Living with gods

Around the Gallo-Roman sanctuary of the Gué-de-Sciaux

To build temples and altars: the evergetism

The temples erected in the holly enclosure of the Gué-de-Sciaux (Antigny) have been probably built at the expense of private individuals living in the agglomeration or who possessed goods in it. Indeed, the building or the embellishments of a temple were considered as pious actions. During the Antiquity, the evergetism was the fact a wealthy man or a woman offered many presents to the citizens as performances, monuments, banquets or public distributions. It was also a tradition that these wealthy persons show their generosity to the gods, offering important sacrifices in order to make them happy and to deliver fresh meat to the community, or paying the building of religious temples or equipments (statues, altar, etc.). In the Gué-de-Sciaux, odds on that a local notable, owner of several villas*, has wanted to embellish the local sanctuary erecting a richly ornamented classical temple, by duty and devotion, in the 2nd century.

Another example is the dedication discovered in Yzeures-sur-Creuse, in the Turons’ territory:

“To Augustan gods and to the goddess Minerva, the two M. Petronius, Giamillus’s sons (?) [...] erected at their expense a temple and its ornaments as their father had promised.”

A promises made to a god had to be fulfilled. When the father could not end his project, his sons had to realise it. In Yzeures-sur-Creuse, the two Marcus Petronius raised the funds to organize the building site and to erect the temple. The inscription doesn’t mention if Minerva, the goddess of professions, already possessed a cult in this community.

If the elites had a fundamental role in the worship edifices development, the money of the sanctuary could be used to buy new equipments: the donation was allowed ex stipibus, by the use of the temple treasure.

*villas: agricultural domain.