Greek Religion
The Greek
world was a collection of independent city-states, each with their own army and
policies. War and cultural achievements
were salient. Mountains and the sea
dominated their perception of where they lived.
Greece
is essentially a mountain-chain that runs down to the sea. There is not much farming. At Delphi ,
there is a theatre on top of a temple.
With athletic contests, theatre and religion were linked in the Greek
mind.
Major periods of Ancient Greek History and Culture:
Bronze Age 3000-1200 BC
Early
3000-2000
Middle
2000-1600
Late
1600-1200
Minoan,
centered in Crete
The
bull was salient in their religion. We
don’t have any written texts
from the Minoan civilization.
Mysenaean. Agamemon was a king of Mycenae .
Linear B is
the precursor to the Greek language.
Names of deities are mentioned
in the clay
tablets.
Dark Age 1200-800.
Violent destruction of the Mysenaean palaces in 1200. Arrival of the Dorians
and Heraclids (“Children of Heracles”).
There are no traces of an invader
culture, so they were assimilated. No
great palaces or literature so we don’t know
what went on then. We do know, however,
that they moved out to inhabit Asia Minor . We
know this because of shared dialects.
Archaic 800
(invention of writing) - 479 (479 marked a transition at the end of the Persian
wars). In 490 (Darius, battle of Marathon, victory of Athens )
and in 480 (Xerxes leads a massive force against allied Greek states, the
Spartians defeated…), the Persians sent an army to Greece . The beginning of this age
is marked by literature. The Greek
alphabet. Two of the earliest authors
were Hesiod and Homer. Hesiod gives a description
of how the gods came into being and how they relate to us. Homer includes gods in his poems. Xenophanes complained that Hesiod and Homer
posit whatever is blameworthy to the gods.
He also didn’t like their anthropomorphism. Natural philosophy grew in response to
dissatisfaction concerning the mythological approach.
Classical 479-323
(323: death of Alexander the Great). The age began at the end of the Persian
wars. Plato and Aristotle wrote in the wake of these wars. There was during
this age the development of history as a field of study. City-states, Athenian empire, Peloponnesian
League, Peloponnesian War, rise of Macedon (Phillip II is an autocrat who
wanted to extend his authority. Battle
of Chaeronea (228BC) marked the end of the city-states’ independence. Alexander (356-323). He took over the Persian
empire . Classical sculpture
stressed the ideal. Literature and
philosophy and history were flourishing too.
Hellenistic
323-146. (The death of Alexander to the Roman takeover) Greek culture had been
spread by Alexander. Further
spread. Study of Greek culture, with a
human focus. Art: more action; less
ideal poses.
Roman 149BC- (Romans
destroy Corinth ) to the fall of Constantinople .
The Romans began to govern Greece directly. Ironically, Greek culture came to dominate Rome .
Place:
Graecia (Latin), Hellas (Greek), Greece (English)
People:
Graeci (Latin), Hellenes (Greek), Greeks
Adj:
Graecus (Latin), Hellenic (Greek), Greek
John Gould’s essay. He assumes a lot of knowledge of Greek
culture for an introductory essay. Basic to any religious system is how the
human and divine interact. There are two
assumptions that we might have that get in our way. First, we are assuming that
we are dealing with a human invention. Distinguishing between real and
artificially occurring beliefs involves a bias in that our system is real, so
the other must be artificial. Instead,
ask how the Greek system answers the questions they were asking about the world
and how they were viewing the world.
Decoding is another complication: don’t translate it into a universal
point of view or use my own. Some may
doubt that Greek religion can make sense.
For instance, are the gods in Homer used by him to tell a story rather
than acting by divine principles? Also,
we might chalk Greek religion up to superstition. Third, if we use science to evaluate it, we
could write it off. So let’s start with the assumption that it is valid. Gould argues that religion is a cultural
phenomenon, meaning it is shared by a certain group of people and can tell us
who those people are as a group.
Religion, according to Gould, grows out of a need to view/make sense of
the world, keeping chaos at bay. See
Geertz: Man cannot deal with chaos. There are three points of breakdown,
according to Geertz: limit of analytical capacities (bafflement), endurance
(suffering), and moral insight (ethical paradox). According to Gould, Greek religion offered a
framework of explanation for human experience (i.e. not necessarily giving the
answers!) and a system of responses to all that is wayward, uncanny and a
threat to the perception of order in that experience, and a language for
dealing with the world. Beneker
emphasizes the latter. Language is a shared set of “signs” with meanings agreed
upon by the group, where signs are words or phrases. The group is composed of those who understand
the signs. This is a circular
definition.
Also, there are general cultural
impediments to understanding Greek religions. Our commonly-held religious
assumptions and mores, such as having a salient creed wherein there are true
and false beliefs. Belief was not
salient in Greek religion; the point is what one did. We have cultural biases to the contrary.
Thucydides (historian, late 5th
century BC, Athens )
analyzed the causes of the Peloponnesian War (i.e. analytical history). He points to how the oracle was used
selectively to reduce chaos.
A Greek prayer has three parts: the
address (include properties of the god being addressed so the god will hear it
if it is away; also, another god may think you are calling it), past encounters
(i.e. don’t forget that I’ve done things for you in the past, or that you have
done things for me/us), and requests. So,
you have to make sure that the right god is listening and remind that god of
why he should be interested, before making your request. There are two distinct roles—the human and
divine. Human guest and host: There is
an obligation to take care of your guest.
Also, reciprocal obligation. These
things thwart chaos.
Sacrifice and ritual. The gods can
remove and introduce chaos. Gods are
like and unlike humans. Gould brings up
death and disease as why the Greeks turned to religion; it is not that these
problems were solved.
Oracles: dealing with the
unknown. We don’t accept this practice
today. Two interactions with Apollo at Delphi are mentioned by Gould. Croesus of Lydia (Herodotus, Histories): Atys and Adrastus. Atys is in line to take over Lydia
but Croesus hears an oracle and won’t let Atys go. Atys dies by a wild
boor. The oracle came true. Knowing what will happen is not a good
thing. Also, there is the problem of
interpretation. Oedipus of Thebes (as
told by Sophocles, Oedipus Rex). He can’t get around what the oracle says. This is the point. Laius and Jocasta, his parents, get an oracle
saying that their son will kill Laius.
So Laius tells a servant to leave Oedipus in the woods, but that servant
gives Oedipus to the servant of the king and queen of Corinth .
When grown up, Oedipus goes to the oracle and is told he will kill his
father. So he avoids his parents. On the road, he kills the king of Thebes and solves the
riddle of the spyinx so he is made king there and marries his mother. There is a plague there. The oracle says it is due to pollution. The seer says that the pollution is Oedipus
himself. The oracle was not welcome or useful.
Being
mortal means being subject to death; immortal means not being subject to death.
One major thing that distinguishes the gods from human beings is death. Living with death is one thing that drove
religion. Also, a god has freedom of action and superhuman powers. Gods can
disguise their appearances and interact freely with humans. Also, a god need not worry about being accountable.
A hero can
be a founder (Theseus), healer (Asclepius), ‘hero’ (Heracles), and apotheosis
(becoming a god). Asclepius and Heracles
became gods. So there is some hope of
crossing the line to godhood.
Pantheon:
pan means all (Panamerican, pandemic) and theos means god. So “pantheon” simply means “collection of the
gods.” So the Pantheon in Rome
is dedicated to all of the gods.
Regarding
holidays (holy and day), many of ours are not religious and we don’t have as
many as the Greeks had. When there was a
major or minor feast day in Rome or Greece ,
worship of the god was the only public business on that day. There was no separation of church and
state. The Boule is the smaller, more
elite, deliberative governmental body.
The boule typically had a patron god or goddess.
When we
talk about Greek religion in terms of literature and specifics, we are talking
about Athens because most of the materials we
have is from Athens . We know more about Athen’s religion than
others. Attica included Athens the towns and
villages surrounding it. Every
city-state had its own calendar; they used lunar cycles (12 months).
Our
categories are not those of the Greeks.
For example, ‘hero vs. god’ is ours.
But heroes and gods don’t inhabit mutually exclusive realms; they might
be worshipped at the same altar. So our
distinction wasn’t necessarily made by the Greek. Ouranic and Chthonic
deities. Ouranic: of the sky (e.g.
Apollo, Hermes). Chthonic: of the earth
(e.g. Demeter, Hermes); such a god governs some realm under the earth. Demeter is interested in agriculture. Hermes is the guide that brings humans after
death to the underworld. To curse
someone, write it down and bury it.
Why? Sending it to the Chthonic
realm, whose gods can read it. Also, local
vs. panhellenic worship: the Greeks cared only about the deity in their
locality, and only the cults therein that fit his particular needs. He might not be interested in the gods that
take care of marriage if he is single.
Major panhellenic events are not necessarily a big deal for
everyone. The Greek would not have used
our “local vs. panhellenic” distinction.
Why
polytheism? We see contradictions in the
world and there are different needs, so the Greeks could project these onto a
variety of gods. The Greeks didn’t think
of the deities as omnipresent; given the various needs and sources of chaos,
there would need to be more than one deity. Is there anything about polytheism
that might not be from human projection?
What would make me think of the divine in terms of more than one
deity? To try to put love and death
together, while both lead people to the divine, they may suggest or imply that
there are different deities. The
relationship one has to the divine is complex.
Look at the variance in nature as a reflection of the divine one. The way I see the world living in the
mountains is different from how you view the world on the coast, but we both
believe in oracles. Also, needs change
as one moves on in life. For example,
Athena had various epithets. Athena as
Polias was for protection of the city.
As Nike for protection in battle.
As Hygeia, for health. Areia: for
protection I war. The god, Areia, was the god of war. We want a god of war for us (i.e. Athena as
Areia). As Phratria, for collections of
citizens. As Soteira, for safety. As Hephaistia, for strength. Athenians
brought all these under the name “Athena.”
But how did they conceive of this versus the gods Nike, Areia…etc.
Genealogy. Out of chaos came Gaia, from which cam Ouranos,
Ourea and Pontos. Gaia and Ouranous gave
rise to the Titans (Kronos, Rhea et al).
Kronos and Rhea, brother and sister, married and produced Zeus. Zeus and Metis produced Athena. Zeus
swallowed Metis so Athena was born out of Zeus.
It is not clear how much the Greek would have distinguished these
various deities.
The divine
is personal (in one’s home), local (local deities), and ethnic
(panhellenic). A Greek might not have
bothered to categorize them in this way.
The divine is also helpful (prayer), informative (oracle), and powerful
& uncontrollable (Dionysus). Regarding
omniscience, it is not clear. The gods
could come to the human realm on their own and know how to intervene, yet in
prayer it is assumed that the god must be called (i.e. would not know enough to
come without being called). The divine
is immortal. Heroes who were not
divinized were worshipped. Why worship a
dead person? There must be a thin line
between hero and god; a hero has some divine-like characteristics even though
he is short of apotheosis. One’s actions
or reputation can become immortal.
Tellus, for example, did his duty and was killed in battle. He died well and was respected. Cleobis & Biton had immortality through
what they did while they lived. This leads
to worship and a connection (i.e. not just a memory) such that the stature of
the person carries on after his death as if he could still act. Consider Catholic saints—not gods but having
some impact after their death such that they could be called upon.
Greek
philosophy looked at the natural world to explain it systematically rather than
mythologically. They were not
necessarily anti-religious. “Know
Thyself” associated with a skeleton.
Why? If you didn’t think you
would die, you might live your life incorrectly. One reason to think of the divine is to have
a system or world other than one’s own so one can situate oneself (i.e. knowing
that I won’t have unlimited time).
Cultic
myths. A cult is a site or place where a
deity was taken care of (cultivated). A
myth to a Greek didn’t mean false. It
can involve truth even if it involves fiction.
A Greek was not depending on a story being factually true in order to
contain a truth. Literature such as
Homer is not myth, but is art oriented to Homer’s literary purposes. So there could be conflicting stories of a
deity. Legend is based on a historical
event that has been made bigger and with fiction added to it. For example, was George Washington really so
honest that he refused to cut down a cherry tree. A legend conveys a truth but
is not necessarily true itself. We want
to distinguish myth and legend from scripture (true and contains truth). If a
myth came after a ritual, how did the ritual develop?
The Divine Genealogy
Hesiod (mid
to late 8th century BCE—750 to 700) wrote Works and Days. This is a
didactic poem (a poem that teaches). It
teaches ethics and assigns duties. He
also wrote the Theogony (god +
origins). It is literature, so don’t
confuse it with scripture. This is a theogony, not THE theogony. Moreover, it is literature, not myth. He is using myth in creating a poem. His father immigrated to Greece , in Boeotia (which includes Thebes ).
In the
beginning, there was chaos (void). What
is there a hole in? Hesiod doesn’t worry
about it. Out of the void came Gaia
(earth), Tartaros (under the earth), and Eros (love in the sense of sexual
desire). From Gaia comes Ouranos (sky),
Ourea (mountains), and Pontos (the sea).
Gaia brings them forth without a partner. Then Gaia and Ouranos produce 12 Titans:
Okeanos (the ocean encircling the lands on the earth), Koios, Kreios, Hyperion,
Iapetos, Theia, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoibe, Thethys, Kronos, Rhea. Aphrodite is born from Ouranos’ genitals and
a knife. Thethys has been trapped inside
Ouranos because the latter fears that he would be killed by one of his
children. Kronos castrates Ouranos so
Thethys can be free. Aphrodite is the
goddess of sexual love. Why is Eros
produced so early? Eros is needed for
Gaia and Ouranos to mate. Eros is viewed
as a child of Aphrodite later.
Kronos and
Rhea create the Olympians: Hestia (health), Demeter (agriculture), Hera
(marriage), Hades (underworld), Poseidon (sea, earthquakes and horses), and
Zeus (sky). Zeus as the main
Olympian. Zeus eventually marries Hera
(after some others). The seven wives of
Zeus: Metis (Wisdom)—from whom Athena (the goddess who never marries, born from
Zeus alone because Zeus swallowed Metis).
