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Seeing the Smell. Visibility of fragrance in Pompeian domestic cult and its adaption to modern cinema.

The Roman domestic cult was rich in olfactory stimuli, as mentioned by ancient authors (e.g. Plautus, Aul. 24; Martial, 10.24) and suggested by the archaeological evidence: Some paintings in Pompeian lararia seem to depict the actual cult practice, while incense burners, discovered in domestic shrines, materialise the olfactory experience perceivable during the rituals. This evidence suggests that smell and therefore also smoke, evoked by burning incense, were crucial components of the domestic cult. Ascending smoke and olfactible fragrance constituted a perceivable connection to the gods’ transcendent world during the rituals and therefore visualised the desired communication with them.

Based on this observation, I want to examine the significance of visual representations of odorous rituals in the Roman domestic cult. Surprisingly, depicted sacrificial scenes in painted lararia do not include the important incense offering, not even in the form of an open acerra (incense box). Instead, a libatio, the preliminary wine sacrifice, is shown. According to ancient sources, however, the libatio always included the burning of incense: ture ac vino. Therefore, I suggest that such paintings in a Pompeian lararium can also be seen as visual representation of fragrant incense offerings.

While the important incense sacrifices are not directly depicted in Pompeian lararia, it appears that in modern cinematic adaptions of Roman antiquity, domestic cult rituals are actually condensed to clearly visible, strongly smoking and hence odorous offerings. This can be seen for instance in respective scenes in the 1935 version of The Last Days of Pompeii and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000). Based on these films, I want to examine the modern visualisation of Roman domestic cult and its synaesthetic elements in order to compare them with the reconstructable ancient understanding of such rituals.