Religions 11: What is Roman religion ? Key concepts

1. Religions 11: What is Roman religion?Keyconcepts

2. Chronological overview • 753 BCE: Rome’s foundation: Romulus • 753-509 BCE: Rome kingdom • 509-27 BCE: Republic: battle between plebeians and patricians; Rome more powerful: expansion in Italy • 340-338: Italian War • 264-129 BC: three Punic Wars against Carthage • Subjugation of Hellenistic world (from about 200 onwards): • 168: Battle of Pydna: victory over Macedonia • 148: Provincia Macedonia • 146: Corinth destroyed

3. 133-29: Rome conquers Pergamum (Asia Minor): provincia Asia • 91-89: Social War of Italian cities against Rome: they all get Roman citizenship • 88-79: Sulla restoration and dictator • 60: first triumvirate: Crassus, Pompey and Caesar • 58-50: Gallic conquest by Caesar • 49-46: civil war, Caesar becomes dictator • 44: Caesar killed • 43: second triumvirate: Lepidus, Octavian and Mark Antony: O. wins: battle of Actium 31, battle of Actium; death of Cleopatra in 30 • 27 BCE (or 31): end of Republic, begin of Roman Empire, with Augustus as Emperor; Empire until Rhine/Danube

4. Julio-Claudian emperors (27 BCE-68 CE): Claudius conquers Britain • Flavian Emperors (69-96): Vespasian, Domitian • Nerva and successors (96-138): Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian; Trajan conquers Dacia (Roumania) and Mesopotamia (briefly) • Antonines (138-192): Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius: height of Empire • 192-284: military emperors, third-century ‘crisis’ • 284-305: Diocletian • 306-337: Constantine the Great: Christian Empire • 284-602: Late Antiquity • 476: fall of Rome; East continues

5. Terms Greek religion Roman religion hieros, hagnos, hosios, hagiossacer eusebeia pietas asebeiaimpietas latreia/threskeiacultus sebesthaitheous/ta nomizomena/nomizein tous theousetc. religio

6. Religio • ‘obligation with respect to the divine’ • negative: ‘prohibition’, e.g. it is the religiothat non-initiates do not participate in the mysteries of Eleusis (Livy) • positive: ‘prescribed ritual/customary practice’ From second century CE on: religiocomes to mean ‘worship of a particular deity’ (personal relation with god and commitment of way of life prominent)

7. Apuleius, Golden Ass 11.26: ‘I was a constant worshipper, a stranger to the temple, but at home in the religio’ • Appropriated by Christians: ‘the true religioof the true God’ (Tertullian, Apology 24.2) • From this time on religiocomes closer to our ‘religion’

8. Words for gods: • Theos/thea, deus/dea, plural theoi/theai, di • Abstract ‘divine’: theos, deus • Other abstract words: • daimon/daemon: less specific than theos/deus, hence variety of entities between human – divine sphere, ‘spirits’, ‘souls’; in Christian times, it would get a negative meaning through contrast with Theos/Deus • Heros/heros: more restricted sphere, tombs (Greek); in Roman world more stretched out: Herakles/Hercules became god, human benefactors could become heroes

9. c. Numen: vague (is there but exact identity unclear) ‘divine power’, ‘divine will’ d. genius: guardian spirit of individual, gradually wider scope: genius loci e. Distinctively Roman: spirits of the dead as quasi-divine beings: di manes

10. Dis manibus sacrum

11. Approaches to the divine • Varro (1st cent. BCE), three approaches (theologiai = ways to think about the divine): • the civil: civic/official/public religion • the mythical: Roman myth and mythography • the physical: philosophy

12. 1. The Civil • Rives discusses here cult = religious rituals and practices employed in worship NB: Bremmer discusses this under ‘ritual’ (what is this and what is difference between the two?) • Prayers: invocation – attention - request • Sacrifice (see offering scene on next slide: what is difference with Greek religion?) • Vows • Divination: interpretation of divine communications

13. Arch of Marcus Aurelius, Rome

14. Initiation/purification (NB: Bremmer lists this under elaborate rituals)

15. 2. Myth Placing too much emphasis on myths: Not central to Graeco-Roman religions: • No canon • Marginal to cult (see discussion myth – ritual in Bremmer: myth only rarely touches on ritual)

16. Too little emphasis on myths • Other idea is that myths had lost all religious significance by Roman times: • Shift from oral tradition to elite literature and art; mythographies; however, not restricted to elite: masses retained access, e.g. through art, cultic practices etc. • Criticism on myths; yet never entirely dismissed; and others gave deeper meaning to myths (e.g. allegory) • Ergo: kept religious meaning and significance