Themis (Right), producing the Horai (Seasons): Eunomia (Lawfulness),
Dike (Justice) Eirene (Peace), and the
Moirai (Fates): Klotho (Spinner), Lachesis (Allotter), Atropos (Unbending).
With Eurynome (broad custom), the Charities (Graces): Aglaia
(Splendor), Euphrosyne (Gladness), and Thalia (Festivity). With Demeter (agriculture), Persephone. From Mnemosyne (Memory), the Nine Muses. From Leto, Apollo and Artimis. And with Hera, Hebe, Ares, Eileithyia,
Hephaistos (without Zeus).
First
generation Olympians: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, and Aphrodite
(from Ouranos according to Hesiod and from Zeus and Dione according to
Homer). Second generation Olympians:
Apollo (Z plus Leto), Artemis (Zeus plus Leto), Hermes (Z and Maia), Athena (Z
and Metis), Ares (Z and Hera), and Hephaestus (from Hera). This is the established generation that will
go on forever.
On the
Parthenon in Athens ,
the East Frieze depicts the procession that includes the twelve Olympians
except Hestia (replaced by Dionysus).
Dionysus, the god of wine and the theatre, was a popular god and there
was no Greek scripture so the Greeks could live with the inconsistency of
having Dionysus with the Olympian gods.
Delphi is
sacred to Apollo and Olympia is sacred to Zeus,
and Athens is
sacred to Athena. These are Panhellenic
religious sites.
Cultic
Myths. Dionysus teaches Icarius to make
wine (Icarius’ friends get drunk and kill Icarius). Dionysus is angry. To appease him, the people have to worship
Dionysis and Icarius together. Erigone
(and his dog Maera) were also worshipped with them. The god Dionysus and the hero Icarius were
worshipped together. Why did this
worship start? Dionysus didn’t really
teach Icarius how to make wine. The
story was invented to explain the ritual.
We can’t always explain the development of a religion. Another example: ritual then the story of
Zeus Polieus, the Bouphonia and the Ox (the guilt if the knife, phonos, and the
restored ox). Also, that of Zeus,
Prometheus, and the God’s portion (deception, choice, and punishment; the
humans’ portion).
In general,
distinguish practices from sources. An
etiology is a story that explains something.
The stories of the gods are not scriptural; you did not have to believe
in the stories.
Sacred days: there were feast days. There were also dedications. Vows, votive offerings (made in response to a
vow), and thank offerings.
The purpose
of a Greek temple is to house the image of the deity. Naos: “temple” in Greek. Worship was not in a temple (the altar was
outside of it). The interior room of the
temple is a cella. The stylobate is the
foundation. The peristyle (peripteron)
are the pillars that go around the outside of the temple. The pronaos is the front porch and the
Opisthodomos is the back porch. The cult
object is in the cella, between the two porches. The Doric order: a column rests on the
stylobate. A column is made up of
drums. The abacus and echinus make up
the top of a column. The entablature is
above that. The frieze is above the
architrave. In the Doric form, a frieze
is made up of a triglyph (three lines) and a metope (can have carving in
it). A band of these alternating make up
the frieze. The Ionic order: the column
has more of a stylized base. A volute
(curly) is added to the abacus. The
frieze is a continuous band of decoration.
Denticulae: teeth-like, just above the frieze.
Early
temples were modeled on the Mycenaean Megaron (big houses of chiefs). In the archaic period, aristocratic houses
were used. Early form: front porch,
steep thatch roof, mud brick construction.
An exterior altar. In the 8th
century, the peristyle made out of wood began to be used. Stone stylobate. Mud brick walls. Single interior row of
columns. 7th century: cut
stone replaces mud brick, tile roof, and a double row of interior columns. A more solid temple. The peristyle continues.
The
Parthenon. The eastern pediment: the
birth of Athena. The western: the
contest of Athena and Poseidon. Friezes:
Metopes: battles—Lapiths & Centaurs, gods a & gians, Greeks &
Amazons, Fall of Troy. Interior: Panathaea—supplies being delivered to the
gods.
Why
polytheism? The Greeks were trying to
capture the complexity of life and nature.
Mikalson stresses that the deities were viewed as providing services to
humans. How does a religion “work” from
this angle? It helps people deal with
the world successfully. Was it
successful for the Greeks? They
sustained it so there must have been some benefit. The Greeks traveled all over the seas, so
they must have felt protected (i.e. they had sufficient confidence). How did it fail them? They did not have to think about equality
(i.e. they had slaves).
Aspects of
polytheistic worship includes the introduction of new deities and narrow and
broad views of worship. In Plato’s Republic, Plato mentions a new festival
for the goddess Bendis, a Thracian deity similar to Artemis (a hunter). In 430, she shared a small treasury with
Phrygian Adrasteia. By 413 she was
assigned a priestess and festival by decree. This involved a procession, torch
race on horseback and pannychis (an all-night
vigil held in her honor). She is being
integrated in the way that other gods are treated. Donations, celebration and human
interaction. Plato has Socrates say, “I
wanted to say a prayer to the goddess, and I was also curious to see how they
would manage the festival. Implications
are social, personal and religious. Was
the divine world expanded or is it merely better mapped out? They would have to had believed that the
goddess would have existed prior to their awareness of her. It is not the creation of new divine, but a
better understanding of the divine realm.
What about apotheosis? It adds to
the ranks of the divinities. For
example, Herocles.
Why not
monotheism? Why divide divinity into
distinct deities rather than have one deity having different attributes? Even in polytheism, a deity can be divided
into different attributes—each function being its own deity. Christian Trinity: one god with three manifestations. Arian argued that Christ was created by
God. God made Christ. “homoousios”: of the same substance. Each element of the Trinity is of the same
substance. Each aspect of nature could
be harsh or calm; that is, the world is heterogeneous. Monotheism (with attributes) and polytheism
can each be used to account for the diversity.
Athena with different epithets could be seen by the Greeks as different
deities rather than being the same deity or her being a composite of them. Same with Zeus in Olympia .
The Greeks would not have asked this question. The Greeks had a complex and flexible view of
the divine world. So be careful not to
explain too much. We need to join their
complexity. There were difficulties of
identity. For example, heroes could join the divine world. Did that world
expand thereby? A Greek might not have
asked this question.
There are
kings, heroes and gods at Olympia . 43 statues of Olympian Zeus (thunderbolt and
Scepter). Mikelson argues that the
thunderbolt is a sign of power (not just of a rain god). Also at Olympia ,
there were dedications from victors in games and from wars. There were also
statues there of kings, tyrants and rulers. The Greeks, Macedonians (e.g.
Alexander the Great), and Romans did this there. An Athenian democrat would have been more interested
in Athena Polea, as she was for all the people.
Narrow and
broad views of worship. Prayer on any
day. On a sacred day, there was prayer,
sacrifice, and a small ceremony. This
could be over by noon . In the great festivals, there is also prayer,
sacrifice and ceremony—but the latter is bigger and longer, including a
procession, athletic contests, and performance contests.
In Athens , there was the
Panathenaea festival. It took place in Athens . The greater Panathenaea occurred every four
years, as did the festival in Olympia . Universal dating in Greece was limited the x years from
the x Olympiad. In the Panathenaea,
there was a procession, a replacing of the peplos of Athena’s cult statue,
athletic contests (footraces, wrestling, boxing, pentathlon, and pancration),
music contests (flute and lyre, and singing), and contests of rhapsodes
(reciting poetry—which standardized Homor).
There was a procession through the city to deliver the peplos. The large temple is not the main temple of Athena
The other
great festival in Athens
was the Great/City Dionysia. A dramatic
festival of four days. Three days of
plays. Three sets of tragedies plus one
Satyr play. Four individual comedies on
the fourth day. Running the festival was
the Eponymous (Chief) Archon. Athens
was governed by ten Archons. One of them
took the lead in the festival. Years were named by who was archon. He would
throw a banquet at the end for his hires.
He would choose choregoi (chorus directors, which was a duty like a
tax). They had to hire a chorus and
actors. It was competitive: the
protagionists, the choregio and the playwrights. The latter contest was particularly
intense. This was part of a religious
festival. The pursuit of competitive
excellence as salient in a religious festival—is this “desperately foreign” to
us? They did not just get together to
honor Dionysus; they also wanted to socialize and compete. Business would have been conducted then too
(as Attica was a rural area). This is sort of like our county fair, though
with a religious dimension.
Good drama,
philosophy and architecture during the classical period.
The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi
It is the
most important panhellenic religious site.
Olympia
was pretty quiet other than for the few days every four years. There is a cult myth associated with the
Oracle: the Homeric Hymns (poems that if long have a narrative story). They are a collection of hymns composed in
the dark, archaic and classical ages.
The passages of interest to us here come from the archaic age
(800-479).
An example:
Introduction:
Pallas Athena, defender of cities, I begin to sing, the
awesome one,
Middle:
Who with
Ares, cares for deeds of war and the sacking of cities and the battle cry and
wars, and she saves the people as they go out and return.
Closing:
farewell, goddess, grant me good fortune and joy.
It is in the middle part that can vary; this is where the
long narrative can be.
Hymn to Apollo: Delian Section. Apollo’s birth: catalogue of venues (his
mother Leto visits places to give birth).
She winds up at Delos . Zeus was the father (and was married to
Hera). When Apollo is born, he says that
the lyre and archer’s bow are dear to him, and that he shall prophesy to men
the unerring will of Zeus.
The Pythian section: A catalogue of
venues in search for a place for his oracle.
He is not a local god. Indeed,
Delos and Delphi are quite far apart. Near Delphi ,
Apollo runs into Telphusa, who suggests that he move on (she was a minor deity
so she wanted him to move on so she could retain her local status there). Apollo kills the python to establish himself
at mount Parnassus Delphi .
The
setting: not an easy place to get to. In
the mountains (near the coast, though not an easy route). They must have been getting something out of
it.
The
sanctuary: the sacred way was a holy road leading up to the temple. It was lined with treasuries. Thebes and Athens each had one. A stoa of the Athenians (a porch). Why several of them? Greece is hot. The theatre and stadium are both above the
temple. The oracle was in the western
end of the cella, in the Adyton (the place you don’t go; the sacred
place). The pythia, prophets and
priestess were there. The omphalos
(navel) was in there too. A statue of
Apollo and a tomb or representation of Dionysus were in there too. Apollo took the winter off; at that time,
Dionysus is said to have been in charge.
Apollo was the god of order. Why
would he leave his oracle to the god associated with disorder? There was also an oracular chasm and a sacred
laurel tree. The staff: the pythia,
prophets and priests.
The site
was there from the 9th century, during the dark ages. There was a temonos marked out then by a
boundary wall. In the 7th
century, there was a temple, which was replaced in the 6th and then
again in the 4th century.
The
procedure: on the seventh day of the month, the oracle could be consulted
(except in the winter). There was a fee, and a goat test (goat shaking off
water was a good sign). There was an
entrance ramp into the temple.
Pythia’s
trance. Plutarch: there were intoxicating fumes. He was a priest, and yet he gives four
possible reasons, so even they didn’t know.
The Greeks didn’t care how it worked.
It was the pythia, rather than the prophets, that were held
accountable. Alexander went to Delphi and was told to wait. He tried to throw the pythia into the temple
so he wouldn’t have to wait. She says,
“You are invincible” Milalson thinks the
fumes are the reason. But that wouldn’t
give right answers necessarily. Why
would you go to Delphi for centuries unless
there were something to the answers?
Also, other oracles were said to work too (e.g. Donona). What mattered to the Greeks is that they
thought the information was good. Price
talks about Miltiades, who asked about the right step to take. But in what sense “right”? Not in the sense of predicting the
future. What about Athens being told to get out of town, but
they didn’t like that so they went back for another oracle, which was obscure
(wooden walls). The Athenians begged the oracle for another message. One way to
do this was to donate to the oracle. In fact, the 6th century temple
was built by the Alicemonid family. The oracle could treat you differently
based on whether you help out it. There
is also the problem of asking the right question. Socrates criticized Xenophon for not asking
the right question. He should have asked
whether he should go rather than how he could get back safety.
Designing a temple:
Look at location. Accessibility. The temple can be integrated into the city,
with other aspects than religious in the festivals. But also putting the temple in a remote
location, with something to make it worth the trip, is also consistent with the
Greeks. To make it geographically
dominant, it could be put on a hill. The
location can commemorate an event (or person).
Also consider style. The Greeks would want a temple that reflects their
ideals. Finius was a famous architect
who sculpted the statues of Athena and Zeus.
So famous people could be working on it.
The temple should be dedicated to something. The location could be dictated by function
and necessity rather than by nature. Also
consider who is going to pay for it.
The Afterlife and the Soul:
The
afterlife is speculative in any society, but we can look at what the Greeks
said about it. We will look at Homer and
Hesiod, as well as Orpheus, Socrates and Plato.
We will look at Demeter and Persephone.
Homer and
Hesiod do not treat the underworld systematically; rather, they were creating
episodes in their literature. Their
descriptions must be believable in the sense of making sense. Not that anyone thought it actually worked
that way, as a fact. Homer wrote on
Achilles & Patroclus and Priam and Hector.
The Illiad is the story of a few days in the ninth year of the Trojan
War. Achilles withdraws from the war
because he felt disrespected. It went
bad to the Greeks so Zeus helped them.
Patroclus, Achilles’ friend, put on Achilles’ armor and drives the
Trojans back and goes after Hector.
Hector kills him and takes the armor.
Achilles is distraught so he sets up a pyre. In Homer’s view, at least some bodies are
burned, with ceremony and funeral games.
