Témoignages du culte domestique en Suisse romaine

Abstract

A survey of domestic shrines in Switzerland in the Roman period reveals ritual practices conducted for deities and ancestors honored in the family circle. In a town or in a vicus, lararia in a known context appear near the entrance of the house, located either by the remains of a cabinet or a wooden container, or found dispersed in a shop or specific room behind the shop or an entrance hallway. The bronze statuettes are part of shrines and are often accompanied by other objects in connection with the cult such as the serpent pots found in Augst/Augusta Raurica. The choice of the deities that are represented suggests that the officiant is either Gallic, Helvetian or Roman and that the worship of the gods is in the Gallic and Roman versions. In the first century AD in Avenches, ram heads carved in stone served as andirons for hearths in the center of the household, continuing a Celtic tradition of domestic worship. Two inscriptions from Aventicum are dedicated to deified women by their freed husbands, one with Gallic names, another with Roman names. A bust of an elderly helvetian lady attests to the persistence of Gallic and Roman ancestor worship during Tiberius period. In the Roman settlement of Vallon near Avenches, statuettes and various objects of a lararium have been preserved in situ or scattered in a central hall opening towards a portico and decorated with a mosaic, book-cabinets and an absidial bench. A bronze chalice offered by a local Paterna to protective goddesses, the Suleviae, was probably linked to a happy birth, a mark of women's participation to the memorial place that constitutes the domestic chapel.