page_title: Glossary of ancient Roman religion
section_title: sponsio
hierarchical_section_title: Glossary of ancient Roman religion / Glossary / S / sponsio
context_page_description: The vocabulary of ancient Roman religion was highly specialized. Its study affords important information about the religion, traditions and beliefs of the ancient Romans. This legacy is conspicuous in European cultural history in its influence on later juridical and religious vocabulary in Europe, particularly of the Western Church. This glossary provides explanations of concepts as they were expressed in Latin pertaining to religious practices and beliefs, with links to articles on major topics such as priesthoods, forms of divination, and rituals.
  Individual landmarks of religious topography in ancient Rome are not included in this list; see Roman temple.
context_section_description: Sponsio is a formal, religiously guaranteed obligation. It can mean both betrothal as pledged by a woman's family, and a magistrate's solemn promise in international treaties on behalf of the Roman people.
  The Latin word derives from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning a libation of wine offered to the gods, as does the Greek verb spendoo and the noun spondai, spondas, and Hittite spant-. In Greek it also acquired the meaning "compact, convention, treaty" (compare Latin foedus), as these were sanctioned with a libation to the gods on an altar. In Latin, sponsio becomes a legal contract between two parties, or sometimes  a foedus between two nations.
  In legal Latin the sponsio implied the existence of a person who acted as a sponsor, a guarantor for the obligation undertaken by somebody else. The verb is spondeo, sponsus. Related words are sponsalia, the ceremony of betrothal; sponsa, fiancée; and sponsus, both the second-declension noun meaning a husband-to-be and the fourth declension abstract meaning suretyship. The ceremonial character of sponsio suggests that Latin archaic forms of marriage were, like the confarreatio of Roman patricians, religiously sanctioned. Dumézil proposed that the oldest extant Latin document, the Duenos inscription, could be interpreted in light of sponsio.
caption: Duenos inscription
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