The Greeks also used inhumation (burial). Achilles kills Hector. He drags his body around Troy and leaves him in the dust. The gods keep the body from corrupting. Priam, Hector’s father, sits with Achilles
and asks for his son’s body. Achilles
lets him have it. There is no religious
notion associated with this decision. In
Homer’s Illiad, there is a focus on what death meant for the people left behind
(rather than on what happens to the soul).
In the
Odyssey, heroes go down to the underworld and come back. Odysseus goes down
there and meets Elpenor. Elpenor had
fallen off a roof and died without anyone knowing. In the underworld, he asks Odysseus to bury
his body so his soul can pass into the underworld. The acts in the upper world have some impact
on what is going on below. This is
probably a tradition that Homer is pulling into literature. The
shades look like the people they are, but they are not the people anymore. Tiresias drinks blood, which re-energizes
them at least temporarily. Then Odysseus
meets Agamemnon, Achilles and Ajax . Agamemnon gives him advice. Achilles wants to know how his son is
doing. Achilles is able to reflect on
things and remember, while in the underworld.
In fact, it seems that what
happened to them in the upperworld is still dominating them in the underworld. Stuck in what they did last.
Homer’s
literary impact: Virgil’s Aeneid. Palinurus, Anchises, Creusa, and Dido. Homer’s
work was taken more seriously.
Hesiod’s
age. The Golden Age. Things are always worse now than before. The golden race was made by immortals during
the age of Kronos. Everyone was
carefree, ageless, and death was like sleep.
There was no greed because everyone had what they wanted. It is a Garden of Eden sort of idea. After the golden ones die, they become
spirits, or daimones, that help people and report on bad deeds to the
gods. This happens during the time of
Zeus. The silver race lives 100 years
with their mother, then a short adulthood. They are violent and do not honor
the gods. Zeus is angered by this so he
puts the silver race away, below. They
are called blessed mortals under the earth.
The bronze race, made by “father Zeus”, pursue “works of Ares.” Bronze went with war. They were into mutual destruction. Conquered by their own hands, they went down
to Hades…to the “moldy house of icy Hades,” where they are nameless. The heroic age is a blimp upward, made by
Zeus and called demigods. Just before
Hesiod’s time. They fought at Troy . Achilles, for example. Zeus settled some at the ends of the earth
for eternity (the beginning of an idea of a heaven…a place better than earth),
while others of them died. Islands of
the blessed. This is like the age of
Kronos on earth. Proteus to Menelaus:
You will go to the good place. The iron
race: labor and pain, harsh cares, good mixed with evil, and justice
perverted.
Plutarch
wrote on the Islands of the Blessed. The winds are just right, there is always
fruit. So there is a persistent idea
that there is a better place where some people are allowed to go, depending on
what they did in life.
Orpheus on
the soul. Soul is divine in origin; not
merely immortal. Separate from body,
purest when corporeal things are avoided or cleansed. For example, celibacy. Myth of Titans and Dionysus: the latter is
killed and dismembered by the Titans. In
retribution, Zeus burns the Titans with a fire-bolt. Humans are made from the ashes. Dionysus’ heart is saved and he grows
back. Humans have both a Titanic and
Dionysian nature. Here, the shade is
more than just a shadow of you. This
opens the door for the philosophers. In The Apology, Socrates is arrested. He is not scared by death because no one
knows that dying is worse than living.
Socrates: true wisdom is realizing what you don’t know. Plato talks about the soul being made up of
reason, spirit and appetite, with spirit in the middle and reason on top, being
divine. The intellect makes humans
different from the animals. The
intellect is constantly challenged by appetites. Reason’s job is to restrain them. Spirit gives you courage. It takes the commands of reason to keep
appetite in line. This idea of a divine
aspect of the soul fits with Plato’s notion of the Forms (e.g. triangleness).
The divine bit of you (reason) is persistent, so we remember rather than learn.
The Myth of Er (Republic 10). Once we knew everything, but then we forgot it
when the soul was forced into the body.
Reason gives us access to the divine world. So, deemphasize things that take us away from
contemplation so we can become more divine—letting our souls rise to where they
should be. The divine part is not a
shadow here; rather, it is our defining feature.
Demeter and
Persephone. The cartoon version of the
underworld. See the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
Mikalson claims that Demeter caused grain crops to fail, but she was no
longer concerned about human concerns so she forgot. Also, Mikelson claims that Hades forced Persephone
to eat, but she tells her mom that even though Hades actually offered food to
her. What is the motivation for
establishing mysteries? Demeter puts a
kid in the fire to make a kid immortal.
The kid’s mother is angry. Demeter
directs the people to set up a temple.
Divinity has visited a place. Why
does Demeter compromise with Zeus? She
could have pushed it further. The
mysteries is a multiple day affair. The
major characters in the hymn are Hades, Zeus, Demeter and Persphone. Hades and Zeus are siblings and Demeter is
Zeus’s daughter. Demeter is thus the
niece of Hades, yet there was a marriage agreement between them ok’d by
Zeus. Hades picked up his bride so he
would object to the word “abduction.”
Demeter searches for Persephone and goes into mourning. A conflation of human and divine views of
Hades. Demeter is acting like a human
here. She goes to Eleusis dressed as a woman in mourning and is
taken into Metaneira’s household. She
helps raise Metaneira’s son, Demophoon, trying to make him immoral by putting
him in the fire. Metaneira resists this
so he is not made immortal. Demeter in
response says that Demophoon will not be immortal but will be honored and Demeter
must be honored there too. The
establishment of a rite. Demeter went on
strike; no agriculture grew. So no
sacrifices. This concerned Zeus and the
other gods. So Zeus agrees that
Persephone can spend two-thirds of the year above ground. Demeter agrees because Persephone is her
daughter and a mother would only expect her daughter to get married. Demeter didn’t force the seeds to grow as
retribution; rather, she merely stopped doing her job. You
have to keep the gods happy for them to do their jobs (and hence for the world
to work right). Demeter was forced
into the compromise because Persephone was indeed married to Hades (she had
eaten something in the underworld). Zeus
is Persephone’s father (Demeter being her mother). Zeus had agreed to the
marriage of his brother with his niece. Persophone
was often just called “Kore”, which means “daughter.”
Eleusinian
mysteries. It is different than the
standard cult site (i.e. like Delphi ). In Eleusis ,
the mysteries are the big thing. Much of
our information on them is critical, coming from the Christians. The mysteries were open to anyone who spoke
Greek. There was speech involved. There were some officials coming out of the
hymn. Hierophant (hieros=priest): the
main priest, from the family of Eumolpidai.
Daidouchos and Hierokeryx (torch bearer and the holy herald,
respectively), from the Kerykes family, begin the rite. The Chief priestess attended the goddess on a
regular basis. The Melissai are minor
attendants (women), who assisted the chief priestess. There were the lesser mysteries at Athens and the greater mysteries at Eleusis .
The rites took place in a building, the Telesterion. This was unusual in Greek cults.
The
Festival of the Greater Mysteries. The
mystai are the guides of the initiated.
It took ten days to be initiated.
It began in Athens . The herald proclaims that the festival is
beginning. The Greeks didn’t have
calendars so they didn’t know the day.
On day 2, purification. Fountains
outside the gates. Murder, relations
with dead people, sex. Day 3: sacrifice.
Day 4: isolation and fasting (a stopping of regular activities and
separation). Day 5: procession to Eleusis . Mystai and sacred objects. People along the road would be telling
obscenities to them. This seems uniquely
Greek. Then a woman’s ceremony, with
foul language. The rites were
secret. Some kind of password. Eg. “I fasted, I drank the Kykeon (a ritual
drink), I have taken from the chest, I worked and deposited in the basket, and
from the basket into the chest.” Working
on and viewing sacred objects (probably agricultural). A dramatic reenactment
of the marriage. Birth of a divine child
(associated with agriculture). Singing, dancing, and sacrifice. Most likely the hymn was written to explain
these preexisting rites.
In Eleusis , there is an
acropolis (most cities had one). The
religious site is dominated by the hall in which the rites took place. The hall was large (to fit many people).
Hesiod on
the underworld: it is at the edge of the world, where all civilized life
stops. Tartarus is the deepest pit
there. Even the gods didn’t want to go
there. Dark and dank, sort of like
sleep. Things just sort of stop; you
would not go on to another life. Rather,
it was like a perpetual night. Sleep is
like death, but you wake up. Once you
die, it is just a prolonged darkness.
Plutarch
wrote that the soul when it dies wandering in circles, then panic and
sweat. The Eleusian initiates celebrate
the mysteries and look down on the uninitiated.
So the initiates move from the darkness into light. This might have been what the Athenians
thought they would gain from participating in the mysteries. Cicero :
“the initiate learns how to live with joy and how to die with better
hopes.” So it is the fear of death that
motivated the Greeks to be initiated into the mysteries. It was not like converting to another
religion; once you were initiated, you were done.
Agriculture
and death are related (we need food to live) so it makes sense that the cult
would involve both. That it lasted so
long indicates that it worked well for the Greeks.
Greek Religion in the Household
When we
move into the household, not a lot of records have been kept so our knowledge
of it has to be extrapolated from other writings. Much of household stuff doesn’t leave traces
(e.g. oral).
Daughters
in Athens in
the classical period were dedicated at the hearth of the home at their tenth
day. At 7, they would go into a cavern
bringing something out (Arrephoria; arrephoros). At 10, the aletris (pl. aletrides): the
grinder—to make cakes for Athena.
Between the ages of 10 to 14, playing the bear for Artemis at
Brauron. At 15, they would carry baskets
in the Panathenaic procession. Girls
were typically married at 15, to a man over thirty. A father-daughter relationship. The marriage starts with a betrothal set up
between the father and the potential husband.
The dowry was important. A new
marriage augmented the household of the husband so more farmland was
needed. The husband could live off the
income of the dowry. The dowry could be
taken back by the wife’s father if the marriage didn’t work out. Men could have mistresses. Wives were kept in the house, except perhaps
during funerals. Men would do the
shopping. Some sort of offering to
Artemis takes place before the wedding.
The wedding itself was not a religious ceremony, but there were rituals
associated with it. Ritual bathing, for
instance. And a ritual unveiling of the
bride to the husband. The bride is welcomed
into her new house by eating something there.
Sons too
were dedicated at the hearth at ten days.
In less than a year, they were taken out to the phratry (a social club)
during the Apatouria festival. At 16, a
son offers a bit of his hair and makes an animal sacrifice at the
Apatouria. At 18, he would begin to take
on citizenship roles in his deme and in Athens . He would also spend two years in public
service (the Ephebeia) to develop a sense of duty. He would take the Ephebic Oath. At 20, military service and serving in the
ekklesia (the citizen assembly).
Athenian democracy was direct democracy.
At age 30, you could serve in the Boule (the council) and you could get
married. Even when married, you would live in your father’s household; you
would not become head of your own household until your father died.
Everyday
religion. Vows to gods and going back to
pay them back. Also, dealing with
pollution (needing to be cleansed).
Also, oracle information that you heard about and had to react to. Socrates, for instance. You might take an oath, claiming certain gods
to be witnesses. They might include things
of nature too as witnesses. You might
make minor personal oaths (promises) and have a moral dilemma on whether to
fulfill it. For example, Neoptolemus’s
dilemma whether to go back on his promise to Philoctetes to stay or to go with
Odyssius. This is the more daily way in
which Greeks would be involved with religion.
Religion in
the city-state. A city-state has it own
government and foreign policy, and is sovereign of other polities. In the Mycenaean period (ending in 1200),
there were palace complexes. There were
kings (like an important person, rather than having a divine right to rule and
ruling over more than a local area).
Agamemnon, for instance. Zeus was
king of the gods even into the classical age.
In the dark age (1200-800), perhaps the kings lost their standing. In the Archaic Age (800- ), land-holding was the salient feature of
governance (i.e. aristocracy). In 564, Solon
was elected to solve a problem: small landholders were in debt to a few large
landholders and they couldn’t pay so they would become slaves. Money concentrated and a larger number were
being oppressed. Solon doesn’t cancel
the debts but he makes it harder for people to be put in to slavery and easier
for them to pay their debts. They were
trying to avoid tyranny. A tyrant would
provide dictatorial leadership in facing a major problem. A tyrant in Greece would have been
self-appointed and there was no guarantee that he would step down once the
problem has been solved. Pisistratus
(late 6th century) was such a tyrant. In Athens
during the classical age, Cleisthenes in 508/7 came up with a system of ten
tribes and assigns them to particular demes, or villages. He also instituted democratic reforms. 50 reps from each deme in a council in Athens . Democracy was an Athenian movement. Most of the other cities were oligarchies (a
small group of people), which could be aristocratic. Monarchy lingered into the classical period. In Sparta ,
there were two kings, a board of ephors (elders who oversee the kings), and a gerousia
(senate).
“The state
Hestia (hearth; goddess of the hearth) of the Prytaneion is the Hestia of all
the individual Athenian families writ large.”
The hearth was symbolic of the good functioning of the family and the
center of the home. The Prytaneion was
the state dining room for the government in Athens (and where an Olympic athlete would be
entertained). There was a hearth in
it. Athens as a large household. So relilgious worship for the city was just
an extension of that of the family.
A deme was
a village officially recognized as a sub-unit of the organization of Attica . There were
139 plus 40 villages. The deme was the
local level. Simultaneously, a person
would be enrolled in a tribe (extended family affiliations). The tribes elect reps to the Boule (in Athens ). The phratry was a social organization; this
is where a person would have his individual religious ceremony. Above the deme, tribe and phratry level,
there is the city level. There was also
the Hellas (panhellenic). What held Greek people together was their
language. Barbaros meant simply someone
who didn’t speak Greek (without the negative connotations it has today).
Worship at the state level was for
fertility of crops, animals and humans, good health, economic prosperity, and
safety in war and seafaring. But
recall that Gould argues that religion is a language rather than to meet
particular needs.
Athena Olivia (fertililty), Hygenia (health), Ergane
(prosperity), and Polias, (of the city), Areia (of war) (both of safety).
