From Roman to Pagan

Abstract

Abstract This chapter surveys imperial policy on animal sacrifice in the fourth century CE. Constantine’s redirection of economic resources away from temples and municipalities to the imperial state and the church exacerbated problems of funding public animal sacrifice, while his aggrandizement of these centralized institutions over local municipalities undercut its sociopolitical significance. His disapproval of the practice accelerated its transformation from a marker of identification with Rome to a marker of a specific religious affiliation, labeled “pagan.” Constantine’s nephew Julian furthered that trend by promoting animal sacrifice as a marker of adherence to Hellenism. After his death, the laissez-faire policy of his successors left the legal status of animal sacrifice uncertain until Theodosius I prohibited it in the early 390s. Although discourses about sacrifice played an important part in these developments, the crucial factors were social and political: whereas in the early empire animal sacrifice had played a valuable role in articulating empire-wide sociopolitical structures and enabling local elites to negotiate a place for themselves within those structures, in the new empire of the fourth century, the centralized institutions of church and state played a dominant role, leaving animal sacrifice with much less to contribute.