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Author Topic: What's in that patera?  (Read 17397 times)

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Offline Ed Flinn

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What's in that patera?
« on: October 01, 2005, 06:51:59 pm »


Many ancient coins show a scene like this, a patera being held over a flaming altar.  Is wine being sacrificed here or is that pointless speculation.

Also, any thoughts on what the Romans used for burn cream?

Offline slokind

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2005, 07:26:40 pm »
1st: occasionally the phiale / patera may be a phiale mesomphalos--with a lump in the center of the interior; on the underside it is a hollow for one's center (longest) finger, to help steady the broad dish, because, 2nd: it is usually, if not always, for wine (I have not read of, but can imagine, some sort of honey and gruel blend) and always for liquid.  On Greek vases, whenever something is shown issuing from it, it is plainly liquid, and the literature I think speaks only of wine.  Pat L.  (of course, looking up 'libation' begs that question)

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2005, 04:09:37 am »
Coins which show something pouring out of the dish make it look very much like liquid. If you did a quick pass over the fire, and basically just sloshed the wine over it, your hand wouldn't be heated up enough to burn. The fire must have been going fairly well to boil off the liquid without going out, so there would have been a fair bit of heat coming off.
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Offline *Alex

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2005, 07:36:49 am »
Most of the altars I have seen were quite small. There simply wouldn't have been enough room (the cup is generally not much bigger than your average ashtray) to create a blazing fire hot enough to evaporate wine in any quantity. I believe the wine was intended to extinguish the fire, the resultant vapour rising heavenwards to the gods being the whole point of the offering.

Alex.

Offline Ed Flinn

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #4 on: October 02, 2005, 07:52:44 am »
Thanks to all!

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #5 on: October 02, 2005, 02:55:54 pm »
That's interesting, Alex; I'd imagined the water being boiled off by an intense fire, rather than a damp steaming fizzle. How big would the fires in the altars actually have been? If you're right about the ashtray full of water, it wouldn't betoo hard to put it to the test.
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Offline Bill S

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #6 on: October 02, 2005, 03:59:13 pm »
So.....  And on those coins that show Salus feeding a snake from a patera?  Any speculations on the contents of the patera?  Snakes do not drink wine, and I sure haven't seen anything that looks like a patera full of mice.  I suppose it could be water. 




Offline *Alex

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #7 on: October 02, 2005, 04:01:28 pm »
I suppose it could have been burning oil but that would have caused a fair old conflagration if wine was poured on it  ;D, quite apart from the problems involved in actually lighting it. Oddly the altars of which I speak (found on the forts of the Antonine Wall) don't really show any sign of burning at all so if there was any fire in them it must have been of pretty low intensity.

Alex.

Offline slokind

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #8 on: October 02, 2005, 05:48:05 pm »
Snakes drank milk.  At least they thought that they did.  Drank?  Anyhow, lapped at it.  Pat L.

Offline *Alex

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2005, 05:57:22 pm »
So.....  And on those coins that show Salus feeding a snake from a patera?  Any speculations on the contents of the patera?  Snakes do not drink wine, and I sure haven't seen anything that looks like a patera full of mice.  I suppose it could be water. 

I'm sure someone said in another thread that the snakes were fed eggs  ???

Alex.

Offline Bill S

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #10 on: October 02, 2005, 10:20:10 pm »
Quote
Snakes drank milk.  At least they thought that they did.  Drank?  Anyhow, lapped at it.  Pat L.
Quote
I'm sure someone said in another thread that the snakes were fed eggs  ???
Alex.
Well, as a herpetologist who has worked with snakes for several decades, I'll vote against snakes drinking milk.  There have been superstitions in this country about snakes (called milk snakes due to the superstition) stealing milk from cows, but it doesn't happen in reality.  (And snakes actually drink by putting their face in the water and swallowing -  their tongue isn't worth much for lapping.)