Zeus Ktesios (fertility), Rainios, Agoraios (of the
marketplace) (both of prosperity), and Xenios (Zeus of the guest—safety).
Artemis Brauronia (fertility, for young girls); she was also
prayed to for health and incidentally for safety of soldiers.
Asclepius: for health.
Hephaestus: for prosperity (craftsmen)
Poseidon: prosperity (sea trade) and safety in war (on the
sea)
Dionysus: fertility (crops), esp wine.
Demeter: fertility of crops
Hermes: protector of herdsmen (fertility of animals); also
guardian of anyone traveling down the road (so a statue of him to protect the
front door of a house).
Aphrodite: sexual love (fertility)
Hera: marriage (the ceremony itself)
Apollo: Pythios (of Delphi ),
also he is called Delphinios in this regard. Also Apollo Patroos.
As a
need-based religion, Athena would be sufficient. Why then the others? More were needed to talk about living in the
world (defining needs). It was not
merely for a god to step in a solve a problem.
Why does
Apollo Patroos have a fatherly role in Athens ?
Erectheus is born from the ground. He tries to have sex with Athena; humans are
born on the ground from his sperm.
Athenans: we have always been here.
Autochthony: native to the land.
Apollo rapes Creusa and they have a son, Ion. Ion recognizes his mother’s voice years
later. He is moved from Delphi back to Athens . Ion has four sons, who each have a
tribe. The four tribes would later be
made into ten. So every Ionian can trace
his ancestry back to Ion (and Apollo). Athens viewed itself as having some sway over Ionia . Is it a
valid claim? It is a claim that they can
claim Ionian heritage. Apollo is the god
who gives the Athenians a national identity—a way of thinking about
themselves.
Local
religions were exclusive in the sense that they served the needs of the local
people. They did not seek to convert
others. Slaves were foreigners so they
were not expected or encouraged to participate; they could practice their own
religions. Resident aliens in Athens would not be
expected to adopt the Athenian religion.
It is a characteristic of Greek religion that no city-state claimed that
its religious system or deities were superior to or more effective than those
of any other city-state or even non-Greek countries, according to
Mikelson. But Athena Nike or Polias
would have to be superior to the gods of other cities or how could she help the
Athenians defeat others? Moreover, the
gods themselves struggled with each other for supremacy. But the Greeks did not want to wipe out the
gods of other cities.
There were
panhellenic concepts. Polieus/Polias;
Nike, for example. Also, the notion of
an oracle and of an Olympian Zeus from mount Olympus
Local vs.
City vs. Nation. Grandpa vs. Aegeus
(patron of one of the ten tribes; gave birth to Theseus) vs. Theseus (as the
lawgiver in Athens )
vs. Heracles (panhellanic) vs. Athena (not just a hero; a goddess). Other than Heracles and Athena, the others
are local.
Not all
panhellenic notions are religious.
“Fortune” was a force in the background that made things happen that you
can’t control. Eumaeus in Homer’s
Odyssey is a servant to Odyssius and strikes it up to fortune (i.e. that there
is nothing he could do about it). The
notion of fortune allowed the Greeks to accept slavery.
Religion
for control purposes. See the Juror’s oath (Mikelson, pp. 177-8). It stops people from doing something. The role of religion in it is to scare the
juror into following the oath, which includes certain policy positions (e.g. to
protect creditor interests). Even with
this democratic system, religion is being used to limit it.
The
city-state, especially in Sparta . During the archaic period, there was hoplite
warfare. This was a way of fighting by group.
The hoplon was a tool that the soldier used. The hoplite was a citizen who served in the
military. Every male citizen in Athens had to serve. So being a hoplite was a part of one’s
identity. By virtue of the hoplite,
soldier had to depend on soldier; it was no longer a matter of individual
against individual. Multiple rows, or
phalanxes. It is organization that wins
the battle. In contrast, Homeric (eg.
Achilles) warfare was individual vs. individual. Individual character/qualities were
stressed. Archilochus, writing c. 700
BCE, wrote, however, that he was not impressed with the hero (and
self-sacrifice in battle for one’s shield).
Tyrtaeus was in Sparta
c. 650 BCE writing poetry for young people.
He writes that to die in the front line is a beautiful thing. The coward who walks away from battle won’t
be welcome back in Sparta .
So don’t be selfish clinging to your life.
No mention of religion. They were depending on human beings in warfare.
The Athenians made a dedication to
Apollo after they beat the Persians in 470, but the Athenians thought
nonetheless that they had been depending on themselves (only 10% of the work
thought being done by the god). So they
were not passively sitting back, expecting their gods to do the work. So religion was a piece; it was not
everything.
The Spartans wanted to protect themselves whereas the
Athenians wanted an empire. So the Spartans dominated the Peloponnesus
only to defend themselves (so they did not go further).
Warfare was seasonal (only in the
summer). The Macedonians fought
year-round; the Greeks were not used to that and couldn’t keep up. The Spartan soldiers had a sense of civic
duty—to hold the gate, for instance, or die.
Archaic Sculpture
The uses of
sculpture varied, in some cases involving religion. Even a cult statue was not an object of
worship that had some kind of powers.
The Greek went to the altar to go to the god directly; the god was
invisible. A statue could be used not
only as a cult image (using wood, marble, limestone, or bronze), but as a
dedication and as grave markers as well.
Bronze statues didn’t survive because it is reusable. We get a lot of marble copies though. Reliefs could be in dedications or
grave-markers.
There is
not a strict dividing line between religious and secular uses. The Greeks did not have such a dividing line
in their own lives.
A statue
stood for an individual, so it would not necessarily have resembled him or
her. Typically the left foot was
forward, but there is a statue of Apollo with his right foot forward. The Kouros statue look was pretty
generic-looking (not life-like). That
was the taste in the archaic period. The
focus was on the human form; males were portrayed as naked. They were not trying to reproduce exactly
what a human being looked like; rather, they wanted to show what looked
good. In the classical period, there was
more interest in representing the human form, even when in a religious
context. For instance, representing
movement and muscles using Zeus to depict it (i.e. not that Zeus really looks
like that). Showing Zeus and Discobolos
of Myron to capture motion in a human body (c. 460 BCE). Also, Hermes of Praxiteles (4th
century, BCE).
Grave
markers were put up by aristocrats. It
went out of practice early in the classic period in Athens but then came back (being more
democratic as more people had money for it).
A religious context but the overriding sense is loss.
What is uniquely Greek in Greek religion? Answers included Thesmorphoria and freedom
for women. Also, Arkteia and playing the
bear. Alternatively, one could look for
religious impacts of Greek historical events.
For instance, after the plague and Peloponnesian war, the Athenians
adopted the Epidaurian god Asclepius. In
most other religions, you are stuck with the gods you have. One could look at the Greek religious
festivals, where there were competitions (athletic and dramatic).
Greek Religion under Pressure
What are
the vulnerabilities of Greek religion?
For one thing, new gods such as Bendix being introduced make the system
seem flimsy. Also, there were times such
as during the plague that Greeks might wonder why their deities are not
improving the situation. Also, there was
no ecclesiastical structure to counter criticism or to answer questions. Rather, such matters were settled in the law
courts. Also, what if someone comes up
with a new need that is not being met by any of the deities? Also, what if the religious language no
longer provides the vocabulary with which to explain the world. For instance, relying on old mythology to
answer new questions.
Greek
religion is no longer around, which could be used to argue that Greek religion stopped
working (i.e. it could not respond adequately to changes). There were other languages other than
religious available to the Greeks.
Mythos vs. Logos. A myth is a way
of explaining things through stories that satisfies curiousity or gives people confidence
about the way the world works. Myth is
not inherently false. For instance,
explaining the regularities of nature by attributing them to deities’ actions
(which require regular sacrifices).
Logos is applying logic to the world that makes the world a system in
itself. Look, for instance, at the
pre-Socratics. They were mostly
concerned with how the world worked.
Three major ones came out of Miletus in Asia Minor . They
were looking for the arche (beginning,
or basic element). Thales (c. 625-c.545):
water. He predicted a solar eclipse for May 28, 585 and war
right. So, parallel to the mythological
explanations were logical explanations.
Not only from Thales, but from Anaximander (610-c. 540) and Anaximenes
(mid 6th century). The latter said that some infinite substance is
the arche. Interaction between hot and cold creates
objects. Heraclitus (Ephesus , c. 500): fire is the arche; the universe is without a
beginning (i.e. we don’t know about the beginnings). Everything flows. You can’t cross the same river twice. Flux.
Nothing is inherently stable. There is a dynamic tension of
opposites. Democritus (Abderra, 5th
century) said that at the basic level everything is atom or void. An atom is literally something that can’t be
divided. There is some indivisible
element that combines via collisions, forming things we see in the world
(formed by accident). Lucrecius in the
Roman world picked up on this view. All
of these views would fall apart if they went much further beyond their basic definitions.
Xenophanies
(mid 6th century in Colphon in Asia Minor )
was a poet and politician. He wrote his
serious work in poetry. He claimed that
Homer and Hesiod assigned to the gods that which is reproachful and blameworthy
among humans. Here, anthropomorphism is
being criticized. He criticized giving
gods bodies such that we have ourselves.
This limits the deity to be what human beings are. What if divine strength is completely
unrelated to ours? But then how do you
talk about/imagine the divine world if it is indescribable? He does not suggest a solution.
There were
two disruptive trends in the 5th century. There was serious debate about the nature of
the gods and some clear dissatisfaction with traditional views—this is not to
imply atheism (i.e. denying the existence of the divine world); rather, it is to
be dissatisfied with traditional views of it.
There was a suspicion that nothing in the world could be firmly and
certainly established—that everything may be liable to doubt and possible
refutations. What does this do to religion?
It weakens it, implying that the deities depicted are not
efficacious. Remember that religion was
there to satisfy certain needs.
Mythos and
Logos were long-standing trends. In 776,
the first Olympic festival. In 750,
Homer & Hesiod. In 600, Thales. In
550, Xenophanes. In 525, Aclmeonids
rebuilt the temple to Apollo at Delphi . So even amid the questioning, money was being
spent on religion. In 500, Democritus
and in 430 the Parthenon was completed.
Note the interaction and parallelism.
The
sophists were carrying the logos view forward.
This movement came to fruition in the mid-5th century. We know they had a big effect in Athens . They were mainly teachers. Up to that time, teachers were a lowly group,
handling reading and writing. Democracy
began to flourish in the 5th century. Citizens needed to be able to persuade and be
able to listen/discern arguments in the assembly or in court. Sophists trained people do these things using
the Eristic method (debate). The
sophists were criticized for their moral relativism; they trained people to be
able to argue any position, which implies moral relativism (i.e. that
everything is worthy of support).
Protagoras
argued, for instance, that he didn’t know whether the gods exist or what they
are like in form if they exist, because there are many hindrances to knowledge,
the obscurity of that subject, and the brevity of human life. He was not an atheist; rather, he was saying
that human beings do not have access to the divine world. “Man is the measure of all things, of things
that are that they are, and of things that are not that they are not.” Things that are important are so because
humans made it or are otherwise interested in them. Man is the arbiter of whether something
exists or not. Things of the divine
world do not impose themselves on us.
This is not to say that there is nothing out there.
Gorgias
claimed that on that which is not, nothing is.
Even if it is, it cannot be known to human beings. Even if it exists and could be known, it
cannot be indicated and made meaningful to another; it is only from one’s
perspective that something exists. Even
if the Greek pantheon of deities is out there, we can’t know of it. We can’t prove that it exists, and even if it
does exist, we couldn’t talk about it.
Thrasymacus:
“The gods do not see what goes among men. If they did, they would not neglect
the greatest of human goods, namely justice…”
Justice involves treating others fairly and looking to the common good
over self-interest, rather than making decisions that are best for me at the
moment. If there were gods, they would
make sure that this applies to human conduct, but that did not happen; rather,
there has been hubris (not subordinating your will to others’ interests).
Implications
of the Sophists. How do we determine
right and wrong where arguments rather than absolute values are decisive? Also, the younger people had personal choice
rather than simply doing what their ancestors did. If tradition itself is up for grabs,
questions of preservation and loss come up.
In the Athenian system, the legal system handled these implications,
going after the Sophists.
Pericles. He was born around 495, just before the
Persian War (in 490 and in 480/79).
After the war, growth of the Athenian empire. The Athenians put together the Delian League,
centered in Delos (in 454, the treasury of protection money was moved back to Athens , where it funded
the Acropolis). The Athenian power
scared Sparta
and its allies, which led to the Peloponnesia War (431-404). Pericles died early in it, in 429. Pericles had become so powerful that he was
essentially running the city (even though he had no official office). He had been trained by Anaxagoros, who taught
that “all living things, both great and small, are controlled by Mind (Nous)…”
If things exist, it is because mind has noticed them. The world exists in the way we perceive
it. Pericles was influenced by this thought,
but even so he was the one who rebuilt the Partheon. The one-horned man: natural vs. religious explanations. Plutarch (c. 100 CE) was a priest at Delphi and said that both explanations were correct. One accounts the cause and the other the end
or purpose. The logical explanations
don’t rule out the divine world. That
the divine uses natural events does not mean that they are not signs too. Pericles tried to pull the Athenians away
from superstition, using natural explanations (e.g. of an eclipse). Pericles’ funeral oration: political speaking
from his point of view, in which he argues that the city is great because of
the ancestors. He also goes into the
virtues of the political system. He
leaves out the gods, talking instead of the form of government and civic
habits. The man who was in charge of
building the Partheon gave a speech ignoring the gods in the same year. Religion was the only answer, or the answer
for everything. Pericles could balance
both mythos and logos.
