RITO DI PURIFICAZIONE DAL PARRICIDIO O ESECUZIONE CAPITALE DEL PARRICIDA? ALCUNE CONSIDERAZIONI A MARGINE DELLA PRO SEXTO ROSCIO AMERINO

Cicero describes parricide not only as the most heinous crime, but also as a violation of natural order. Its dreadful punishment, i.e. the sack, is a ritual apparently laden with symbolic implications: yet, although the crime at issue inspires horror and revulsion like few others, the identification of the perpetrator with a monstrum in its legal and religious sense (i.e. a divine omen of misfortune for Rome) is fascinating but questionable. Accordingly, this essay argues that the poena cullei can hardly be identified with forms of reconciliatory rituals between humans and gods related to the so-called procuratio prodigii.