As for eggs - a definite possibility.  The snakes kept in the temples were a species of rat snake, and most species of rat snake will raid bird nests and take both birds and eggs (as long as the eggs are intact, not broken).

Slightly off the immediate topic, but vaguely related....  I live in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, and several times each summer we encounter Gila monsters near the house.  My wife is a firm believer in the idea that feeding a Gila monster that shows up at your door brings good luck.  Her standard procedure is to crack an egg into a saucer and place it in front of the Gila monster.  We've never had a Gila monster turn down a free meal.  In fact, they usually put away at least two eggs before lumbering away, and the record so far is three eggs and a mouse.

Offline slokind

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #11 on: October 03, 2005, 12:01:44 am »
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=21150.0
Here is the link for that other snake-feeding thread.  There it was round objects fed to snakes, and what (with many others) I had thought might be buns were corrected to eggs (the ones on the subject coin look like Russian Easter eggs!): anyhow, solid objects on a dish or in the goddess's hand. fed to snakes.
One does know that snakes cannot lap milk.  I cannot check my source which was a friend at the American School in Athens doing research on the "snake tubes" from Knossos and citing Sir Arthur Evans.  LSU does not have Palace of Minos, even in re-print, and I think the Tulane library is closed for the semester.  So I can't check.  That is why I reported so vaguely.
Eggs is a wonderful idea; one does know that snakes swallow them.  On the other hand, there have been times and places where folks generally believed that creatures such as snakes wanted things in defiance of their real nature.
The snake-tube saucers being for milk may be right or wrong; I don't know.  If I remember correctly, the name of the scholar who spoke to me about the snake tubes she was studying was (and still is, if I have it right) Geraldine Gesell, but after 40 years, without checking them in Evans PM, I can't vouch for it.  Pat L.

Offline Bill S

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #12 on: October 03, 2005, 01:17:31 am »
There are a couple major reasons why I doubt that they tried to feed milk to the snakes.  First, it is not a natural food for snakes, so snakes would not recognize it as food, and would not be inclined to try to eat it.  (Snakes are much more limited in their feeding habits than most mammals - there are no vegetarian nor omnivorous snakes.)  It is possible to force-feed a snake milk, but the results would be bad.  Snakes lack the enzymes to digest milk - and would have a reaction worse than lactose intollerance to forced ingestion of milk.  The same problem would apply to other unnatural foods.

Since temples that housed snakes were around and active for centuries, and the snakes were venerated, it seems reasonable that someone during that time must have figured out that snakes did not eat/drink milk, and that some other types of food were accepted or required.  Eggs would be a likely item.  Oddly enough - your mention of buns may be closer to the mark than you thought.  Not buns made out of bread, but possibly some sort of meat-based "lump" could work, although snakes that learned to accept them would be the exception rather than the rule.  I remember many years ago a curator at the Los Angeles zoo told me of a king cobra they had acquired.  They had been under the impression the snake was used to being force-fed strips of meat, so a tray of meat strips was placed in the cage in preparation for the feeding battle.  When the keeper returned to the cage, ready to catch and force-feed the snake, he discovered the snake was already half done with the tray of meat strips.  The snake recognized the meat as food, and was happily swallowing strip after strip.  (Much to the keeper's relief.)

One thought that occured to me regarding the use of the patera - maybe they used the patera to annoint the snake rather than to feed it.  The snakes would not have benefited from such treatment, but would probably have tolerated it.

And getting back to the beginnings of this thread - any chance that the material being poured from pateras into the flames might have been incense?  Some other cultures do this.  (Incense in the form of crystalized gums and resins from aromatic trees.)

