Introduction
In recent years, an interest in the interdisciplinary study of religious ritual has emerged among scholars of antiquity. In attempting to explain how religious knowledge, including rituals, is learned and transferred, certain scholars of antiquity have turned to theories from Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR).Footnote 1 Although certain cognitive theories, such as Harvey Whitehouse’s Modes of Religiosity,Footnote 2 have become prominent, most current CSR theoretical models were initially developed and based on modern religious practices and so may not be best suited to examining ancient religions. Unlike scholars of modern religions, scholars of ancient religions cannot conduct participant interviews and surveys and instead must make inferences principally from material evidence and texts, which are often incomplete and/or contradictory. Therefore, reconciling the process of learning and transmission of religious rituals between individuals, social groups, and material culture still proves problematic. In order to address these issues, I propose a new, CSR-based theoretical framework for understanding the process of learning and transfer of religious and ritual knowledge within ancient religions, which I term the Religious Learning Network (RLN) theoretical model.
It is to be noted that the RLN model does not claim to provide a universal explanation for ritual transmissionFootnote 3 – for example, it does not yet account for ritual deviationFootnote 4 or change in ritual practices that can occur over several generations. The RLN model does, however, contribute to bridging the gap between cognitive science research on ritual transmission and memory and historical and archaeological study of ritual communication, performance, and experience.Footnote 5 The aim of the RLN is to provide a testable model for how religious rituals were learned and transmitted in the context of the Graeco-Roman world. In this respect, the RLN aligns with a fundamental CSR aim to produce ‘general models intended to provoke further research by applying them to specific contexts with an understanding of the cultural and historical context within which religious ideas are communicated’.Footnote 6 As a theoretical model of ritual learning and transmission designed to be applied to material and archaeological evidence, the value of RLN rests with the possibilities it offers to be tested further in the context of different ancient cults. The RLN can therefore serve as a model for comparing different religious ritual traditions and practices throughout the Graeco-Roman world. The aim of the present chapter is to outline the RLN theoretical model and apply it within a case study of a Roman provincial mother-goddess cult, the Nutrices Augustae, so that we may better understand the types of rituals that may have been observed, the cognitive and social effects that these rituals may have produced upon the ritual participants, and the methods through which ritual knowledge was transmitted within this cult.
The cult of the Nutrices Augustae was chosen as the focus of this study for two reasons. First, as one of the best-attested cults in southern Pannonia in terms of iconographic and epigraphic evidence, the cult of the Nutrices Augustae can provide us with invaluable insight into Pannonian religious practices. Since the evidence for the worship of the Nutrices Augustae is confined to the Pannonian colony of Poetovio and its vicinity, and since this cult is not attested elsewhere in the Roman Empire, it becomes an even more important case study for understanding local provincial religions and ritual practices. Although previous publications on the Nutrices Augustae have focused on exploring the nature and origins of the cult, no publication to date has specifically explored its ritual practices. The application of the cognitive RLN model to the material evidence of the cult of Nutrices Augustae will offer a novel perspective for interpreting this evidence, thus providing a deeper understanding of this cult and the religious rituals and practices that occurred within it. Second, the cult of the Nutrices Augustae was chosen as the focus of this study because it is one of the rare cults from the Roman Empire that features cross-generational ritual participation, with both parents and children recorded as worshippers of the Nutrices Augustae. Thus, the application of the RLN model to the evidence of the cult of the Nutrices Augustae can serve to further the understanding of both horizontal (between individuals in the same community) and vertical (from one generation to another) transmission of cultural and religious knowledge in the Roman Empire. This chapter aims to answer the following questions: what insights can the RLN theoretical model offer regarding the nature of rituals that took place in the cult of Nutrices Augustae? What cognitive and social effects could these rituals have produced on their participants? And last, how were rituals in the cult of the Nutrices Augustae learned and transmitted from one generation to another (i.e. from parents to children)?
Religious Learning Network Theoretical Model
Central to the understanding and transfer of religious ideas is the individual worshipper’s mind. Despite individual differences in how we learn, understand, and interpret information, all learning and exchange of information requires interaction with external stimuli.Footnote 7 These stimuli can be divided into four categories: people, places, objects, and events. Together, these stimuli form a common ground on which religious knowledge can be built and transferred among worshippers (Figure 1.1).
First, an individual learns by interacting with people, through observation, imitation, collaboration, and/or verbal and non-verbal communication.Footnote 8 Within a religious context, an individual gains religious knowledge by observing, imitating, and communicating with fellow cult members and religious authority figures, who serve as learning aides in initiating the individual into the religion.Footnote 9 Depending on situational contexts, individuals employ differing variations and combinations of these approaches, consciously or unconsciously throughout their lives, in order to achieve the best learning outcomes.Footnote 10 For example, children frequently engage in overimitation,Footnote 11 copying even unnecessary movements in a sequence of action, which adults are less prone to do since they have a greater understanding of causality of actions.Footnote 12 These learning strategies (observation, imitation, collaboration, and verbal and non-verbal communication) do not only occur in the context of religious and/or ritual learning, but are connected to everyday experiences, existing in a wider ‘constellation of cultural practices’.Footnote 13 Thus, as individuals accumulate knowledge gained through life experiences within a particular cultural environment, they are able to extrapolate and apply this knowledge across different situations within the same (or similar) cultural context.
