Round 7: Tossup 19
A voice that came from one of these places before the Gallic attack on Rome was worshipped as the Aius Locutius. Each year, the Arval Brethren gathered in one of these places outside Rome to ensure Dea Dia’s harvest blessing. These places were the centers of worship for the Sabine goddess Feronia and a cult legendarily founded by Virbius at Aricia. Romans contrasted their own type of this place, the lucus, with the horrifying (*) nemeton, where Pliny reported that “magicians” crafted elixirs using golden sickles. One of these places near Lake Nemi was overseen by a rex devoted to Diana Nemorensis; that priest-king of one of these places would kill his predecessor in combat, inspiring the fertility sacrifice hypothesis of James Frazer. For 10 points, in what natural spaces did druids purportedly cut mistletoe? ■END■
ANSWER: sacred groves [or woods; or forests; or thickets; or copses; or coppices; accept silva or saltus; accept lucus before read; accept nemeton before read; accept nemus before “nemeton”; prompt on a temple, templum, or fanum with “with kind of space was consecrated?”; prompt on shrine, aedes, or delubrum with “in what kind of space was the structure?”; reject “gardens” or “orchards”] (The James Frazer book is The Golden Bough.)
<HA, Beliefs> | NAFTA-Packet-7
= Average correct buzzpoint
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