Roman Religion
Aeneas fled
Troy with his
father Anchises and his son Ascanius, when the Greeks took it over. They stopped in Carthage, which had an adverse
relationship with Rome, and went on to the area now known as Rome. Latium
is the area around Rome . Lavinia was the daughter of King
Latinus. Aeneas fought the king in order
to marry her. Eventually, there was King Proca, who had two sons, Numitor and
Amulius. The former was the older one,
but Amulius drove him out. Numitor
sought to keep his daughter, Silvia, chaste, but she was impregnated by Mars
and gave birth to Romumus and Remus. They were suckled by a wolf. The two boys helped Numitor back to the
throne. They left to found their own
city at the location where they had been left.
But they had the same problem that their grandfather and his brother
had. So they look for a sign to see who
should rule. Who saw the better
sign? First vs. more. Romulus
attacked Remus and killed him. 753 BC
is the traditional year of the founding of Rome .
Roman men
had three names: a Praenomen (first name), nomen (clan name), and Cognomen
(family name). So, for instance, Gaius
Julius Caesar. And Marcus Tullius
Cicero. Women were called after their
fathers. Publius Cornelius Scipio’s daughter was named Cornelia. Gaius Julius Caesar’s daughter was
Julia. Men needed to be distinguished
because they were being recorded in records because they were doing
things.
The group
that settled around Rome
had come from the east—the same area from which the Greeks had come. Indo-European language base of Greek, Latin,
German and English. Latium was the area around Rome .
It took the Romans some time to have any influence there. Greek cities were already in their Archaic
age, after a dark age, when Rome
was founded. So the Greek cities were
more developed than the Roman. In Rome , there was a king,
Senate, and the Curiate Assembly (of all the other citizens). Similar to Athens ,
though the head of state was not elected in Rome .
The king had imperium, the
power to act. Seven kings of Rome : Romulus ,
Numa Pompilius, Tutus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus,
Servius Tullius, and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud). Romulus
was apotheosized after he died. This
is similar to how the Greeks were thinking of their founder heroes. Numa gave the city its calendar and religious
institutions.
Expulsion of Tarquin the
Proud. Sextus Tarquinius, son of
Tarquin. Collatinus was his cousin. Sextus and Collatinus argued over who had the
best wife. Lucretia, wife of Collatinus,
was at home spinning wool, whereas Sextus’ wife was at a party. So Sextus forces Lucretia to sleep with him
and threatens her to silence. But she
calls in her son and father afterwards, tells them, and kills herself even though
she was forced to do it. This is a high
standard for any Roman. Lucius Brutus
expels the king and founds a republic.
After the time of the kings, the
role of king was transferred to two Consuls.
Two so there would be a check between the two; in addition, the term was
only one year. There was also the
elected assembly and a senate. Together,
these offices and bodies made up the republic. It was founded in 510 BC. “Republic” comes from Res Publica,
meaning public things. There were the
patricians and plebs/plebeians. The
latter were at first excluded from government, until the late republic when the
divide between them and the patricians was blurred. Rome
was a city-state. Polybius, a Greek
historian, called the Roman form of government a “mixed” form. Consuls: monarchy. Senate: aristocracy. Assembly: democracy. The tensions between these types Polybius
thought made for good government.
Judiciary was a more modern invention—to balance the other two.
The Romans
liked things to be orderly. So to run
for office, there was a particular order that a Roman had to go through. First you run for a quaestor, which is like
an accountant. You would do this at
about 30. You would be enrolled in the senate
when elected. You might serve as an
Aedile, which looks after public works (i.e. to get your name known). At 40, you could be Praetor. There were fewer
of these than quaestors. You could be
elected one of the two consuls at age 43 or older. Other offices: the censor was elected to a
lifetime appt to look after things in the senate. To protect the interests of the plebians, a
tribute of the Plebs was instituted.
There were also military tribunes (which one would do in one’s
20’s). The senate was an advisory body,
but the senatus consultum ultimum
(final decision of the senate) could be weighty. The senate’s auctoritas (reputation or
weight) could give added legitimacy to a consul’s action.
Non-Roman
peoples of Italy :
Gauls, Greeks, and Etruscans. Also,
peoples of the Central Highlands. As the
Romans expanded their reach abroad, they ran into contact with the
Phoenicians. By 1000 BC, the Phoenicians
were trading around the med sea. Carthage was one of their
outposts. The Phoenicians were based at Tyre , an island at the
east of the Med sea. They had many
settlements, including Carthage . The founding of Carthage : the legend of Elissaj, or
Dido. Brother Pygmalion, and husband
Sychaeus. King Hiarbas wanted to marry
her, but she died on a pyre.
In 276, Carthage defeated
Pyrrhus. The Romans defeated Pyrrhus in
275. Carthage
controlled Libya , the
Straits of Gibaltar as well as Spain . In North Africa, Carthage
controlled half of Tunisia
by 300. So Carthage
was well-established in the Western Mediterranean . Carthage
was interested in controlling the sea.
There were three Punic wars. The
first lasted 23 years (264-241). The
Romans created a navy. After the war, Rome would use it
beyond. In 238, Rome
seized Sardinia as Carthage made advances in Spain . The Second Punic war was called the
Hannibalic war. It was a long war too. Hannibal
crossed the Alps in 218. The Romans were in
retreat. But the Romans sack Syracuse . Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus was
successful in Africa in 205-202 (Battle of
Zama in 202). After that war, Rome was an international
power. Its allies had stayed true. Also, the importance of individuals, such as
Scipio. Then Rome expanded eastward. Illyrian wars: 231-228 and 220-219 in between
the first and second Punic wars. Toward
the end of the second punic war, Rome was
involved in the Macedonian wars so they turn Macedonia into a province (they
governed it directly). Rhodes didn’t
support Rome so Rome stripped it of its free trade zone. Rome also
mixed in the affairs of Syria
and Egypt , but Rome was more interested
in Greek. In 146, Greece is made into a province governed directly
from Rome called Achaea . There was a third Punic war. In 150, Rome
destroyed Carthage .
Scipio Aemelianus supervised its destruction.
He wondered whether that would happen to Rome too, now that it was a great city. The Romans looked at the destruction of Carthage as a tipping
point, after which there was no longer pressure on the Romans to be great. Tiberius Gracchus tried to push through land
reforms on behalf of the people. He was
killed. Also, Gaius Marius was a general
who paid the troops—the army was loyal to him.
He was successful in Africa , then
served as a consul for four years (104-100).
Marius and Sulla contended for control.
Sulla became a dictator but then
resigned so Rome would be a republic. In
contrast, Julius Caesar would not resign. Pompey had great command in the army. Crassus had a lot of money. Caesar got together with them and made a deal:
Caesar would be consul and the other two would support him—the three of them
would manipulate the state.
Caesar was born in 100 BC. He did popular things to establish an
independent base; that is, he appealed to interests of the masses at the
expense of the aristocracy. He built a strong power base, passing agricultural
reforms. He served as governor in Spain,
as well as Quaestor, Aedile and other offices.
In 59, he was elected Consul. He
stayed in Gaul with his army for five years even though is term was for one. He married his daughter to Pompey but she
died. In 49, he crossed the Rubicon and
went on to defeat Pompey and set himself up as dictator. He was assassinated on March 15, 44BC. Octavian followed after him and established
the empire. He was 19 when Caesar was
killed. He had been adopted as Caesar’s
son in Caesar’s will. He was at odds
with Antony . They met at Actium at 31 BC and Antony was
killed (with Cleopatra). Octavian was
called the Princeps (the leading man).
He had potestas (power) and auctoritas (as opposed to being in the
senate). He used his power using the
structure of the republic. So there
would be consuls, but only those that he allowed. He had large armies loyal to
him. The Romans were tired of the civil
wars so they were willing to agree to this sort of compromise in exchange for
peace.
Roman
religion in the early days took place in a narrow geographic area. Roma was then
what we would call a village today. With
regard to their religion, the Romans would have had needs and means of
communicating or interacting with their gods.
There would have also been some kind of system to support this
communication. Set days for sacrifices,
for example. Also, myths. Our sources of information include the
calendar. There was some variation among the Roman calendars. What we have are later recreations of them. We also have Ovid’s Fasti written in the 1st century CE. But he was looking back 700 years, and he
brought Greek ideas into his stories.
Moreover, Ovid was a poet, not a historian. We do have some historians, but they lived
from the 1st century BCE to the 1st century CE. Varro, Cicero, and Livy, for example. There was also literature, but whereas Greek
culture flourished at the beginning of the Archaic period (e.g. Homer), the
Romans went on for a long time before they created any remarkable literary
works. It was not until the age of
Augustus that the Romans had any great works of their own (e.g. Livy and
Virgil). Before then, the Romans favored
Greek and Greek works. Our sources’
sources included Annales Maximi,
which was published annually by priests. But we don’t know about their selection
process (i.e. what they passed over, such as continuities). Fabius Pictor, c. 200 BC, was a Roman
historian writing in Greek.
Assumptions
have been made. For instance, that the
Romans had a primitive piety. For
example, no representations of gods have been found for the early Romans. So
their gods are thought to represent natural, social, or agricultural
processes. No theology, genealogy or
prophecy. No oracle or high gods such as Zeus or Apollo. It was also assumed that the religion
deteriorated over time due to contamination by foreign influences,
sterilization of religiosity by priestly ritual (controlled by a group of
priests), and increased urbanization and sophistication taking the Romans away
from their agricultural roots. But that
deterioration is difficult to define and track. Roman religion was always multicultural. The Greeks made their way to the Italian area
early on. Also, the Estruscans were
there.
The period of the Roman monarchy
legend to the Romans. 753BCE: Rome founded as a
monarchy. 510BCE: Monarchy replaced with
Republic. Many things were attributed to
Romulus and Numa—the founding heroes.
The Roman
calendar. It originally had ten months
(March 1st was new years).
January and February were added. Nefastus stood for: no public
business. Fastus: ordinary working day.
The first day of the month was called the kalends. The nones were
either the 5th or 7th day. The ides
were either the 13th or 15th. There were four months in the year when the nones were on the 7th and the
ides on the 15th. For example, Caesar was killed on the Ides of
March (March 15th). Who set
the calendar? Priestly colleges. Roman
religion was more organized than was Greek religion. The main college was the Pontifex
(Pontifices, plural). It means
‘bridge-maker.’ The Augurs (Augur,
augures) was the other important college.
The Duoviri sacris faciundis were the “two men for sacred actions.” Later expanded to ten men. The Fetials (Fetialis, Fetiales) were also
important. The Haruspices (Haruspex)
read the entrails of sacred animals.
There were also minor priesthoods. Until the three colleges, the Fetials
and Haruspices, the minor priesthoods were not involved in state as well as
religion.
The
Pontifices were elected. No special
skill was needed. Most were
senators. The head was the Pontifex
Maximus (the biggest priest); he was also elected. People ran for it (rather than being elected
from the college of the other pontifices).
The Commentarii Pontificum (Annales Maximi) were essentially codified by
the college. The Pontifices dealt with
the calendar (including festivals and intercalation—adjusting the
calendar). The college was also involved
with the laws having to do with families (wills, adoptions…)—Sacra familiaria.
The Vestals
were 6 unmarried women who tended the temple of Vesta
Republican Religious Order
Religious
affiliation. There is no evidence for individual piety, so it could be that as
long as the sacrifices were deemed to have been done correctly, the individuals
would have been content. Distinguish
ritual from belief. What does someone
have to believe about the ritual for
it to be efficacious? There was a strict
order for carrying out the ritual, but there was no confession of belief
entailed; it was the procedure that mattered.
A Roman didn’t have to “join” the religion; there was no requirement for
any belief. It was representative
religion (done by representatives, the priests), rather than one of direct
participation. Distinguish religion in
the public sphere from private devotion.
Was there any of the latter? From
the available evidence, we don’t know.
The
political sphere and religion. The
priestly colleges involved a political dimension. The pontiffs set the calendar
dates. Working for the pontiffs were the
Flamines, who carried out the sacrifices in the particular cults. An individual Roman didn’t need to be at the
ritual. There were also the Vestals at
the temple of Vesta
The
magistrates were elected for one-year terms, and there were restrictions on re-election. In contrast, the Vestals had a thirty year
term and the other priests served lifetime terms. So the priests were advising but not driving
the government. Imperium, or power, was
something that the king had which allowed him to give commands and lead troops
into battle. It was given in the
Republic to two Consuls for one-year terms.
There were restrictions on their military command (e.g. only outside Rome ). Service in the Senate was the only lifetime
political office. The Senate had no real
authority in terms of lawmaking; it was an advisory body—though it could
influence decisions (as priests could). The Senate had more influence on the
state than did the priestly colleges.
Warfare and
agriculture. In war, citizen-soldiers
participated. In agriculture,
citizen-farmers participated. War: March
thru October; Agriculture: October thru March. The same people doing them.
Hierarchy: soldier, quaestor, military tribune, and consul. The Pomerium: the sacred boundary around Rome , across which a
Roman could not bring an army. The
Romans wanted to protect the political system of the city from being taken over
by a general. Because it was a sacred
boundary, religion was involved in this check.
A Triumph, granted by the Senate, was the only time a general could
march his army into the city.
Agricultural
and Festivals. Agriculture was a concern of the state and involved religion.
Festivals: Robigalia, April 25, sacrifice to ward off blight. Sementivae, late
January, sowing (sowing begins in autumn).
Not tied to actual sowing. Vinalia, April 23 & August 19, grapes and
wine (4/23: wine tasting?). Not tied to
the vineyard season. Parilia, April 21, Shephards originally and then the
birthday of Rome .
The festival’s meaning changed. Why was
the agricultural element eroded in these festivals? Urbanization and internationalization. From 510 to 27BC. The span of the Republic: Rome was still very much agricultural. So it was not the loss of agriculture behind
the changes in the festivals. There were a plurality of meanings in a given
festival. Consider our Christmas: was it
taking over the Roman Saturnalia? We
don’t know. “Christmas” comes from Cristes
maesse: the mass or festival of Christ. Also, March 25: the Annunciation. 9 months earlier. Picked going backwards. A ritualized calendar. So too, Vinalia didn’t fit within the actual
wineyard harvest. Just like our rituals
adapt and change with the times and we might not keep to an original
understanding of them, so too the Romans.