Second, an individual learns by interacting with a specific place through sensory cues. The architectural layout, the decorative features, and the smells, sounds, and objects specific to a particular place all contribute towards building a memory of and around that place.Footnote 14 Therefore, a multifaceted ‘memory of place’ is created within the individual through the combined sensory experience of a particular location.Footnote 15 The focal place for cultic activities is most often a temple, which through the numinous quality placed upon it by the community of worshippers, as well as through its repeated use (such as continued deposition of offerings), can become not only a place that preserves memory (lieu de mémoire) but also an agent in the transmission of religious knowledge.Footnote 16
Third, an individual learns by interacting with objects through observation and/or physical manipulation (touching/handling). Objects, like places, are not passive entities, but can tacitly communicate information.Footnote 17 Within a religious context, for example, when a worshipper sees an altar, they will quickly learn through observation what size and shape the altar should take, and if they witness another worshipper interacting with it they will be able to imitate the actions. Likewise, through physical manipulation of cult instruments an individual learns how they should be used. When handling a sacrificial knife, for example, an individual quickly discovers that the knife should be gripped by the handle since holding it by the blade is not only impractical but also dangerous, and since it is impossible to cut the sacrificial animal with the handle. Moreover, by retrieving past memories of encounters with similar objects (e.g. kitchen knives, daggers etc.) an individual who has never handled a sacrificial knife, for example, can also extrapolate through memory association how a sacrificial knife should be handled.Footnote 18 The individual may not be able to recall every single time they have used a knife-like object in their life, but through accumulation and association of these past experiences they will have gained the general knowledge of what a knife looks like, how it should be used, what events/situations require the use of a knife and so on.Footnote 19 Therefore, objects can exhibit agency by conveying sensory information about their appearance and their mode of use, but also by ‘triggering’ memories of past experiences that can then elicit particular emotional and behavioural responses.Footnote 20
Last, an individual learns by interacting with events through observation, imitation, and/or participation.Footnote 21 An event, such as a religious ritual, is often participatory in natureFootnote 22 – it brings people, objects, and place(s) together within the same temporal-spatial environment. Ritual events also bind participants together through shared, repeated, and choreographed proceedings.Footnote 23 Therefore, the people, the places, the objects, and the events that an individual interacts with become pillars on which their memories and knowledge are built. So, for example, if we remember a specific ritual (event), we will also remember by association where it took place, who we were with, what objects we used, and what we were doing. These pillars (people, places, objects, and events) dynamically form a network of memory associations, helping in the encoding, storage, and recall of information.Footnote 24 This network of memory associations, in its turn, forms an autobiographical narrative particular to each individual, which can facilitate the processing and remembering of complex phenomena, such as religious rituals.Footnote 25 As individuals reflect on the events, people, objects, and places that form their life experience, and thus construct their autobiographical narrative, they can derive a sense of meaning that will shape their identities. Emotionally intense experiences in particular, such as vivid religious rituals, may prompt an individual to create meaning from their individual religious experience.Footnote 26 As episodic events that build upon autobiographical knowledge,Footnote 27 rituals are personal (and often highly emotional) lived experiences, whose repeated performance becomes embodied and embedded in various (albeit connected) ways. The autobiographical narrative, thus, is the culmination of the individual’s lived experiences – the places, objects, people, and events that the individual experiences form a network of memory associations.Footnote 28
This network may become re-enforced through repeated and/or similar experiences that build upon existing memories and experiences,Footnote 29 reshaping an individual’s autobiographical narrative. In this respect, memories are malleable and can become reconsolidated and reformed upon retrieval.Footnote 30 While an individual may forget certain details of an event, or even misremember, the factual accuracy of the event memory is not necessarily important – the individual’s perception of its validity and its importance is. Autobiographical memories, therefore, are selective.Footnote 31 Research suggests that memories that are closely connected to self-identity are perceived as more important and thus more memorable.Footnote 32 Autobiographical memories are also situational: they are embedded within particular contexts and memory network associations. What an individual remembers and how an individual remembers is influenced by various contextual factors and cues during memory formation as well as during subsequent memory retrieval.Footnote 33 For example, recalling an event in conversation with others can restructure an individual’s original memory of the event depending on which details are emphasized in conversation during recall, who is recounting the event, and so on.Footnote 34 The retrieval and reactivation of a memory allows that memory to be modified, incorporating subsequent new and related memories that can be grouped by association.Footnote 35 Therefore, although a memory from an individual’s autobiographical narrative can change and become reformed upon retrieval, the dynamic recall and reconsolidation process, by being built on existing memories and experiences, connects memories within an associative memory network, which can become re-enforced through repetition.
