'Rome itself, whose other name it is held to be a sin to utter except at the ceremonies of the mysteries, and when Valerius Soranus divulged the secret religiously kept for the weal of the state, he soon paid the penalty.' Pliny adds that the goddess Angerona 'is represented in her statue with a sealed bandage over her mouth.' The logic (NH 28.18): Roman priests could call an enemy city's tutelary god out of it (evocatio) · so Rome's own protecting name was never written.
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Two legal codes, Roman and rabbinic, attach the supreme sanction (death of the divulger; forfeiture of eternity) to speaking one specific protecting name aloud · and both institutionalize the silence rather than the name.
Rome has an 'other name it is held to be a sin to utter except at the ceremonies of the mysteries'; when Valerius Soranus divulged it 'he soon paid the penalty,' and the city's silence is embodied in the goddess Angerona, whose statue has 'a sealed bandage over her mouth.' The threat model is evocatio (NH 28.18): priests can call a city's protecting god out by name · so Rome's name is never written.
set against Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1
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