Argei (dolls) Totally Explained

Everything about Argei Dolls totally explained

Before even the beginning of the Argei festival the puppets were placed in the "sacra Argeorum" or the twenty four chaples around the Servian regions of Ancient Rome. These puppets were thought to absorb all the filth and inpurities within the area. Hence the puppets became objects of sacrifice to remove impurities from Rome. This was an act of purification thought to have taken over the Lupercalia as Rome's population became grew to a size where the whipping purification ritual of the Lupercalia became ineffective. Perhaps the most popular explanation, originating with Dionysius of Halicarnassus is that the ritual is a continuation of one in which actual humans were regularly sacrificed to the Tiber. These sacrifices were thought to be of men over the ages of sixty. The phrase sexagenarios de ponte, was an expresion of this Roman tradition.The pontifices and vestals were the main celebrants of the rituals. The festival started with a procession. However, we're not certain of the route of this procession. Fowler claims “we are tempted to believe that it visited each sacellum, and there found, or possibly made. The puppet (simulacrum), which thus represented the district of which the sacellum was the sacred.” Alternative interpretations from modern historians involve a pre-Imperial rite with the purpose of encouraging rain, or as an annual re-enactment of execution by drowning of twenty-seven captured Greeks.

Notes and References

Fowler The Roman Festivals pp113-120

Further Information

Get more info on 'Argei Dolls'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://argei__dolls.totallyexplained.com">Argei (dolls) Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.