Within the RLN theoretical model, there are two exerting forces that play a role in the process of learning and remembering religious experiences. The first is repetition. A key characteristic of rituals is that they are repetitive, redundant, and occur in a specific sequence (rituals are often rigid, scripted, and synchronized).Footnote 36 Ritual actions are repetitive in order to ‘attract and hold attention’.Footnote 37 Repetitive, redundant sequences of action stand out from everyday efficiency-oriented actions and are therefore attention-grabbing. Increased attention during ritual proceedings combined with repetition of movements would have led to a better learning and remembering of ritual events. Additionally, the motivation to ensure a successful ritual and a positive ritual outcome would have also led to ‘mimicking previous successful practices’.Footnote 38 Roman rituals, in particular, were known for their ‘high levels of routinization and procedural rigor’.Footnote 39 Unless completed correctly, rituals had to be repeated until the desired effect was achieved.Footnote 40 Considering such a high emphasis on correct performance, it is likely that individuals intentionally attempted to repeat and/or overimitate ritual actions that had produced a positive outcome in the past, leading to high-fidelity learning and transmission of ritual.Footnote 41 Ritual proceedings may also have been rehearsed in one’s mind prior to the performance of a ritual in order to ensure correct performance and success of ritual.Footnote 42 Last, participating in the same ritual several times over the course of one’s life would have likewise served to re-enforce memories of ritual proceedings. Thus, physical repetition of ritual actions and/or rehearsal of ritual in one’s mind would have facilitated the learning and remembering of ritual proceedings. Ultimately, the repetition of ritual and its associations (people, places, objects, and events) would have reinforced the bonds between them and subsequently the whole memory network (Figure 1.2).Footnote 43
Another exerting force on learning and remembering ritual experiences is emotional investment.Footnote 44 The greater the emotional value placed on the divinity, the fellow worshippers, the temple, the rituals, and the ritual objects on the part of the worshipper, the more he or she will pay attention and be willing to learn, as well as remember longer.Footnote 45 In their turn, the four external stimuli (people, places, objects, and events) can also evoke emotional and motivational responses that drive behaviour. Research on autobiographical memories indicates that memories that include emotional content appear to be more memorable, and that even when individuals make an effort to suppress highly emotional memories (e.g. memories of traumatic events) those memories nevertheless persist.Footnote 46 The Religious Learning Network (RLN) theoretical model, therefore, facilitates narrative processing – the remembrance of ritual in narrative format – through a network of associations of ritual components (people, places, objects, and events) in combination with emotionality and repetition.
Nutrices Augustae
The Nutrices Augustae, female goddesses associated with the safekeeping of children, are almost exclusively recorded in the Roman colony of Poetovio (Ulpia Traiana Poetovionensis), corresponding to modern-day Ptuj, Slovenia.Footnote 47 The territory of Poetovio came to be occupied by the Roman army as of approximately 12 BCE, gaining colonial status under the emperor Trajan, and becoming the administrative centre of the province of Pannonia Superior. The neighbourhoods of Spodnja Hajdina (Vicus Fortunae) and Zgornji Breg seem to have been settled first, with Panorama, Vičava, and Rabelčja vas formed subsequently, once the settlement grew. The cosmopolitan settlers of Poetovio brought their gods with them from all corners of the Empire, who amalgamated with each other and with other pre-existing Celtic, Illyrian, and Pannonian divinities. Of these, the most popular at Poetovio were Jupiter, Mithras, and the Nutrices Augustae.Footnote 48
The Nutrices AugustaeFootnote 49 are goddesses of possibly Celtic origin, and their cult may be connected with other Celtic healing and mother goddesses.Footnote 50 In terms of material evidence, they are attested primarily by inscribed and uninscribed reliefs, dating from the mid-second to the mid-third centuries CE.Footnote 51 Even though several studies have been conducted on the cult of the Nutrices,Footnote 52 no study to date has specifically addressed the nature of rituals nor the effects of rituals that may have taken place within this cult. Therefore, I argue that if we take an event (in this case worship of the Nutrices) and apply it within the Religious Learning Network (RLN) model by examining the organisation of religious place(s) (in this case Nutrices sanctuary), the votive objects (in this case reliefs), and the people connected with the cult of the Nutrices (in this case inscriptions recording worshippers), we will be able to demystify what types of rituals occurred, what effects these rituals produced on the participants, as well as how ritual proceedings were learned and transmitted among worshippers.
