Sacred Gifts, Profane Uses? Transfers and the Roman Religious Sphere

Abstract

Abstract In ancient Rome, gifts made by individuals were subject to moral considerations about the aims and nature of these practices. Beyond the debate about their altruistic or utilitarian purposes, legal texts of the imperial age viewed donations and gift exchange as mechanisms that channelled the acquisition and transfer of wealth, an action that facilitated economic profit and that could both enrich and impoverish. The aim of protecting inheritances and avoiding conflicts on the right of possession ultimately explains why donations needed to be measured and evaluated in monetary terms. Their pecuniary value opened the door to the transformation of gifts into marketable commodities, as well as to the acceptability of coins as valid forms of gifts. In legal literature, gift-giving was essentially regarded and discussed as an instrument of wealth that was fully integrated within the monetary economy. But what happened when donations transcended private affairs and relationships between individuals and entered into the realm of the sacred? Were they submitted to the same norms and considerations? This chapter looks at private donations made with a religious purpose, including votive gifts, monetary contributions, and acts of private generosity, or liberalitas, addressed to sacred places with the aim of distinguishing the different levels of abstraction perceived by the Romans within a practice that was not only defined by the aim of the actors, but also by its capacity to transform the nature and function of objects in various ways.