Family
Religious Life. Take the soldier who was not a priest or active in the
government. He would know that priests
are carrying out rituals on his behalf; he would not know the details about the
rituals. He would know that there were
magistrates running the city and interacting with the religious priests. He would know that there were fastus and
nefastus days on the calendar. Fastus:
can work. The father of the family was
called the Paterfamilias. He probably had religious duties. The things he would have done would be called
sacra. Lares are essentially
ghosts/spirits of dead people thought to be interacting with living people. Penates were the household gods. We know from votives that he would have
turned to religion for health issues.
That we don’t see deep personal commitment to the public religion does
mean that it existed at the individual/private level. But we do know that pietas involved duty to the gods, state and family. Note the salience of duty here. Duty could be fulfilled by ritual rather than
personal commitment; it was an act. Doing
one’s duty did not necessarily mean love.
Festivals
in general were not used by people to interact with public religion. However, the Matralia (June 11): mothers
praying for daughters. Also, the Vestals
tended the hearth—symbol of a family doing well. The Roman city seen as a family. Six priestesses chosen in childhood. Why not men?
The image of women as holding together the household. Why a severe penalty for loss of
chastity? And why not allow them to go
to their homes? They were to be
committed to Rome
as their family. It would have been the
job of a young girl to tend the hearth.
The priestesses managed the temple storehouse and baked grain into
salted meal. Also, there was a phallus
in the temple—suggesting the childbearing function of women in a family.
Transition
to Res Publica: the Rex was replaced by two consuls. The Rex
Sacrorum may not have been as powerful as the Pontifex maximus. We really
don’t know. The Pontifex maximus was the most powerful religious leader—and he was
also a political leader. In contrast,
the Rex Sacorum had only religious
duties (those that the Rex had had).
The Roman
religious system was open to absorbing foreign cults, including Greek
ones. That is not to say that Roman
religion was similar to Greek religion.
Rome was a
small town in the Republican era. It was
walled off. The Romans were traditional,
valuing the traditions of their ancestors.
Government was an open process, as it had been in Athens. The Patrician/Plebeian divide was rather
stark early on. The origin of the
division is unknown. The Patricians
(pater, or father) were the aristocrats.
The Patrician families ran the government early on. The Cursus Honorum was the hierarchy of
offices: Quaestor, Aedile, Praetor, and Consul.
All of these were reserved for Patricians early on in the republic. Plebeian families could have as much wealth
as the Patricians, but the former could not hold public office. Publius Servilius, consul in 495BCE, dealt
with the tension between the two groups.
He tried a middle ground approach by giving the Plebeians some debt
relief, but the Patricians were not happy about it. A conflict between the two groups that was
not resolved. The same division must
have been the case during the monarchies.
There was a change in the early republic: the Plebeians gained more
power. Early in the 5th
century, Tribunes of the Plebs were created as an office to protect their
interests. A Tribune could not be harmed
while in office (i.e. sacrosanct). In
449, the Romans formed a committee to record the laws (The Twelve Tables). The arbitrary enforcement of laws had been a
big problem. In 445, Military Tribunes were opened up to the Plebiens. In 421, the Quaestorship was opened up. In 367, the Consulship was opened up but a
new office, the Praetorship, was created for Patricians. But in 337, the Praetorship was opened
up. This is not to say that Plebeians
were actually elected to such high offices.
Even the Plebeians voted for Patricians.
So even though offices were opened, we don’t see a power shift. Instead, we see wealthy Plebeian families in
the same circles as the Patricians. The
notion of nobility was created to account for this.
There were
also Plebeian religious changes. In 367,
the Duviri became the Decemviri (the Patricians let the Plebeians in, but they
didn’t want fewer offices for themselves so they expanded the number). In 300, the Augures and Pontifices were
opened, though the numbers of them increased so no fewer Patricians would hold
them. There were Plebeian Aediles (city
managers; also in change of public games).
It was a way of becoming known as a benefactor of the building projects
(like a campaign). But early on it was
simply for taking care of cult sites.
There were certain Gods associated with the Plebeians: Ceres (Demeter),
Liber (Dionysus), Libera (Prosiphanies).
The Dioscuri were Castor and Pollux (the brothers of Helen in
Greece). Mercury was a god of business
and travel (like Hermes in Greece).
These gods were of interest to the Plebeians. Also, the Ludi were the Plebeian games.
The
Plebeians had their own assembly—maybe it had its own augers. This was where
the people had a voice. It was there
that the Plebeian consuls governed. A
check on the other branches of government; it could veto what the Patrician
offices had passed. We don’t know much about the assembly because the
Patricians wrote the Annales Maximi. And the Pontiffs wrote the Commentarii Pontificum. The Plebeians
had no such tradition.
Religious
issues under debate of sorts: attack on the Patrician monopoly. Limitation of power and independence of
priesthoods (election of Pontifex Maximus—originally selected by the Pontiffs
but then elected from outside). That
limited the power of that college if the people outside of it can impose a
leadership on it. Also, there was a
centralization and institutionalization of religious practice in the state
versus Plebeians and the clans (Gentes).
There was
also the development of abstract deities.
Athena Nike as the goddess of victory in Athens…the abstract idea of
Nike came to be worshipped following Alexander there. In Rome, a temple of Victoria was constructed
in 294BCE. Also Juppiter Victor. The Romans were doing this probably under the
influence of the Greeks. In fact,
deities were imported. There was an
epidemic in 293BCE. Some Romans found
Aesculapius in the Greek world. The
Athenians too had introduced Aesculapius after an epidemic. The Romans
consulted the Sibylline books in looking at the epidemic for a solution, which
in this case was to take a snake to Tiber Island and build a healing sanctuary
there. The innocation was mediated by the
books and by the traditions. The Romans
had made votive offerings for their gods for health. So although Aesculapius
was new, it was incorporated via regular Roman religious processes. Another example of mixing and adapting is
that of Ceres and Proserpina. In the 5th
century, they were worshipped by the Plebs (probably under Greek
influence). In the countryside, they
might have been more susceptible to new ideas from other cultures. In the 3rd century, it was
imported into Rome with “Greek rites.”
Priestesses and rituals for women were new to the Romans even though it
had not been to the Greeks. Another innovation: saecular games (249 BCE, 140’s,
17 BCE). They were held once every
hundred years, roughly. There was a sacrifice to Dis Pater (Hermes) of the
underworld and to Proserpina (Procimine).
In the
third century, huge changes took place for Rome. War with Pyrrhus (275). Pyrrhus was repulsed
by the Romans. First Punic War (264-241) forced Rome to construct a navy. First
Illyrian War (231-228), Second Illyrian War (220-219), First Macedonian War
(215-205), Second Punic War (218-201)—Hannabal tried to separate Rome from its
allies. Scipio defeated him in North Africa. The Second Macedonia War
(200-196). Its allies stuck with Rome. Rome controlled Greece, Troy, Sicily,
Sardinia, Corsica, Spain and Carthage by 133 BCE.
During
early second century, Ennius wrote an Epic poem of Rome. He came to Rome in 202 BC. Ennius projected back watching the sky for
signs to the story of Romulus. Also
during that time, Scipio Africanus (who defeated Hannibal in 201 in North
Africa) became known as Scipio Felix (the lucky)—helped by the gods. As a precedent, Alexander the Great was
thought to be a child of Zeus (a snake impregnating his mother). The Romans
were worried about monarchy recurring. Also during that time, there was concern about
the doing of human sacrifice being done by Romans who thought they had to do
something aprotropaic to avert a catastrophe (filtered through regular Roman
customs, such as looking at the Syllabine books—and they went to Delphi too).
The Romans were not interested in the sort of literary or
philosophical creativity that the Greeks had evinced. Instead, the Romans were interested in hard
work and virtuous living. So Roman
religion lacked creativity relative to that of the Greeks. For instance, the Romans didn’t have a
theogony, whereas the Greeks did. That
is, the Romans didn’t have a larger system of their deities. Also, the Romans
had no creation myth (unlike the Greeks).
Perhaps the Romans had different needs.
For instance, do Mikalson’s needs apply to the Romans (e.g. fertility,
health, prosperity, safety and identity)?
Regarding fertility, the Romans brought in Demeter. Regarding health, the Romans brought in
Ascepeosius. Regarding prosperity, the Plebeian
rituals included those to Mercury, the god of commerce and travelling. Regarding safety, the Romans had Caster and
Pollaks. In war, there was the god Mars. Regarding identity, spreading religious
duties among different people in the city (e.g. different colleges of priests)
fostered a sense of identity. The story of Romulus, and that of Aeneas and
Troy, also informed Roman identity. But
these functions were implemented in a unique way. Order and precision need not be shallow; this
way of implementing these needs could have met the Romans’ needs (for
order). What about Gould’s “a language
for dealing with the world?” The Romans
used the prodagies to understand what was going on around them. Are there other rationales for Roman
religion? While not mapping Greek
religion onto the Romans, we can use it as a way to get at Roman religion.
Temple-building
Roman temples were not independent centers of
power, influence and wealth. Were Greek
temples? Delphi became one. Olympia too.
Even the Acropolus in Athens. The
Parthean was built to house wealth. In
Rome, temples were controlled by the Senate. So no temple or cult site was
independent. Also unlike in Greek
temples, Roman temples did not have their own priestly personnel. But the form of the temple was the same as
that of Greek temples: a house for the deity with an altar in front. Trends in Roman temple building: from mid 3rd
to mid 2nd centuries BCE, the Romans were fighting wars; temples
were the result of vows in war. They were funded with war booty. In the 2nd
century, there were temples to domestic cults, with few abstract deities. So
the Romans were not doing much importing of foreign cults then. Exceptions were
Magna Mater, Pietas (Piety, which meant loyalty and duty to gods, state and
family), and Felicitas (Good Fortune).
Loyalty, duty and good fortune were relevant to war. The personification
of ideals had been done earlier. Latin
and “standard” deities being cultivated at that time included Juno, Diana, and
Jupiter. Before the 3rd
century, there was not much temple-building going on.
Building
costs were generally from war booty.
Generals made vows to the gods and the booty was used to fulfill the
vow. The Senate and priestly colleges might adjust their vows in line with sacred
law. Recall that before Marathon, the
Greeks vowed one animal for everyone killed, but they killed thousands so they
renegotiated with the gods to five hundred animals. The Romans filtered
renegotiation through the Senate, priests, and Sabline Books. Also, the Roman state as a whole (e.g. all
the arms of the mixed government—including the democratic element) had to
approve. The god might not trust the
vow. Why would the vower want to control
the implementation? His family could
carry it on, providing an abiding memorial to the victory (and the
general). So the use of the state here
was as a check on the power of individuals.
Recall that someone trying to become too powerful could be declared
sacer (i.e. let the gods decide, with people carrying out the sentence). Also, the Triumph parade could be used by the
Senate instead of allowing a popular general to build a monument to himself.
The Athenians could vote someone out of the city once a year so someone becoming
too popular could be kept from creating a tyranny. In 200 BC, the Pontifex Maximus protested
against a proposal that a vow should not include the specification of a fund to
pay for the vow (typically when you made a vow, you had to specify your source
of funding). The Pontifex was successful.
Politicians
sought religious offices, and religious offices supported political
careers. So some have wrongly assumed
that religious officers were always motivated by politics. Consider the suppression of the Bacchic rites
(Dionysus) by the Senate in 186. Power
of the leaders was independent of the regular Roman sphere. A political threat to the Senate? But also, the strangeness of the cult could
have been the real reason. Also,
consider that no particular family dominated a priesthood. The Roman sense of piety was a sufficient
check. Remember the Pomerium—a boundary
around the city that generals would not cross.
They just didn’t do it (until the first century). Also, the selection of Pontifices was by
cooptation until 300 BCE, when the Pontifice Max was elected from among the
Pontifices. In 145BCE the Pontifices
were elected. Should we look at the
Roman state as controlling religion or making sure that the religious systems
function well?
Religion in
the Late Republic (133-44BCE). 133 BCE:
Tribunate and death of Tiberius Gracchus.
He was a tribune. There were ten
of them; they represented the Plebs. He
put an aggressive set of agrarian reforms in effect. The Plebs had been losing their land. Wealthy people were buying up land and using
slaves from the wars to work it. The
Plebs had to go to the city. But there
were no jobs for them. Tiberius was
related by marriage to the Scipios, so he was not a nobody. But his plan was resisted by the Patricians,
who operated from the Senate. So it was
a battle between the Senate and the Tribunes.
It was the noblility, including some Plebs, against the larger
poor. Not all Plebs were of the
latter. An open struggle for wealth
between the few and the poor. In 121,
Gaius Gracchus, who also took up the cause of land reform, was killed. In 105, Jugurtha was defeated in Africa by
Marius, a novus homo who was a
populist general who paid his soldiers from the spoils. It had been the citizen’s duty to fight for
Rome; now Marius was getting the unemployed poor, who were loyal to
Marius. 104-100: Gaius Marius’
successive consulships, and war with Gallic tribes. He did not wait ten years to run again (for a
consulship). He comes back a hero. But in 91, the Social war. The Romans ruled other Italian cities by
treaties (i.e. individual alliances), but the cities wanted Roman
citizenship. The Latin people in the
area of Rome had been given citizenship.
The other Italian cities lose the war but get citizenship. Notice that the Romans were fighting with
each other. Hannabal had sought to sow
this (and between Rome and its allies).
In 89, war with Mithradates begins.
