirits seek little things; devotion is welcomer than wealth; deep Styx does not hold greedy gods. A tile wrapped in arranged flowers, sprinkled grain, a little salt, bread dipped in wine and loose violets are enough. Let a potsherd left in view of the road hold them. I do not forbid greater gifts, but a shade is easily appeased with these. Add prayers and personal words at the erected altars. (Fasti 2.533-542)
There may be an echo of the official language of the lost Roman decree for commemorating Lucius in Ovid's “erected pyres” (exstructas pyras), which in the Pisan decree involved constructing a piled up pyre (strues) at an altar, although there is disagreement over Ovid's text here. After the quoted passage, Ovid ascribes the origin of the dies parentales at Rome to Aeneas's commemoration of Anchises (ll. 543-546). He then tells the story of a calamity that befell Rome when the Romans failed to correctly offer inferiae during the dies parentales (ll. 547-557).
Matthew Robinson (2011, 342-43) points out in his recent commentary on Fasti Book 2 that Ovid's emphasis on simplicity can be contrasted with the extravagant public rites that Aeneas puts on for Anchises in the Aeneid and with the expensive public commemorations at Rome for Lucius and his brother Gaius. That is, Ovid contrasts the traditional small private offering of inferiae to family dead during the dies parentales with the new opulent public inferiae on specific anniversaries for imperial princes. However, consideration of the small offerings privatim to the manes of Lucius suggests a different understanding. Ovid allows for both greater and lesser offerings, even if he says simple ones were enough. In this way, his inferiae parallel rather than contrast with the dual nature of the new imperial inferiae at Pisa. Ovid reassures that simple gifts were appropriate for an imperial prince, even when greater ones were being offered.