Offline slokind

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #13 on: October 03, 2005, 02:55:20 am »
I am not invested in what snakes eat, nor have I any personal experience of them.  I took very seriously the good Italian anthropology offered by Rugser in the earlier thread.  I merely shared what I had received, and explained why I can't get to its sources, such as they may be.
As to the incense idea, however, again I can report that when incense is being dropped onto an altar, it is clearly shown as dots of stuff, not a stream, and as coming from a pinch in the offerer's fingers.  In fact, though, the Mediterranean ancients used incense in both standing and suspended censors.  I think that its being used otherwise was quite rare.  There are hundreds, maybe more than a thousand representations, besides lots of incense burners actually preserved.
A potentially important point in the earlier thread was the distinction between fabulous snakes and natural ones.  Needs research, possibly.
Since I own a specimen of the Athena & Erichthonios Snake coin, I have been interested in what she is handing to it.  From the 'cakes' that Greeks today make for All Souls' Day, I was not thinking of bakery buns, in any case.  They aren't for snakes, but they aren't like any bread, either.
Pat L.

Offline Bill S

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #14 on: October 03, 2005, 09:59:47 am »
A potentially important point in the earlier thread was the distinction between fabulous snakes and natural ones.
A point well taken. 

Also, I have been assuming that the images on the coins reflected what went on in the temples, but in fact it doesn't have to.  Several possibilities come to mind:

1. The images on the coins show religious ceremonies only - not day-to-day feeding of the snakes in temples.  (Maybe eggs were offered for ceremonial situations, whereas the snakes otherwise were fed mice.)

2. The artists who designed the coins worked from imagination, without knowledge of how snakes were really kept.

3. We incorrectly assume that the snakes on the coins are being fed.  (Many cultures make food and other offerings to deities, often with the food not actually being eaten.)  In this case, a patera of wine or milk could easily be offered to the snake, even though the snake would have no use for it.

4. A point that Pat touches on - Snakes of fantasy can eat anything, including milk and wine.  They are not limited by the constraints of reality.

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #15 on: October 03, 2005, 11:31:04 am »
The small porable Roman 'altars' that looked like the old upright ashtrays usually contained hot charcoal coals in them, not 'fire' per se.  Depending on the god, or cult, different things were dropped onto the coals to create a smoke or steam that rose heaverward - grain, frankincense, wine, holy waters, etc.  To some degree, these practices continue in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox rituals with the incense burner.

Offline whitetd49

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #16 on: October 06, 2005, 02:31:35 pm »
Here is a very ordinary snake, not supernatural, that sure appears to be offered an egg!
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Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #17 on: October 06, 2005, 03:37:24 pm »
Evan if it was food the snake would actually eat, I doubt whether it would eat it while being handled.
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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #18 on: October 06, 2005, 07:17:04 pm »
Hello Forum:

To digress, I have read that the patera held grain, wine, incense, gold for sacrifice to the gods.  Of these, grain, has not been discussed.   Grain a true sacrifice, of food, the source of life.  This also would have smouldered nicely, thereby emiting vapors to the heavens.  It could have been wine, incense, snakes, eggs, milk, or whatever.  In fact, I think evidence shows that the substance in the patera could vary for a number of reasons.  Be it a different diety, time of year, regional dictate or just plain expediency the offering to the God certainly varied.   This variation evolved over time and between competing dieties. 

Exploring the variety of dieties and personifications that are portrayed holding a patera it can be observed, that:

Dieties,
Juno - wife of Jupiter, sometimes known as Lucina the dieaty of childbirth, female
Vesta - goddess of family life or the hearth, female
Both are female dieties, interesting. 
Further, Liber, the god of wine is shown drinking out of a cup not a patera.

