Salve Iulia,
Thank you for the ritual. May Pater Apollo be pleased.
Vale optime,
Crassus
Enviado do meu iPhone
No dia 14 de Jul de 2012, �s 00:25, luciaiuliaaquila <
luciaiuliaaquila@...
L. Iulia Aquila Pontifex Collegio Pontificum Quiritibusque salutem plurimam
dicit
This morning, graeco ritu and under an awning outside, I invoked Apollo,
sacrificing wine, incense, and libum drizzled with honey in his honor and
asked that He grant us favor and good health.
Despite the intermittent drizzle, the wind was gentle; the focus and the
lanterns remained alight during the ritual. No thunder or lightening during
the ritual.
A piaculum was also offered.
No untoward signs were noted but the sun did shine through the rain during
the observation and one male Robin Redbreast sat on a fence nearby.
These were sung as well:
Homeric Hymn 21 to Apollo
"Phoibos, of you even the swan sings with clear voice to the beating of his
wings, as he alights upon the bank by the eddying river Peneios; and of you
the sweet-tongued minstrel, holding his high-pitched lyre, always sings
both first and last. And so hail to you lord! I seek your favor with my
song."
Orphic Hymn 34 to Apollo (trans. Taylor) :
"To Apollon. Blest Paian, come, propitious to my prayer, illustrious power,
whom Memphian tribes revere, Tityoktonos, and the god of Health, Lykoreus,
Phoibos, fruitful source of wealth: Pytheion, golden-lyred, the field from
thee receives its constant rich fertility. Titan, Gryneion, Smyntheus, thee
I sing, Pythoktonos, hallowed, Delphion king: rural, light-bearing Daimon,
and Mousagetos, noble and lovely, armed with arrows dread: far-darting,
Bakkhion, twofold and divine, power far diffused, and course oblique is
thine. O Delion king, whose light-producing eye views all within, and all
beneath the sky; whose locks are gold, whose oracles are sure, who omens
good revealest, and precepts pure; hear me entreating for he human kind,
hear, and be present with benignant mind; for thou surveyest this boundless
aither all, and every part of this terrestrial ball abundant, blessed; and
thy piercing sight extends beneath the gloomy, silent night; Beyond the
darkness, starry-eyed, profound, the table roots, deep-fixed by thee, are
found. The world's wide bounds, all-flourishing, are thine, thyself of all
the source and end divine. 'Tis thine all nature's music to inspire with
various-sounding, harmonious lyre: now the last string thou tunest to sweet
accord, divinely warbling, now the highest chord; the immortal golden lyre,
now touched by thee, responsive yields a Dorian melody. All nature's tribes
to thee their difference owe, and changing seasons from thy music flow:
hence, mixed by thee in equal parts, advance summer and winter in alternate
dance; this claims the highest, that the lowest string, the Dorian measure
tunes the lovely spring: hence by mankind Pan royal, two-horned named,
shrill winds emitting through the syrinx famed; since to thy care the
figured seal's consigned, which stamps the world with forms of every kind.
Hear me, blest power, and in these rites rejoice, and save thy mystics with
a suppliant voice."
Regarding the Ludi Apollonaires:
"Fertur autem in carminibus Marcii vatis, cuius duo volumina inlata sunt in
senatum, inventum esse ita scriptum: Hostem, Romani, si ex agro expellere
vultis, vomicam quae gentium venit longe, Apollini censeo vovendos ludos
qui quotannis comiter Apollini fiant. His ludis faciendis praesit is
praetor qui ius populo plebique dabit summum: decemviri Graeco ritu hostiis
sacra faciant. Hoc si recte facietis, gaudebitis semper fietque res publica
melior: nam is divus extinguet perduelles vestros qui vestros campos
pascunt placide. Ex hoc carmine cum procurandi gratia dies unus rebus
divinis impensus esset, postea senatus consultum factum: uti decemviri, quo
magis instruerentur de ludis Apollini agundis reque divina recte facienda,
libros Sibyllinos adirent. In quibus cum eadem reperta nuntiatum esset,
censuerunt Patres: Apollini ludos vovendos faciendosque, inque eam rem
duodecim milia aeris praetori et duas hostias maiores dari, decemvirisque
praeceptum: ut Graeco ritu hisce hostiis sacrum facerent, Apollini bove
aurato et capris duabus albis auratis, Latonae bove femina aurata. Ludos in
circo populus coronatus spectare iussus. Haec praecipue traditur origo
ludorum Apollinarium." - Macrobius, Saturnalia XVII.28-30
During a rather bad year (212 BCE) in the Second Punic War (though they did
have a good win at Syracuse) and several years after their crushing defeat
by the Carthaginian Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae, the Romans consulted
the ancient seer Marcius for his reading from the sacred texts, the
Sibylline Oracles. Marcius advised them to hold games in honour of the
Greek sun god, Apollon, in order to obtain his aid. Four years later when a
plague broke out, the senators of Rome decided to make the Ludi Apollinares
permanent and over the course of the next two centuries the games came to
be a festival lasting eight days, the principal sacrifice being made on
July 13.
It was stated by some of the ancient annalists that these ludi were
instituted for the purpose of obtaining from Apollo the protection of human
life during the hottest season of summer; but Livy and Macrobius adopt the
account founded upon the most authentic document, the carmina Marciana
themselves, that the Apollinarian games were instituted partly to obtain
the aid of Apollo in expelling the Carthaginians from Italy, and partly to
preserve, through the favour of the god, the republic from all dangers. The
oracle suggested that the games should be held every year under the
superintendence of the praetor urbanus, and that ten men should perform the
sacrifices according to Greek rites. The senate complying with the advice
of the oracle made two senatusconsulta; one that, at the end of the games,
the praetor should receive 12,000 ases to be expended on the solemnities
and sacrifices, and another that the ten men should sacrifice to Apollo,
according to Greek rites, a bull with gilt horns and two white goats also
with gilt horns, and to Latona a heifer with gilt horns. The games
themselves were held in the Circus Maximus, the spectators were adorned
with chaplets, and each citizen gave a contribution towards defraying the
expenses. The Roman matrons performed supplications, the people took their
meals in the propatulum with open doors, and the whole day — for the
festival lasted only one day — was filled up with ceremonies and
various other rites. At this first celebration of the ludi Apollinares no
decree was made respecting the annual repetition suggested by the oracle,
so that in the first year they were simply ludi votivi or indictivi. The
year after (211 BCE) the senate, on the proposal of the praetor Calpurnius,
decreed that they should be repeated, and that in future they should be
vowed afresh every year. The day on which they were held varied every year
according to circumstances. A few years later, however (208 BC), when Rome
and its vicinity were visited by a plague, the praetor urbanus, P. Licinius
Varus, brought a bill before the people to ordain that the Apollinarian
games should in future always be vowed and held on a certain day (dies
status), on prid. Non. Quin. ‡, which day henceforward remained a
dies sollemnis. The games thus became votivi et stativi, and continued to
be conducted by the praetor urbanus.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