Although the Nutrices are always invoked in plural form, on reliefs they are most often depicted as a lone sitting goddess holding an infant (sometimes swaddled, sometimes not) to her exposed left breast in the act of nursing.Footnote 53 The Nutrix is usually portrayed seated on the right side of the relief, an altar in front of her. An approaching mother-figure, positioned usually in the centre of the relief, holds out an infant towards the Nutrix. Behind the mother-figure stands an accompanying woman holding a tray or a basket of offerings on her head (Figure 1.3).Footnote 54
It is to be noted, however, that the iconography on the Nutrices reliefs is not homogenous, and that there are some iconographic variations of this scene. For example, AE 1986, 564 depicts two Nutrices, one on each side of the relief, with the mother-figure holding the hand of a little girl in the middle. AIJ 325 features a seated Nutrix in the centre of the relief, flanked by two female worshippers. AIJ 326 features a lone female worshipper making an offering on the altar in front of the Nutrix, while AIJ 330 depicts a lone seated Nutrix. Finally, AIJ 327 depicts a young boy extending an offering to the Nutrix while an accompanying female figure, standing behind the boy, holds a tray of offerings on her head (Figure 1.4).Footnote 55
We must be careful not to interpret these relief scenes as realistic representations of ritual.Footnote 56 Roman iconographic scenes of sacrificial rituals are known to combine different ritual elements and depict them as if happening simultaneously, or even present a particular ‘snapshot’ of more extensive ritual proceedings.Footnote 58 However, it is possible that the iconographic variations observed on Nutrices reliefs may reflect the diversity of ritual experiences. Within the cognitive sciences an individual’s mind and their autobiographical memories are understood to be situated and extended into the environment which surrounds the individual. Since autobiographical memory is selective and finite (i.e. individuals can retain only so much information and are not able to encode and recall every detail of what they perceive), an individual’s environment therefore serves to extend and ‘scaffold’ their memories and cognitive processes.Footnote 60 This environment (e.g. places, objects, people, and events) can be imbued with mnemonic cues which can ‘trigger’ within the individual memories of past experiences. For example, students use course notes to remember past lectures and mixologists keep track of drinks ordered by making use of different cocktail glasses.Footnote 61 However, the environment which surrounds an individual is not a mere passive holder of offloaded memories; through active engagement and re-engagement with their changing environment an individual’s cognitive processing and their memories can be reshaped. In this respect, the individual and their surrounding environment interact in a dynamic process of ‘externalizing and reperceiving’.Footnote 62
These cognitive approaches can be applied to the iconographic variations on Nutrices reliefs in order to provide an insight on the diversity of religious experiences. The representations of ritual on the Nutrices reliefs should not be taken at face value as veritable ‘snapshot’ images of ritual proceedings, but instead the reliefs may be understood as objects which extend the memory of an individual’s ritual experience into an environment. As each individual worshipper forms an autobiographic memory of their ritual experience, the setting up of an ex voto relief would have served as a material and external manifestation of the individual’s ritual experience and ritual memory. Each individual, therefore, may have selected and dedicated a relief that represented an aspect of their ritual experience that they deemed most important, and which closely aligned with their self-identity. This does not mean that the relief would have necessarily depicted accurate sequences of ritual proceedings, rather that it illustrated what the dedicator perceived as most pertinent to their own ritual experience. Since individual ritual experiences and autobiographical memories differed from worshipper to worshipper, these corresponding Nutrices reliefs would have translated into a variety of iconographic depictions, reflecting a variety of individual ritual experiences.
Dedicated reliefs, which formed part of the permanent decoration of the temple, may have also served to trigger and reshape the memory of past ritual experiences for individual worshippers visiting the temple.Footnote 63 A worshipper would have engaged not only with their own ex voto, but also with the dedications of other worshippers which were placed in the temple, serving simultaneously as reminders of others’ fulfilled vows and of their own completed ritual proceedings. Different relief images may have engaged individual worshippers on different levels: for some a certain relief image may have triggered emotional aspects of their own ritual experience, for others a relief image may have triggered forgotten details of their own ritual memory. An individual’s engagement with different reliefs would have therefore produced a dynamic recall and reconsolidation process of their own ritual experience, triggering some aspects of the original memory while also adding layers of new meaning and new memory associations.
Place
Archaeological remains record only one Nutrices sanctuary located at Spodnja Hajdina, with two other sanctuaries presumed to be located at Zgornji Breg and Panorama.Footnote 64 The Spodnja Hajdina temple is small, measuring 11.30 × 8 metres, and of a rectangular, almost trapezoidal shape. In total twenty-three reliefs were found in or adjacent to the temple.Footnote 65 The temple is positioned within a religious complex, close to the first and the second Mithraeum (i.e. temple to Mithras), with some Nutrices dedications discovered inside the second Mithraeum.Footnote 66 The second Nutrices sanctuary, presumed to have existed at Zgornji Breg, would have been located adjacent to the third Mithraeum. Only three reliefs were discovered here.Footnote 67 The third sanctuary is presumed to have existed at Panorama on the basis of seven reliefs discovered in secondary use. Based on these finds, it is possible that these temples were smaller than the one at Spodnja Hajdina, with worshippers forming likely intimate, close-knit bonds.Footnote 68 The inscribed reliefs from these sanctuaries record a mix of slave and citizen dedicators.Footnote 69 Therefore, we have at least three sanctuaries to the Nutrices located within Poetovio, all in use simultaneously. It would appear then that each congregation created its own local, neighbourhood temple. This organisation may have promoted distinct neighbourhood identities, while at the same time fostering solidarity among the different inhabitants of Poetovio.
