The Sacrifice in Armor
F. Kleiner in 1983 used BR II:1 to launch an analysis of sacrifice scenes in armor in general, tying all such depictions to Aeneas iconography. His case needs to be addressed.
Kleiner held that a depiction of a sacrifice in armor would have evoked for the Roman spectator the image of Aeneas, because the only text reference is Vergil Aeneid 12.166–221, describing a sacrifice performed by Aeneas "sidereo flagrans clipeo et caelestibus armis."[1] However, Aeneid 8.639–41 describes another armed sacrifice, made by Romulus and Titus Tatius to conclude a foedus with one another: "Post idem inter se posito certamine reges / armati Iovis ante aram paterasque tenentes / stabant et caesa iungebant foedera porca" (Romulus and Tatius sacrificed in armor, holding paterae, at the altar of Jupiter, by sticking a pig simultaneously). This sacrifice is described as "depicted" on the very Shield of Aeneas, which we are told in book 12 he carried at his sacrifice in armor. The
context of Aeneid 12.166–221 is that Aeneas and Latinus sacrifice jointly to seal their alliance with one another, just as Romulus and Tatius do in the passage adduced here. The sacrifice in armor as described in the Aeneid, therefore, does not function as an attribute peculiar to Aeneas: rather, this iconography is mandated by a particular politico-religious rite, the foedus and/or coniuratio .[2]
The iconography of the armed sacrifice should be seen as broadly Italic, and Vergil's word pictures belong to his "Italicizing" strain. There was a freestanding sculpture group of the joint sacrifice by Romulus and Tatius that stood on the Sacra Via near the Temple of Jupiter Stator (itself reputedly founded by Romulus) toward the foot of the Capitoline Hill (Servius ad Aen. 8. 639–41); this or a similar group seems to have existed already in the Republican period, when it was the probable model for many coniuratio scenes: two warriors stick a pig with their swords as part of the religious ceremony by which military oaths of alliance were taken. Since this fetial rite included a sacrifice, not only of the pig but of other victims, it belongs to the category of sacrifices paludatus or "in armor."
Images of the rite first turn up on the gold staters of the Second Punic War (fig. 96); the type is used again in Rome in the later Republic (137 B.C.).[3] In the private sphere it occurs on gems and glass pastes up into the later first century B.C. (fig. 95).[4] We have a sure case of this rite being employed in the historical period of the late Republic, and being so depicted: the Italian forces of the Social War minted a type with a number of warriors on either side of the pig all sticking the unfortunate victim with their swords at once, signifying a pact of alliance between all the anti-Roman contingents.[5]
The armed sacrifice and its depictions were therefore not avoided in Republican Rome and Italy. The BR panel showed the imperator Tiberius performing another recognizably fetial rite involving military oath taking, though not the pig sticking associated with the foedus or coniuratio ; his is the taking of vows to Jupiter at the outset of a military campaign (see below).