Personifications,
Bonus Eventus - Good Luck, female
Concordia - Harmony, female
Fides - Faith, female
Fortuna - Fortuna, female
Indulgentia - Indulgence, mercy, female
Justitia - Justice, female
Pietas - Piety, duty, female
Salus - Health, welfare, female
Securitas - Security, confidence, female

Again, it appears that all personifications which hold a patera are female.  I think it fair to conclude that the patera are representative of a female attribute.  Perhaps that of holding a sacred article, i.e. the womb, also that of giving or bestowing, the sacrifcial contents poured over the fire or coals. 
Not all iconographic representations of the patera are offered over fire, many are seen held high as if in offer to heaven itself, a direct appeal.  The difference being a topic of another day.  :-)

An interesting patera link:
http://www.staffsmetaldetectors.co.uk/staffs_moorlands_patera.htm

I think the burn treatment question was intended as being tounge in cheek, but... As to burn treatment, the Romans most likely used a mixture of pounded poppy capsules and hulled barley used in a poultice or formed into cooling plasters.  This treatment was used on burns and for patient's suffering from "St. Anthony's fire" (erysipelas). 
As an aside:  Plants seen on greek and roman coins include, silphium, opium poppy, lily, wild cherry, hellebore.

Anyway, interesting thread, Pax

Offline slokind

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #19 on: October 06, 2005, 08:06:47 pm »
It is much more complicated than that.  First, I must agree with Francis Croissant, whom I admire and respect, in LIMC that Hygieia and Salus are not the same.  This distinction is complicated by Hadrianic and Antonine use of Hygieia motifs for Salus, occasionally.  Second, I must repeat that 'patera' is a very generic word and by no means limited to religious applications; when it is used in a text to translate Greek phiale, it is a very approximate translation and not much of a clue to whether phiale was the word in the original (therefore I applaud the German scholars who write 'Schale' instead, or English who say 'dish', words that translate the generic character of pateraPhiale (LS), after Homer, is 'a broad, flat bowl, used for drinking or pouring libations (Herodotos and in Attic Greek).  Although patera is as close as you can come in Latin, the shape called phiale is designed to minimize sloshing.
In LIMC I found (to keep this short) that the iconography of Hygieia is vague (because she is a personification, doubtless), that the iconography of Salus is not quite the same, even in the Imperial period, that (as I suspected) the types on Greek Imperials reflect the Asklepieia at Pergamon and Epidauros.
You will have perceived that a phiale mesomphalos with that bump in the center might be read as an egg in the center.  To that I would only say, then it would have to be called a patera (shape of a broad soup dish) rather than a phiale.  That if the figure was pouring from it, it preferably would have to be called a phiale, especially if it was held phiale-fashion.  That when the goddess, Athena or Hygieia feeds the snake lumps (eggs would be OK), it is with her fingers, not out of any kind of dish.  Finally, what came as a surprise to me, the name Hygieia begins in the early 5th century as an epithet of Athena on the Athens Acropolis, and only when the Athens Asklepieion is opened does she become first the companion, then in the fourth century the daughter of Asklepios.  She has no more myth of her own than little Telesphoros has.  Besides, almost all the statues lack their original hands, with or without dishes of any kind, and Hygieia has no snake until she gets one, so to speak, from Asklepios.  The earliest statuary type is that known as the Hope Hygieia, after the former owner of the statue now in Los Angeles.  Salus doesn't have one nearly so early, and when she gets one it is patently Greekish.
Hygieia means valetudo in Latin.  Consider Salus Publica.  That isn't Valetudo Publica.  A valetudinarian, even in modern derivation, is not the same as a salutarian.
In other words, I'll write to Geraldine Gesell about the milk business, because LIMC only talks about what you can see, because from the iconography all that is certain is that (i) Hygieia feeds snake lumps, and (ii) you can pour a libation from a libation dish for almost any deity.
Patricia Lawrence
P.S.  You'd think with textbooks all over the house I could lay hands on the vase-shapes plate, but here is the shape of a phiale in section, with the (actually commoner) mesomphalos type in red.  As soon as I find a photo of the Boston Phiale, the namepiece of the Phiale Painter, I'll post it.