As the RLN model stipulates, the architectural features of a sanctuary can give us an indication of what types of religious rituals may have taken place there. On the basis of preserved archaeological remains of the Spodnja Hajdina temple we can draw certain conclusions. First, the small size of the temple limited the number of worshippers that could assist and/or participate in the rituals. Accounting for the measurements of the temple, only a few worshippers (perhaps one or two extended families) may have been able to fit inside the temple at a time. Such a confining space would have restricted movement, meaning that rituals likely did not involve large gatherings nor elaborate pageantry. The rituals which took place then, were likely an intimate affair, fostering close interactions among worshippers, and promoting the formation of local group identities.
Additionally, the small number of dedications preserved, only twenty-three in over a century of use, further support the claim that the cult of the Nutrices may have been exclusive.Footnote 70 Legible inscribed dedications from the Spodnja Hajdina sanctuary indicate that at least some worshippers were slaves employed in the imperial administrative and customs service.Footnote 71 It is therefore possible that the cult would have been purposefully kept small, administered possibly through social and/or professional networks. The Poetovian Mithraic congregations appear to have been similarly organised: formed largely around social and professional networks (recorded worshippers include slaves/freedmen in the imperial administrative and customs service, and soldiers), with up to five temples spread throughout the different neighbourhoods of the city.Footnote 72 Considering the geographical proximity of the Spodnja Hajdina temple to the first and the second Mithraeum, and the fact that slaves and freedmen working for the imperial administrative and customs services are found as worshippers of both Mithras and the Nutrices, one could speculate that the Spodnja Hajdina sanctuary was initially built and frequented by these men and their families, whose offices and perhaps living quarters may have been located nearby.Footnote 73 The cult of the Nutrices, thus, may have mirrored the intimate, tightly-knit ties of the Mithraic cell (congregation), while catering to those whom Mithras could not help – the non-initiate wives and children.Footnote 74
Secondly, the small size of the Spodnja Hajdina Nutrices temple would have framed the sensory experience of the worshippers, creating a more favourable environment for the learning and transmission of religious knowledge. In essence, since the temple was small, the worshippers likely stood close to each other, perhaps even touching; and the view, sound, and smell of the ritual proceedings may have been relatively unhindered. The physical closeness between worshippers, as well as the intimate atmosphere, would have contributed to creating not only close-knit bonds between the ritual participants; but since they were able to hear, see, and experience all the ritual proceedings from close-up, their likelihood of learning and remembering the ritual proceedings would have been increased. These claims align well with the RLN model, which stipulates that individuals interact and learn from a specific environment through visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile cues. Therefore, the architectural layout, the decorative features, and the smells, sounds, and objects that the worshipper came in contact with during ritual would have all contributed towards creating a network of memory associations, effectively encoding the memory of the ritual as an autobiographical narrative.Footnote 75
Objects
In addition to the architectural features of a sanctuary, decorative and votive objects also played an important role in the learning and transmission of religious knowledge. The act of setting up an inscribed altar or relief forms one part of ritual performance in itself, and these objects indicate that significant effort, time, and financial resources were put into their planning, manufacture, and consecration in the temple.Footnote 76 In particular objects in stone, such as reliefs, statues, and altars, would have formed a key and permanent aspect of the decoration of the sanctuary, becoming an integral part of the ‘persistent place’ of the temple.Footnote 77
Although, as discussed above, we must be careful not to interpret the reliefs dedicated to the Nutrices as completely realistic representations of ritual proceedings, nevertheless, they may offer us some clues as to what type of rituals may have been performed. A standard motif on the Nutrices reliefs is the depiction of female worshipper(s) bringing offerings of foodstuffs, often interpreted as fruit, bread, or cakes to the seated goddess (see Figure 1.3 and Figure 1.4).Footnote 78 Šašel-Kos notes that in the case of the nursing Kourotrophoi goddesses ‘cakes made of first-fruit were offered to them, since these goddesses were essentially deities of fertility’.Footnote 79 Due to their connection to nursing and safeguarding of children, it is possible that the Nutrices also received similar offerings. Some reliefs also depict offerings of liquids, as an urceus (jug for liquid libations)Footnote 80 and a patera (dish used in sacrificial rituals)Footnote 81 can be seen in use.Footnote 82 It is possible that water played an important role in Nutrices rituals due to its purifying and healing properties.Footnote 83 A female worshipper on AIJ 325 carries a towel, indicating the act of ritual hand-washing.Footnote 84 Additionally, water elements are indicated on a relief depicting a Nutrix sitting next to a woman, presumably a Nymph, who carries a sea shell;Footnote 85 as well as by the fact that the Spodnja Hajdina sanctuary was located in close proximity to a spring. Therefore, water may have been used for purification prior to the start of the ritual(s), as well as an offering for health during ritual(s).