Romans looked at Marius’ success in war and his resulting successive
consulships. So many people wanted the
command. Sulla got the command but his
opponents got the people to re-vote against him. Sulla broke the pamerian, marching on Rome. His troops were loyal to him. He convinced
them that it was the people inside Rome who were betraying Rome. Both sides believed they were fighting for
their country. Sulla recovers the
command and departs for war in Asia Minor.
He was gone from 87-83. Marius
and Cinna, enemies of Sulla, dominated Rome.
Marius and Cinna represented the power of the masses and Sulla dominated
the Senate. 83-81, Sulla marches on
Rome, becomes dictator, and announces that his enemies could be killed
(proscriptions) with impunity. He reformed
the government. Marius and Cinna had
given more power to the Tribunes. Sulla
returned more power to the Senate, “restoring the republic.” Sulla resigned the dictatorship in 81, the
crisis having been resolved. Caesar
would call him an idiot for giving up power.
Sulla died in 78.
Pompey and
Caesar came after Sulla. Pompey fought
for Sulla in Africa. Pompey was called
“the great (Magnus).” Pompey was given
credit for defeating Sertorius in Spain in 72.
He was also given credit for defeating Spartacus in 71. He, with Marcus
Crassus, was elected consul in 70.
Piracy was rampant in the sea, so in 67 there was war with them. Pompey cleaned up the problem in just three
months. 66-62, he got the credit for
victory against Mithridates, bringing much of Asia Minor (including Palestine)
under the control of Rome (without approval of Rome). They were rich areas. The Senate was worried that one person was
gaining too much power. Now a man has
added an area of territory. So the
Senate refuses to ratify the addition of land.
In 55, Pompey was again elected consul.
In 52, he was elected sole consul. He died in 48 at Pharsalus.
Caesar was
smarter than Pompey. He was not as
flashy. In 59, he held the
consulship. The Senate would not ratify
Pompey’s land-grab. Crassus had trouble
getting contracts of his friends renegotiated.
Caesar had run up huge debts and Crassus was rich. They agreed that Caesar would be elected and
would secure the ratification and the contracts would be renegotiated and Caesar’s
debts paid by Crassus. 58-50, Caesar’s
Proconsulship in Gaul. He expanded
territory into England and Germanic areas. By 50, Pompey was opposing Caesar in
the Senate. So in 49, Caesar crossed the
Rubion and illegally took his army outside of his province (into Italy). 49-45:
Civil war. Caesar was assassinated in
44BCE.
Caesar and
Bibulus (59BCE). In 59, Caesar was
elected consul with Bibulus, but Caesar was dominant. Recall the Romans watched the sky before
calling an assembly. Bibulus was looking for bad omens that would keep Caesar
from holding an assembly to enact his reforms.
Caesar ignored Bibulus, who was confined to his house—watching the
sky. Caesar’s reforms were not
invalidated. So signs of the gods could
be ignored because it had become impractical to reverse everything. So the religious element gets overridden by
the political. Look at Athens under
Pericles. While Pericles was elected, it
was a democracy in name only. The Greeks
must have known that there was a limited effectiveness of vows to Poseidon.
Compare the formal procedure with the real danger. What is the real danger in
Caesar holding an assembly even over Bibulus’s claims of bad divine signs? Caesar was willing to take the risk. Did the Roman Republic crash because Caesar
ignored the omens?
Another
scandal was the Bona Dea. Publius Clodius Pulcher fell for Caesar’s wife. The
Bona Dea was the ‘good goddess”, who protected women. Publius Clodius was discovered at the rite
(which was only for women). The Vestal virgins correct the ritual and charge
Clodius. He was acquitted on account of politics. He was a Patrician who got
himself adopted in a Pleb family so he
could get a power base there. He was an ally of Caesar against Pompey. Caesar
wanted to keep his political ally alive.
Caesar divorced his own wife as a result of the scandal.
The Flamen
Dialis was the priest in charge of Jupiter. Julius Caesar was forced to resign.
The position was not filled for 70 years. How vital was that position? The Pontifices could fill in, however. The
Flamen was a political as well as religious office. Which politican would want
a position with such restrictions as lack of travel?
The
declaration of war. Livy discusses how
the fedials were involved in war rituals. How could there be a just declaration
of war for a land 1000 miles away. So the Romans had a bit of ground next to
the Temple of Bellona declared “enemy territory.” This is not a scandal;
rather, it is an attempt to keep tradition alive (the practice of the spear)
Evocatio:
making a deal with a god to help a city fall. Temple of Vortumnus (264 BCE) was
the last standard example. In 75 BCE,
Isuara Vetus—a temple constructed in Asia Minor—a compromise to keep a practice
alive, but Roman enough?
The debate
of Clodius and Cicero in 56 BCE. A prodigy of strange noises said to be “divine
anger.” Clodius: Cicero’s destruction of the temple of Libertas is at fault.
Cicero: Clodius’ violation of Bona Dea rites is at fault. In 63,Cicero put
conspirators to death even without their right of a trial. He was exiled in 58
by a retroactive law passed by Clodius. Clodius tore down Cicero’s house and
built a temple to Libertas there. In 57, Cicero returned. In 56, Clodius
prosecutes an associate of Cicero. Cicero spoke in defense (Pro Caelio). In 56
too, they were fighting over a prodigy.
Was this unique? The Senate would
decide the issue, so in the end it is a political question.
Divine
honors for individuals. In the late
Republic, Romans were hesitant to bestow divine honors on individuals even
though divine kingship had been around in the east for at least two hundred
years in the Greek Hellenic period, when in Greece heroes could move close to
divine status; this was not as common in Rome of the first century. The reason
for the hesitation was the fear that a person would gain so much power that he
could subvert the Republic. There was indeed pressure for divine honors coming
from the east, and as Rome extended its influence eastward, it would have felt
this pressure more and more. Recall that
Alexander divinized. But remember that Alexander’s self-divination was resisted
(and finally removed) in Athens—that city too was leary of one man having too
much power. The founder of Athens was
divinized only long after his death, when he was like a legend. And recall the Athenian practice of ostracism—a
practice geared to preventing any one person from gaining too much power. But in
addition to Alexander’s act, there was the practice of the Persians of proskynesis,
or bowing prostrate before the king.
Even though some Greek soldiers didn’t want to do it, Alexander liked
the idea. Also, the Ptolemies had been
pushing divine kingship in Egypt, and Rome was influenced by this
practice.
To be sure, there had been some
individuals given divine honors. Romulus
was divinized after his death. Scipio
Africanus had the name “Felix” bestowed on him, which meant that a divinity was
thought to be looking out for him. Amelilius Paullus had triumphal honors
beyond a march of Triumph through Rome.
A triumph merged a general with the image of Jupiter, implying that the
god was protecting him (and Rome). “But
remember you are a man,” as a slave would typically say to a successful
general. Sulla was called Felix, and he was called Epaphroditus (helped by
Venus/Aphrodite) too—an idea that came from the east. Pompey called himself Magnus in imitation of
Alexander. In addition, he was called Soter at Samos and Mytilene (islands off
Greece), which means “savior of the people.”
Zeus and Jupiter would be called that as well, suggesting that Pompey
was providing services that the gods would have provided in earlier times. This
rationale had been used by the Ptolemies.
Pompey also built the Temple of Venus Victrix (recall Athena Nike, of
victory) and the associated Temple of Felicitas (prosperity, luck from the
gods) with a theatre. This is rather close to Greek Hellenism. Caesar went a step further than Pompey. Not
only did he build a Temple of Venus and Anchises (a mortal), but he traced the
line of his clan from Venus. In
particular, Venus and Anchises had Aeneas, whose son was Ascanius, which can be
liked to the words “Julus/Julius/Julii.”
After his death, Caesar was divinized. “Divus Julius” He moved into apotheosis. Romulus had been
granted this too. Here it was being done
at the end of the Republic. But Rome was a Republic in the first century;
imperium needed to be handed off even though this was resisted by some in the
first century.
Divine honors for the state of
Rome. Throughout its history, Rome was
treated as sacred by the Romans. For
example, the pomerium was the sacred boundary around the city, across which
Romans had a civic and religious duty not to transgress in attaching the
city. Also, the city’s grant of
triumphal honors implied a merger of Jupiter and the general—implying that
Jupiter was looking out for Rome. Also,
there were the sacrosanct Tribunes who could not be harmed, and the practice of
sacer (ok to kill someone who has too much power) and the right to a trial,
which were related to Rome having divine honors. So it should be no surprise that
Roma, an abstract conception of Rome, would be established then in the east
though perhaps not at Rome because people would have resisted the honors.
Recall that in Greek Hellenism loyalty to the gods was applied to the kings. So if Rome defeated these kings, would not
Rome itself have to be sacred? But how
did individual Romans react? Fear,
perhaps, that one individual would gain too much power as a result. To be sure,
some, such as Pompey and Caesar, did take advantage of it. But in general
religious authority was shared/dispersed in Rome to prevent such use. Athenians too liked power-sharing (so they
resisted Alexander’s diviniation). Greek
Hellenism began in 323 so it would have been full-blown by the first century,
so the Romans of the late republic were dealing in the east with established
divine kingship, which would have influenced them even if they could resist it.
In first century Rome, there was
study and skepticism of Roman religion.
Varro wrote Divine and Human Antiquities. He was an antiquarian and etemologist. Cicero
was more of a philosopher in his writing On Divination (pt. 1 defense; pt 2 skepticism). He wanted a Roman philosophy,
stressing the notion of the state and the individual’s duty toward it. Caesar
was ignoring divination at the time and the state didn’t face ruin, so there
would have been skepticism regarding the rites from then on. In general, Roman religion would be subject
to scrutiny, criticism and perhaps change as a result. Sallust, in his Bellum Catilinae, argued
that the first century Rome was lazy—that this was caused by the destruction of
Cathage and province-making of Greece, both in 146 BCE, which reduced greatly
external threats that would face Rome.
Also, poor Romans were going to the city and they needed food. As a result, there were constitutional
changes, including land reform, which involved killing as the political system
was not strong enough. So there was pressure to look skeptically at religion. Recall that from the Greek archaic age, there
was the Logos as well as the Mythos tradition.
Source Criticism. The House of Mysteries near Pompey has
Bacchic figures and scenes from the first century. Was it a worship area or
merely for social use? We don’t know. Problem of how much we can get from the limited
evidence we have. Also consider
Catillus’ Poem 63. You can’t assert that
it criticizes Romanness as Beard does.
Rather, it is about madness as well as the limits of power. Look at the
source—Catullus. He loved a woman but
she spurred him so he was in agony. So
too in the poem, Attis loves the goddess Cybele and in a frenzy he
self-castrates himself but later, when he realizes what he has done, looks back
to his homeland in dismay. But Cybele
uses a lion to get him frenzied again so he will return to her, which he
does. This poem uses Roman religion but
it is not about it. Rather, it is about the madness that makes a man a
slave to a woman and thus about the fact that he allows himself to be tortured
by love. There is not much on religion
in this.
Republic to Empire. Context of the
Roman religion. Caesar had used his
position in Gaul to take Pompey down militarily. In doing so, he won control of the
government. The Romans feared monarchy;
they didn’t want to turn their republic over to one person. Back in the 50’s, Rome and Alexandria had
established a closer relationship. In
59, Ptolemy XII Auletes becomes an ally of Rome. The senate could intervene against an ally’s
domestic as well as external enemies. In
57-55, Auletes was banished and then restored with help from the Romans. In 49, Caesar crossed the Rubicon. Civil
war. In 48, the battle of Pharsalus.
Caesar defeated Pompey. Pompey fled to
Alexandria. Young Ptolemy beheads him in
order to look good for Caesar but Caesar would much rather have forgiven
him. In 44, Caesar is killed by a
conspiracy headed by Brutus. In 43, the
Second Triumvirate. There was still the
landless poor and their populous politicians resisted by the Senate. The republic was breaking down with the
strains from this and from running an empire.
Another round of civil wars.
Gaius Octavius, the great nephew of Caesar, had been adopted by
Caesar. Gaius Julius Caesar
Octavianus. Marcus Antonius thought he
would rule. But Octavian was ambitious
so he came to Rome and challenged Antonius to be head of Caesar’s party. The rule of the state is handed over to the
three men: Octavius, Antonius, and Marcus Lepidus. They listed people to be killed. Cicero was a personal enemy of Marcus
Antonius so he was killed. As Octavian
and Antony try to solidify their power, they defeated Brutus and Cassius in 42
at the battle of Philippi. Anthony moved
to the east, while Octavian moved to Rome.
Different spheres of influence.
In Brundisium in 40, Octavia, the sister of Octavian, is married to
Antony. But he has an affair with
Cleopatra. Octavia and Antony had
children. Octavia raised even the
children that Antony and Cleopatra had. She lived up to the Roman ideal of
civic and family duty. In 31 at Actium,
Antony loses to Octavian in battle.
Antony returns to Alexandria and with Cleapatra committed suicide in
30. Cleapatra held her own with Roman
men. She knew she would be paraded
through Rome as part of his triumph so she committed suicide. Egypt was brought into the empire as a
province.
Once Octavian wins, we are back to
the case with Caesar—one person in charge.
But the Romans hated monarchy by default. So Octavian decided to be called Princeps
(the leading person). The princeps
senatus was the person in the senate who could speak first. Octavian used this concept. Potestas: power that a particular magistrate
has. Imperium: the power of all the
offices. Octavius found a way to manage
imperium without seeming that it has fallen back into the hands of one
person. So he had to keep the Res
Publica notion alive even as he has enough potestas to control the imperium in
fact. From 31-27, Octavian holds
consulship annually, dominating his partners.
In 27, the First Settlement. He
will continue to hold the consulship and he will be granted
control/governorship over Spain, Gaul, and Syria. This gave him funds and control of
armies. He had the wealthiest
provinces. He was given the title
Augustus, Princeps of the state. The
leading man of the state. Influence over
the whole state. Republic functions;
Augustus’ auctoritas. A princeps on top of the republic offices. But it
depended on one person in an annual office. In 23, the Second Settlement. He
resigned the consulship and was given special powers instead. He could exercise
imperium inside the Pomerium (including being commander). He was also given “imperium maius
proconsulare’ outside the Pomerium.
