Ritual Instruments Used by Female Priestly Attendants

Thus far our focus has been on ritual objects wielded by Roman priestesses. No priestly official, however, ever worked in isolation. Animal sacrifice in particular required a large cast of support personnel, many of whom were liberti (freedmen) or servi publici (public slaves) (Horster 2007, 332-34).

Although most ritual assistants were men, women also served in this capacity. In fact, the only popa known by name was a freedwoman, Critonia Philema, whose funerary inscription describes her as “popa de insula” (“ritual slaughterer of the island,” CIL 6.9824).^[243] As Emily Hemelrijk (2009, 263) has noted, the existence of a female victimarius is “highly surprising.” In Roman art, popae are typically muscular young men wearing a limus (apron) and carrying a dolabra or malleus (mallet) with which they will fell the sacrificial victim. Nonetheless, female popae must have existed. We can be certain, for instance, that the victimarii who slaughtered and butchered the pig at the December rites of Bona Dea were women, since no men were allowed to be present during the sacrifice (Cicero Har. Resp. 37; Juvenal 2.86-7; Macrobius Sat. 1.12.20, 23; Brouwer 1989, 349-50, 69). Other women-only rituals such as the sacrum anniversarium Cereris and the annual festival of Fortuna Muliebris undoubtedly supported female ritual assistants as well.^[244] The epitaph of Critonia Philema testifies to the presence of female popae in the city of Rome, even if her exact responsibilities remain a mystery.

Ritual implements used by support personnel appear in the literary sources as well.

Simpulum vas parvulum non dissimile cyatho, quo vinum in sacrificiis libabatur; unde et mulieres rebus divinis deditae simpulatrices (455L).

A simpulum is a small vessel, not dissimilar to a cyathus, from which wine used to be poured out as an offering in sacrifices; from which, also, women devoted to divine matters are called simpulatrices.

As the simpulum was a ladle used to dip wine and pour libations at sacrificial rites, it is natural to assume that a simpulatrix used the simpulum to handle wine on regular ritual occasions.^[245] This is confirmed by an anonymous scholiast on Juvenal, who describes the simpuvium (an alternative for simpulum) as a vessel “suited for sacrifice, from which the pontifices used to offer libations,” and explains that from the simpuvium, “the woman who offers the cup is called the simpuviatrix” (illa dicitur simpuviatrix quae porrigit poculum ipsud, 6.343).^[246] That a group of women “devoted to divine matters” and bearing the name of a sacrificial vessel could assist the male pontifices highlights the extent to which women were involved in public sacrifice at Rome.