In addition to offerings of food and liquids, it is also possible that incense may have formed part of the Nutrices ritual. The burning of incense was a frequent offering to the divinities in Roman religious practice.Footnote 86 Gurlitt interprets a cylindrical canister carried by an attendant on AIJ 334Footnote 87 as a portable incense altar;Footnote 88 while another relief appears to show a female worshipper carrying a box of incense and making an offering over an altar.Footnote 89 Incense may have been burned as an additional form of purification, and/or to call down the attention of the divinity.Footnote 90 The cylindrical canister may be alternatively understood as a lantern,Footnote 91 in which case it may indicate that rituals took place inside the temple and/or in low light (early morning/evening). Representations on reliefs give no indication that music accompanied the rituals described above, or that public processions or animal sacrifices were part of rituals performed; however, as discussed above, the relief images may only depict select aspects of more extensive ritual proceedings.
If we interpret this evidence within the RLN model we can see that the objects used would have played an important role in the encoding and transmission of religious knowledge. The worshippers’ senses would have been engaged through the manipulation of the objectsFootnote 92 – the texture of incense upon touch, its pungent smell when burned, the sight of flickering lantern light, the sound of pouring liquid, combined with the sacredness of the temple and the emotional connection to the goddess(es) and fellow worshippers, all worked to create a network of associations in the memory of the worshipper. This would have resulted in a distinctive sensorial experience for each worshipper,Footnote 93 becoming part of their autobiographical narrative. Additionally, since these same cult objects (e.g. urceus, patera etc.) were also used in rituals for other divinities, interaction with them would have evoked memories of previously performed rituals.Footnote 94 Furthermore, because religious rituals in the Roman world were sequenced and repetitive events, observed and/or performed since childhood, they would have become therefore deeply embodied.Footnote 95
People
In addition to iconography, many reliefs also display inscriptions which indicate that the Nutrices were invoked for healing and/or well-being purposes of a child (the formula pro salute appears on dedications from all three sanctuaries).Footnote 96 It is also possible that the Nutrices were invoked and celebrated during important childhood and/or family transitions (e.g. birth of a child, celebration of a childhood rite of passage, survival of a significant childhood illness etc.).Footnote 97 In pre-modern societies there were significant health risks associated with childbirth and early childhood to an extent that in many cultures ‘the perinatal period is heavily ritualized’.Footnote 98 Nutrices rituals, therefore, may have been special occasion rituals, marking significant events in a child’s life. This may be supported by the small number of dedicated reliefs, although we cannot discount other types of dedications and offerings which have not survived.Footnote 99 If these were special occasion rituals celebrating important life events, then they were likely highly memorable and emotionally arousing rituals tied closely to the identity of the child and their family unit. Whether the Nutrices rituals were the result of positive events (e.g. thanking the goddesses for the birth of a child or celebrating a child’s rite of passage) or negative events (e.g. entreating the goddesses to help a sick child), the emotionality surrounding the event and the shared ritual performance among the members of the family unit would have undoubtedly strengthened the bonds between the ritual participants.Footnote 100
Even if the Nutrices rituals were special occasion rituals and therefore infrequently performed, this does not necessarily signify that they would not have been repeated. A family with multiple children, for example, may have invoked the Nutrices not only during different stages of a child’s life, but would have likely repeated ritual proceedings for each child.Footnote 101 Although we cannot discount the possibility that there may have been different types of Nutrices rituals to mark key events in a child’s life, and we must acknowledge that ritual experiences differed from one ritual to another and from one individual to another; since rituals were shared among the family repeated (even if different) rituals for the Nutrices would have come to form a network of memory associations within the autobiographic memories of participating family members as well as a shared database of religious knowledge. For example, a parent who had already performed a specific Nutrices ritual for one child would have been able to recall the ritual proceeding when the time came to repeat this ritual for subsequent children. These ritual experiences may have been different, but within the parent’s autobiographical narrative they would have formed distinct yet connected memories of the ritual events.Footnote 102 According to the RLN model, therefore, the repetition of ritual and the emotional investment in the ritual and fellow ritual participants helped to embed the memory of ritual proceedings as part of a network of memory associations within an individual’s autobiographical narrative.
According to the legible and/or complete Nutrices relief inscriptions, a significant number of reliefs were set up by both parents on behalf of their child, with perhaps a smaller number of dedications erected by the father or the mother alone.Footnote 103 Although there is no specific mention of children’s ages in the inscriptions, the reliefs depict infants, that is, children under the age of three years old. This early stage of childhood was particularly precarious in the Graeco-Roman world since infants were perceived as feeble, dependent on breastfeeding, and susceptible to various illnesses, thus needing the care of a Nutrix.Footnote 104 It is therefore possible that at least some of the children mentioned on the reliefs would have been afflicted or in danger of some illness or calamity which worried their parents sufficiently in order to solicit the help of the Nutrices.Footnote 105 If this was the case, then the high level of emotional attachment to their children, combined with the high-stress and high-emotionality experienced due to the misfortune of a loved one, would have worked to imprint the ritual proceedings into the memories of the ritual participants.Footnote 106 In other words, since the well-being of their child depended on performing the ritual correctly, the parents would have devoted much attention and effort to memorizing and performing the ritual sequences needed to invoke the Nutrices.
