La libación de leche en las Feriae Latinae: una aproximación comparativa

Abstract

Some authors have marked the Indo-Europeans origins of the feriae latinae celebrated by he roman consuls at the beginning of their mandate. The most important argument can be the presence of the libation of milk, since cattle raising was previous to agriculture. This article reject this proposition with data proceeding from oriental and occidental Indo European peoples, including a remarkable archaeological found from the Pyrenees datable in the Bronze Age. This shows the coexistence of the religious use of neutral or nourishing drinks, like milk and derivatives, with alcoholic drinks and psychotropics. It is erroneous to interpretate the religious use of wine by the Romans as a substitutive of milk: Romans, as other Indo-Europeans, made a use for neutral drinks and other for strong drinks, more or less related, but without a chronological sequence dictated by the history of food.