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #20 on: October 07, 2005, 03:08:26 am »
If the altar on the last one is to scale, it's big enough to hold a fair bit of heat, depending on how deeply hollowed out the centre is. Most of the personifications holding a patera are female, I agree, but where does Genius fit in?
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Offline slokind

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #21 on: October 07, 2005, 01:00:32 pm »
Those little things that function as altars on coins of ca. 200 CE...someone suggested that they held charcoal rather than a live wood fire.  The one on the back of a vase by the late-5c BCE Washing Painter is a normal real Greek altar, and I guess the fires usually were made with twigs, adding something hotter sometimes.  Temple altars could take a whole animal for a holocaust.
It is not that the patera is a feminine attribute!  The Genii and Bonus Eventus have them regularly; male gods as well as goddesses may have them.  The personifications have them to show that what they personify makes the proper libations, emperors use them for appropriate ceremonies especially as pontifex maximus but also as first citizen, princeps, and, since citizens and emperors use them, the genii of people, senate, and augusti use them.  The personifications are feminine because abstract nouns are usually feminine (even Virtus!).  Concord makes a libation because to do so is appropriate.  As for the pictures, I just put up the first ones I found using Keyword 'pouring' (since libation wasn't listed) in Perseus.  By the way, if I can make the file download and work, there is one picture to complete the idea.  Nike holds both a phiale and an oinochoe.  A phiale can be a receptacle as well as a pouring vessel.  I need a scene of Triptolemos and his goddesses.  Pat L.
P.S. This composition usually frames Triptolemos between Demeter and Kore, but here the goddess at left is Hekate (see the Homeric Hymn to Demeter); at r. Demeter pours a libation from an oinchoe into a  phiale which Triptolemos holds.  The question, whether the mesomphalos and fancy phiale derived from an eastern prototype: probably, but that would have been in the 8th or 7th century BCE.  The word, phiale, is of unknown origin.  P.L.

Offline Bill S

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #22 on: October 07, 2005, 04:31:15 pm »
Quote
Here is a very ordinary snake, not supernatural, that sure appears to be offered an egg!
Actually, it's an artist's conception of a snake, not a real snake.  But, yes, real snakes could be offered an egg this way. (Nice coin, by the way.)
Quote
Evan if it was food the snake would actually eat, I doubt whether it would eat it while being handled.
I would love to introduce you to some of the snakes my wife and I keep.  Not only will they eat while being handled, but will be very aggressive about it.  It's been many years since I captured wild snakes to be kept in captivity, but I do remember one gopher snake I caught when I was a teenager - just as I picked him up, a rodent ran by.  I held the snake where it could reach the rodent, which it eagerly grabbed, constricted and ate, even while being held and carried for the first time in its life.  Snakes operate so strongly on instinct that things like hunger can easily overcome more complicated concerns.

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #23 on: October 07, 2005, 05:01:39 pm »
That's interesting; I've only kept grass snakes, and found them fussy eaters.
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Offline Bill S

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Re: What's in that patera?
« Reply #24 on: October 07, 2005, 05:13:32 pm »
That's interesting; I've only kept grass snakes, and found them fussy eaters.
Some species can be very fussy, and some are very difficult to keep in captivity, usually because they don't handle stress well and/or we don't know how to provide the correct environment.  On the flip side, there are other species that are very easy to keep.  It is believed that the snakes kept in Greek and Roman temples were a type of rat snake.  My wife and I keep several species of American and Asian rat snakes, all of which we generally hand-feed.  They eagerly take pre-killed rodents from our hands, although they sometimes get confused and grab the hand by mistake.  I've got one Indian rat snake that is particularly bad about this - it gets excited about the prospect of being fed and grabs whatever appears first.  I usually get it to let go of me by putting my hand under the tap and running water over it.  As soon as it lets go of my hand, I hold a mouse in front of its face, which is quickly taken.

If snakes were kept as long-term captives in temples, and offered foods that were recognized as such by the snakes, there's no reason they could not have been fed as indicated on whitetd49's Elagabalus/Salus coin above.

 

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