Transformationen paganer Religion in der römischen Kaiserzeit

Jan N. Bremmer

Transformations and Decline of Sacrifice in Imperial Rome and Late Antiquity

in memoriam Albert Henrichs (1942–2017)

It is perhaps a sign of our post-modern times that no new important theories regarding sacrifice have come to the fore since René Girard and Walter Burkert (see Appendix 1), and I cannot pretend that I have a new one to present. At this moment in time, it is perhaps better to be a dwarf on the shoulders of giants. Yet even in that uneasy position one can sometimes see a bit further as I hope to show. In recent times, we have had many studies of sacrificial practices in classical and Hellenistic times, albeit less on Mycenaean times,664 which Robert Parker has well evaluated in his On Greek Religion.665 I will therefore ...