Additionally, it is likely that the parents may have remembered the rituals for a long time, even after the significant event for which the ritual was performed had passed. Recent research on autobiographical memories indicates that ‘memories of turning points in people’s lives … continue to attract attention and evoke feelings … and may guide behavior’.Footnote 107 Therefore, the memory of specific rituals may not only persist due to the emotional importance placed on them; but the parents may continue to repeat Nutrices rituals in order to ensure that their child stays healthy and/or to prevent some future calamity to their child.Footnote 108 In this way, because an illness of a child, for example, is a highly emotional and painful moment of a parent’s life, it becomes an important defining memory, closely tied to their identity as a parent. These self-defining memories elicit not only high emotions, but due to their importance, can also be repeatedly recalled and further linked to related memories,Footnote 109 becoming stronger and more embedded. This is reflected in the RLN model, which posits that emotional investment in a ritual and its repetition work together to embed the ritual memory, which is further reinforced through the network of memory associations.
Another aspect to be observed on the reliefs of the Nutrices cult is the image of the ‘presentation’ of the child. Female worshippers are depicted presenting the child to the Nutrix, holding the child outwards as if the goddess is about to receive it into her own hands and bless it (Figure 1.3).Footnote 110 Thus, the child is blessed and/or healed by the divine (and symbolic) touch and/or presence of the goddess(es) (Figure 1.4). Even if the performed ritual lacked a medical effect, psychologically, the ‘placebo effect’ produced by the ritual would have generated a positive emotional state in the worshipper, providing reassurance, hope, and psychological relief.Footnote 111 In turn, these positive feelings experienced as a result of the performed ritual would have motivated the worshipper to repeat the ritual, effectively re-enforcing ritual behaviourFootnote 112 and embedding the memory of ritual proceedings in the mind of the worshipper. This fits well within the RLN model – emotional attachment to their child and its well-being would have motivated the parents to keep frequenting the temple and to keep participating in rituals. In turn, repeated exposure to the temple, the votive objects, the rituals, and the fellow worshippers would have, through repetition and association, encoded religious knowledge, such as ritual proceedings, in the memory of the individual worshipper.
A further key feature to be observed in the votive evidence of the Nutrices cult is the social nature of ritual. Relief inscriptions record not only the child but also the parent(s) as well as occasionally siblings (Figure 1.3). The reliefs also often depict not only the mother and the child, but very often one and sometimes two additional female figures, who assist in the ritual by carrying the offerings (Figure 1.3). It may be possible to interpret these figures as servants,Footnote 113 fellow worshippers, family members,Footnote 114 and perhaps even as cult attendants, who support the worshipper in the performance of ritual proceedings. It is also possible that, beyond the immediate family members, extended family members, friends, and neighbours also took part in ritual proceedings for the Nutrices, showing up to support each others’ families during significant events in their children’s lives (e.g. celebration of a childhood rite of passage, illness of a child etc.). Cognitive research indicates that group rituals foster both emotional and social bonds between ritual participants – since the individuals who sought the help of the Nutrices all experienced deep concern for the well-being of their children, group rituals would have bonded them through shared feelings and shared performed ritual experience, providing effectively a support group.Footnote 115 In this way, group rituals would have created social cohesion, stability, and routine during uncertain times and/or transitional life events in addition to fostering the creation of local group identities and community ties.Footnote 116
The notion that rituals may have been scripted/choreographed, with everybody knowing their assigned place and actions (e.g. the mother presenting the child, the attendant carrying offerings etc.), would have further reinforced each person’s sense of group belonging, as everybody participated in the same event and had an important role to play in the successful completion of the ritual.Footnote 117 Additionally, if extended family members, friends, and neighbours participated in each others’ ritual proceedings then individuals may have taken part and/or witnessed repeated instances of Nutrices rituals. As Jörg Rüpke points out: ‘Typically, ritual actions did not remain a one-off thing. Patterns of repetition were important for the formation of real or imagined worshipping communities, establishing horizontal relationships of different degrees of intensity.’Footnote 118 Therefore, as the Religious Learning Network theory posits, emotional investment in the well-being of the child, the family unit, and the fellow community of worshippers would have combined with repetition of ritual in order to facilitate the learning and remembering of ritual proceedings.
