Sacellum

Religion in
ancient Rome
Marcus Aurelius sacrificing
Marcus Aurelius (head covered)
sacrificing at the Temple of Jupiter
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In ancient Roman religion, a sacellum is a small shrine. The word is a diminutive from sacrum (neuter of sacer, "belonging to a god").[1] The numerous sacella of ancient Rome included both shrines maintained on private properties by families, and public shrines. A sacellum might be square or round.[2]

Varro and Verrius Flaccus describe sacella in ways that at first seem contradictory, the former defining a sacellum in its entirety as equivalent to a cella,[3] which is specifically an enclosed space, and the latter insisting that a sacellum had no roof.[4] "Enclosure", however, is the shared characteristic, roofed over or not. "The sacellum", notes Jörg Rüpke, "was both less complex and less elaborately defined than a temple proper".[5]

The meaning can overlap with that of sacrarium, a place where sacred objects (sacra) were stored or deposited for safekeeping.[6] The sacella of the Argei, for instance, are also called sacraria.[7] In private houses, the sacrarium was the part of the house where the images of the Penates were kept; the lararium was a form of sacrarium for the Lares. Both sacellum and sacrarium passed into Christian usage.

Other Latin words for temple or shrine are aedes, aedicula, fanum, delubrum and templum, though this last word encompasses the whole religiously sanctioned precinct.

  1. ^ Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 7.12.5, discounting the etymology proffered by Gaius Trebatius in his lost work On Religions (as sacer + cella).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Smith was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Varro, Res Divinae frg. 62 in the edition of Cardauns.
  4. ^ Verrius Flaccus as cited by Festus, p. 422.15–17 L: sacella dicuntur loca dis sacrata sine tecto.
  5. ^ Jörg Rüpke, Religion of the Romans (Polity Press, 2007, originally published in German 2001), pp. 183–185.
  6. ^ Ulpian, Digest I.8.9.2: sacrarium est locus in quo sacra reponuntur.
  7. ^ Ittai Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 10.