17. The gods • Kronos: Chronus/Saturnus • Persephone: Proserpina • Hades: Pluto • Demeter: Ceres • Poseidon: Neptunus/Neptune • Hestia: Vesta • Zeus: Jupiter • Hera: Juno • Apollo: Apollo • Artemis: Diana • Hermes: Mercurius/Mercury • Dionysos: Bacchus/Dionysus • Athena: Minerva • Ares: Mars • Aphrodite: Venus • Hephaistos: Vulcanus

22. Greek vs. Roman myth Relation Greek-Roman myth, idea of Roman slavishly taking over Greek myths, but this is untrue. Not one to one relationship: • Other emphasis in pantheon: e.g. Juno and Jupiter more, Minerva less important; Hercules worshipped as deity • Romans usually put legendary men/heroes in well defined geographical and historical context: stories about early Rome (Romulus and Rhemus), Aeneas (Aeneid) Ergo: there existed a ‘Roman mythology’! Moreover, Roman pantheon was much more than just these gods: • New gods: Silvanus (Pan), specific Italian gods (Bellona, Mater Matuta), eastern gods (Magna Mater, Isis etc.) • Abstractions become highly popular, in particular since Hellenistic period (Tyche/Fortuna, Helios/Sol, or even Tiber) • New additions to the pantheon were also the Roman emperors, who nonetheless retained separate status (divus)

23. In conclusion, after approaches 1-2 to the divine: • Roman religion was much like Greek religion (‘Graeco-Roman tradition’): religion in the Roman Empire, however, has to be seen after developments in Hellenistic period (e.g. more emphasis on private experience of religion, ruler cult, abstract deities such as Fortuna), which were fostered in a specific Roman context (stories about early Rome, Italian deities etc.).

24. 2b Art • Much the same as myth (intertwined) * Again, too much emphasis on divine images: idolatry (= idol worship), as if worship of statues was central to Greek-Roman religion • Jewish-Christian concept: only worship of one God > concept is applied by early Christians to Graeco-Roman traditions • Greek terms for statue:agalma, andrias, aphidruma, bretas, eidôlon, eikôn, hedos, hidruma, kolossos, and xoanon • Latin: effigies, imago, signum, simulacrum and statua Jewish works, I BCE and later, Christian works first half II CE onwards > eidôlon; term is used for all Graeco-Roman statues (though non-Christians used the term only rarely for divine statues)

25. Placing too little value on divine images: as if they are only pure decoration

26. 3. Philosophy • Different schools of thought (Academics, Stoics, Epicureans), but all strived to define the divine. Generic ideas: • morally good and perfect • source of blessings and virtues • Removed, yet linked to daily life by intermediate levels of being Philosophy was not ‘armchair science’ but way of life > comes closer to our concept of ‘religion’; clear ideas about morals and behaviour, ‘missionary’ aspect (e.g. influence of Cicero’s Hortensiuson Augustine, pp. 40-1 textbook) However, despite criticism on all 3 other approaches to divine, philosophers never wanted to replace them and remained restricted to the elite! (e.g. example of Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, p. 40 textbook)

27. Conclusion • 4 independent approaches to the divine that overlapped in various ways: • Myth and art: similar subjects, though also different • Cult separate, but myth and art also played a (limited) role • Philosophy: most radically different from other 3, but still did not reject them; either integrating or accepting them

28. Authority • Diversity of approaches explains why there was no priestly class and also why there existed a diversity of religious authorities in charge of different areas • Rise of the polis: religious authorities are: • Magistrates (civic priests) • Priests Focus on proper cult acts, not on their interpretation, hence correcting someone’s religious behaviour was not part of the job (unless it affected the well-being of the community): they were facilitators of the holy

29. Other misconception: Emperor not head of religion (pontifexmaximus), only president of highest religious institution (pontifices) but had no wider authority than Rome Measures concerning religion derive from his authority as emperor

30. Belief • Belief: specific (modern) Christian connotation: contains series of key doctrines that characterize essence > problematic term for Antiquity • Without this association, however, the term can be useful if we mean: ‘accepting something in the religious sphere as true even without proof’ • Rives, p. 48: ‘What distinguishes the Graeco-Roman tradition from Christianity is thus the absence not of religious beliefs, but of pressures to define and scrutinize those beliefs’

31. A. religious significance should be seen primarily in terms of social and cultural factors, not belief • B. no central doctrine • C. no mechanism to enforce ‘beliefs’: no orthodoxy (‘right belief’), but orthopraxy (‘right action’) Ergo: individuals believed what they liked without interference; the only thing that was expected was that you did your religious duties

32. Morality • Modern notion of religion strongly associates with morality, but in Antiquity there were no fixed set of rules • Widespread belief in gods’ concern with moral behaviour, but never systematised or imposed • Ergo: not central to Graeco-Roman religion as it is now