Finally, we must not forget that since children also observed and participated in the ritual proceedings, religious and ritual knowledge would have been transmitted to the next generation.Footnote 119 Cognitive research indicates that children as young as one year old are capable of learning ritual actions through observation and imitation of adults.Footnote 120 Yet, children are selective learners. They are particularly attentive to various didactic signals (e.g. eye contact, verbal communication paired with actions etc.) from trustworthy in-group members such as parents and relatives, since they seek to affiliate and display a sense of belonging towards the members of their group.Footnote 121 In addition to this motivation for affiliation and conformity, children’s general predisposition for overimitation of adults (i.e. the replication of even redundant gestures in a sequence of action) also results in higher fidelity learning and transmission of knowledge and behaviours between adults and children.Footnote 122 Research from the cognitive sciences, therefore, indicates that children show an innate receptivity towards ritualized activities, since one key aspect of rituals is that they feature redundant actions in a sequenced performance.Footnote 123
Moreover, since rituals are causally opaque (i.e. there is no clear link as to how the ritual actions performed bring about the desired ritual goal), individuals are even more motivated to imitate ritual actions faithfully due to this uncertainty.Footnote 124 This may be particularly true with respect to children, since they are relatively inexperienced ritual participants. Thus, ‘the costs of not imitating with high fidelity in an uncertain situation outweigh the benefits of the reduced effort entailed in imitating with low fidelity’.Footnote 125 Overall, children faithfully copy (i.e. overimitate) the ritual actions of trusted adults because they want to conform and be accepted by their social group.Footnote 126 This high-fidelity imitation ultimately results in high-fidelity learning, even if the learning of the technical elements of the ritual was not the original nor ultimate goal of the child. Overimitation therefore facilitates learning through high-fidelity repetition of even redundant sequences of action, as well as through motivation for emotional and social bonding/affiliation with members of the in-group. This concords with the RLN model, which states that emotional investment and repetition work together to facilitate the learning of ritual elements.
Children are not just observers and imitators, but also actively participate in their learning process through experimentation – they ‘take their apprenticeship into their own hands’.Footnote 127 In the Graeco-Roman world, once a child reached the age of two or three years old they were introduced into religious life and began to participate in religious rituals.Footnote 128 This is corroborated by depictions on Nutrices reliefs – AE 1986, 564 and AIJ 329 both depict a little girl holding a woman’s hand, observing as the woman gives an offering to the Nutrices. Additionally, Figure 1.4 (AIJ 327) depicts a little boy actively participating in the ritual and ‘learning by observing and pitching in’Footnote 129 – he extends an offering to the Nutrix, with an adult female figure standing behind him, likely supervising and guiding him. By observing, participating, and imitating the ritual actions of trusted adults, and the intent seriousness which the adults accord to them, the child is able to infer their importance and sacredness,Footnote 130 as well as to acquire knowledge of ritual activities and norms.Footnote 131
Since the cult of the Nutrices was centred around the family, the inclusion and participation of the child in the ritual proceedings, as a recognized family and community member, would have been even more important. By participating in the ritual proceedings for the Nutrices, the child actively contributed to the well-being and success of their family unit. These different methods of learning and cross-generational knowledge transmission – observation, imitation/overimitation, participation/experimentation and collaboration – have been shown to be present in children across cultural groups,Footnote 132 and therefore very likely also facilitated the transmission of religious knowledge between adults and children in the cult of the Nutrices, and more widely within the Graeco-Roman world.
We also must not forget that learning, remembering, and transmission of knowledge occurs within a social context. Although children learn through observation, imitation, and participation, environmental, cultural, and social influences also play a role in the preservation and transmission of knowledge.Footnote 133 As has been pointed out in the RLN model, an individual’s memories are not only situated and extended within their environment, but memories are also shared, constructed, and reconstructed among individuals and within social groups.Footnote 134 This becomes particularly important if we consider the cross-generational process of learning and remembering. As young and relatively inexperienced participants in ritual events, children would have needed the guidance and encouragement of trusted adults during their performance of ritual duties. As the Nutrices reliefs appear to display, both children and adults thus collaboratively participated in the ritual proceedings, forming, in the process, distinct yet shared autobiographical memories of the ritual event. These memories of a shared ritual event would have served not only to bond the participants socially and emotionallyFootnote 135 but would have also influenced the ways in which the participants remembered the event.
As time passed and children grew up the memory of a specific early childhood event, such as a religious ritual, may have faded, even if that event may have constituted a defining moment of their life (e.g. childhood rite of passage, recovery from a significant illness etc.). However, the trusted adults and family members who participated in the original event alongside the child would have been able to collectively help the child to ‘reconstruct’ the memory of the event. By collaborating and exchanging details from their own autobiographical memories, the participants would have been able to fill the gaps in each others’ memories of the event.Footnote 136 This social, transactiveFootnote 137 process of remembering enables the preservation and cross-generational transmission not merely of specific event details, but more importantly, of shared group values. In this respect, religious knowledge, including religious rituals, and the cultural and social values which they embodied, would have been transferred from parents to children, who, in their turn, would have carried on the worship and the memory of the Nutrices.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Nutrices were worshipped as healing and protective goddesses whose cult was focused on the family, and especially the well-being of children. Due to this fact, rituals performed within the cult created and fostered close-knit ties among the community of worshippers and supported the creation of local identities. As the Religious Learning Network (RLN) model has shown, religious rituals were learned and transferred within intimate circles, between family members and the local community of worshippers, from individual to individual, as well as through interaction with objects, places, and events. In this way, emotional bonds combined with repetitive exposure to external stimuli to form a dynamic network of memory associations, which created a narrative within the life-experience of the individual, making it easier to store and retrieve memories of religious rituals.