Imperium greater than a consul outside the pomerium. So his imperium was greater than that of any
governor. He was also given Tribunician
potestas. Results: Augustus could now
pass legislation. Provinces were still
divided, but “maius potestas” gave universal rights and power to Augustus. An executive committee formed to discuss
legislation. The senate would then pass it.
The institutions such as the consuls, senate and governors become in
effect impotent. The palace runs the
government. Augustus lived until
14CE. So he ruled for a long time. No one could remember the republic when he
died. The problem was that he outlived
his grandchildren. He was stuck with
Tiberius, whom he had forced to marry Julia, his daughter. People would become emperor by being related;
not like Augustus, who had to prove himself.
His family held power through Nero.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote
about Roman antiquities. He commends Romulus for following the best customs and
use among the Greeks while rejecting all traditional Greek myths concerning the
gods. He approves of the Romans avoiding Theogony (gods cast like humans are),
epic and theatrical works (the gods being depicted as humans in vice), and
ritual contexts with dying gods or ‘promiscuous participation of men and
women.’ Dionysius was a Greek, even
so. He followed the tradition of
Xenophanes (humans make gods in terms of the only form the former are familiar
with; it is man’s mind that determines what can be known in the world). So, the rationalistic tradition was winning
out during the imperial period in Rome.
Most scholars argue that the Romans
had no myths; Greek myths either replaced or supplied Roman myths. But there must have been oral stories
explaining Roman rituals. Consider Ovid
and the festival of the Parilia. There
were two aspects. Much of Roman mythology
was from Ovid, but Ovid was relatively late.
Ovid was not interested in promoting religion; he used Homer as a source,
but Homer had written 700 years earlier.
We can see a re-working of mythology in Ovid for literary reasons. Ovid creates literature out of the mythology. He is not trying to document religion. He cites materials from the temple of Vespa
(urban) and the purification of sheep (rural) in the Parilia. Ovid discusses the origins of it in a
literary way: Fire as a purifier, fire
and water are basic elements, fire and water are the source of life. Phaethon (fire to the earth) and Deucalion
(survived the flood and recreates the earth). Shepards ignited straw by
accident. Aeneas was pious and walked
through flames. At founding of Rome,
rural people burned houses and moved to the city. Reasons!
Rationalistic approach to religion in literature. In short, Ovid is writing in the Augustan age
far from that of Homer. Also, Ovid wrote
a poetical work and did not do Antiquarian work though he came out of that
tradition.
Augustus’ Res Gestae. Ennius, Annals, book 1. It is about Romulus and Remus looking to the
sky to determine who should be the leader of the new city. The humans have to
look to the gods to decide what they should do.
In contrast, Augustus says that he acted on his own initiative and at my
own charges… No mention of the
gods. Recall Paricles who spent state
money (and was willing to spend his own, but the Athenians said no) on the
Acropolis. And remember that Hellenic
kings were viewed in Greece as doing the functions of the gods. With Augustus, there is a repetition of this:
power moving the king and the king fulfilling the functions of the gods. After Augustus died, he was moved to the
realm of divinity.
Rome
exploded in population as it became an empire.
Augustus reorganized Rome’s neighborhoods. This was one way that he brought
religion into his control. Each
neighborhood had a fountain and shrine to the Lares at an intersection. There
were also public bathrooms (there was also some indoor plumbing). The Lares were spirits who inhabited even
small areas and were related to ancestors.
Augustus reorganized them into “Lares Augusti.” So the neighborhood
deities were then related to Augustus. While Augustus was alive, his genius or
numen could be worshipped (i.e. he was not made a god while alive). Also, the
Genius Augusti: the spirit/personality of Augustus, which was also
worship. From this basis, it was not
difficult to go to Divus Julius, especially because he took it upon himself to
keep a crumbling government going. One
way of keeping it going after his death was to built a temple to Divus
Augustus. Likewise, the Senate had
wanted to use Caesar’s auctoritas so they turned him into a god after his death
even though they had feared his power when he was alive.
Augustus was pulling the city
around him religiously. He also
recreated the statue of the temple of Vesta into his house and built a temple
to Apollo there too. Apollo as the god
of prophesy; so the Syllabine Books were moved to that temple. So Augustus moved the center of religion
(that had been spread out) to his Paletine Hill (i.e. his house). Most religious religious functions were
handled by colleges of priests (politician-priests). No particular family dominated them in the
Republic period. Augustus, however, was
elected to all of them. Even to the Arval
Brothers, a priestly college that became more influential during Augustus’
reign. Perhaps Augustus was giving
priestly offices to nobility. Perhaps he
sought more outlets as religious power was being pulled in. Augustus was Pontifex Maximus: the first
among equals in the college of Pontifices.
Under Augustus, the tradition became that the office was held by the
emperor. Roman religion thus had a
single head. This was a new idea under
Augustus, which Christianity would pick up (i.e. being under a single head). Also,
the Arval Brothers was created then to give more openings for aristocrats to do
something in religion (as the four colleges were then dominated by the
emperor). Also under Augustus, the Vestal Virgins became associated with the
health and welfare of the imperial family, and did rites for Augustus’ wife,
Livia, who was deified after her death.
Vesta had
symbolized the center or hearth of Rome.
Augustus brought the Vesta Shrine to the Paletine Hill. He also moved the Sibylline books there. So his palace had a religious and political
function. In the Forum, he built a
temple to Mars Ultor (the avenger). The
temple represented taking revenge on Caesar’s killers. Moreover, war was then represented inside
Rome. The penerium boundary had excluded
the military from the city. Augustus put
a temple to a god of war inside the city.
He also allowed armed men to work inside the city. Both Caesar and Augustus built additional
forums. So, while the empire was ruled
peacefully under Augustus, he was consolidating military (Mars), royal family
& the symbol of Roman identity (shrine of Vesta), and the emperor’s role in
prophesy (Temple of Apollo). A consolidation of religion, the royal family, and
politics around the emperor (i.e. centered in his house). The Romans believed that whoever is located at
the temple gets the divine honors. The
temples were at his house. The Pontifex maximus was also the commander in
chief. Augustus stressed his lineage back to Venus via his adoption. His numen, or special divine power not held
by ordinary people, was worshipped during his life.
Augustus
also rearranged the festivals. For example, the Saecular (century) games. He changed its cycle. They were associated
early-on with the Dis Pater and Prosperpina, two gods of the underworld (e.g.
Hades and Persephonie). Augustus comes
up with a new calculation that allows him to have the games in 17BCE. He transformed it into a festival of rebirth
(rather than of the underworld). Fates, Ilythiae, Terra Mater, Jupiter, Juno,
Apollo, and Diana, rather than the gods of the underworld. Virgil likens
Augustus to Aeneus. Horace wrote Carmen Saeculare. He invokes the goddess of childbirth. The marriage law passed by Augustus and Senate
(comes from the Latin word that means elderly man: senes). Augustus wanted more legitimate children in
Rome. The rebirth of Rome sought. Horace brings up Aeneus to liken Augustus to
him in Rome’s rebirth. Aeneus, Romulus,
and Augustus in a line. Augustus as a
descendent of Venus. Horace notes that
Augustus’ home/hill has been made the center of Roman religion.
Ennius, Annals, book 1: Romulus and Remus decide to found a new city.
Ennius wrote this poem c. 200 BCE, just after Rome had come close to defeat in
the Second Punic War. Augury reflected
Roman practice in 200 BCE. That the gods
had been involved in the founding of Rome would have been comforting, while the
emphasis on kingship would have been embarrassing to Romans living then. The
Romans were acquiring an empire at the time (c. 200BCE), so perhaps a Roman
then would have been hoping that Rome does not rely on just that story. Recall that Romulus killed Remus. In 31BCE when Augustus became sole ruler, the
poem might have comforted Romans who worried about how Augustus would turn out.
If the gods were active in the founding of Rome and made sure that Romulus was
a good founder, maybe the same controlling forces were active in selecting
Augustus over Antony. But Augustus was the right choice; he restructured Roman
religion and politics, acting not just in his own interest. Getting Rome back
in order. Troubling to a Roman at that time might be the augories in the
founding of Rome, given Caesar’s discrediting of them.
Hellenistic Greek culture: there
was a religious center in each neighborhood. In Alexandria, neighborhood
deities were assigned, but it was not the king who was promoting himself or his
numen in the city (unlike Augustus). New
deities in Greek Hellenism. A divide between the human and divine. In the greek
world in general, divine kingship was slow in coming (it came from Egypt). A
power-sharing between the deified kings and other gods. Romans were more
resistant to the worship of deified rulers, even killing Caesar wanting to be
king. But then they allowed Augustus to
make a big change, consolidating religion and politics. In Rome, the focus was
put on the emperor. Augustus pushes the
old neighborhood gods out.
Augustus inherited a political
system under the stress of empire. It
was a political system designed to run a city (which had been only two square
miles); it was then running an empire.
Augustus added himself as a princeps on top of the political system
(keeping the republic’s offices). It was
not until the emperors (with their wealth) that there were the big building
projects. The Palatine Hill had been a
ritzy neighborhood during the republic. But it became the home of the emperor,
built up in a single structure (palace from Palatine). So it became a power-center. The Capitaline Hill had stood for the
religious power.
At the Forum, the temple of Saturn
held the treasury. Caesar did not
respect religious prohibitions against entering it. There were other temples there too (next to
the places of business and government).
Roman religion was oriented to
place—namely, Rome. Foreign deities were
offered places in Rome (evocation—e.g. Juno from Veii). Veii had been at odds with Rome, so taking
its deity and giving it a place of prominence in Rome was a way of integrating
Veii into the empire. Reception wasn’t
always easy. Magna Mater and the Bacchic
rites, for instance. Also, the Parilia,
which had been a rural festival, took on urban elements, becoming the festival
of the birth of Rome.
As the empire expanded, Rome
established coloniae that were essentially miniature Romes. One step below that were the municipia. A municipium was granted Latin right. Remember that Latium had been the area around
Rome; Latium’s people had been granted the right to marry and trade with
Romans. But they couldn’t vote or be
involved in Roman government. If a
citizen of a municipium moved to Rome, he could become a Roman citizen (or if
he had been a magistrate in the municipium).
Lastly, there were the provincial cities and towns. As long as there were not revolts in them,
the Romans left their indigenous
religions alone. Roman citizens serving
in the Roman army carried Roman religion with them. At the time of Augustus, the army was
composed of citizens.
In the provinces and colonies, a
governor had guiding authority over the pontifices, haruspices and augures
there. Also, some of the holidays
celebrated in Rome were on the calendars there (local festivals integrated in
them too). Romans living abroad didn’t
want to lose touch with what was happening in Rome. An example of an imitation or memory of Rome
by Romans living at Carthage is an altar that had carvings of Roma, Aeneas, and
Apollo. Aeneaus had left Troy with his
father , son and household gods to Italy and began the Roman race there. Aeneus represented piety to the Romans. Likewise, Augustus was creating a new
civilization, including religious reinvigoration. Augustus uses religion to reshape the Roman’s
memory of their own past.
Orlin’s article. He has read Beard. He uses Virgil, who was a poet during the
time of Augustus. In reading Virgil’s Aeneid, remember that it involves a
commentary on Augustus’ reforms. For
most of the book, Aeneas is battling Juno.
Jupiter comes up with a compromise: the Trojans will survive, but they
will be absorbed into the Roman race. Orlin
uses the following Latin words: religio (religion as an action—doing it the
same way each time). The Res Gestae is Augustus’ The Accomplishments. The
dies natalis is the day of founding (say of a temple). Ingenium, ritus, and lingua: character, rites
and language. Quis dues incertum est: it
is uncertain which god…
Orlin (pp. 73-5) begins with a
quotation from Virgil. Virgil was very
much caught up in what Rome had been historically and in Augustus’ time. Orlin argues that Virgil reshapes the history
to support Augustus’ reforms. Orlin
cites Virgil’s text on the Ausonians and Teucrians (Trojans). Virgil has Jupiter say that he will give the
“mixed” race new customs and sacred rites.
Remember that Sulla and Marius led the first factional fighting in
Rome. Then there was the fight between
the Pompeians and Caesarians and then the Antonians and Caesarians. Augustus takes on Jupiter’s role in bringing
the Romans together rather than killing one side. Virgil is interested in pointing this out by
using Jupiter with the Ausonians and Teucrians.
Augustus was successful in unifying the Romans and other towns in
Italy. He also mixed Plebeian and
Patrician religious practices, with patrician control. He was not a democrat; rather, it was an
integration into a certain power structure.
Orlin (76-78) notes that Livy was
contemporary with Virgil (and Augustus).
But Livy and Virgil told the story differently. Livy writes that the Romans had been open to
other influences and integrated and filtered them into Roman practice. So, mixed traditions and a development over
time of religious practices. A lack of
prophecy/oracles (unlike the Greeks).
Romans observed signs and used the Sibylline books to interpret them and
redress any bad ones with proper ritual.
The use of the Sibylline books was under the Senate. Virgil meanwhile promotes the idea that Roman
religion was given to the Romans by Jupiter. This could point to what Augustus was doing at
the time of Virgil. For instance,
Augustus turned the Saecular Games from underworld to life-representing deities
and he altered the cycle of the games.
Augustus was handing down morem ritusque sacrorum. Virgil was retrojecting this way of thinking
back to even before Rome. Virgil, looking
at Augustus unifying the Romans and Italians, has to break through of the
“religion of place” based in Rome.
Virgil portrays Roman religion as more conducive to the establishment of
a broader Roman identity, open to Italian municipalities and others. Virgil is fighting against Camillus’ claim
(in the 4th century BCE) that Rome was established with divine
approval as revealed in auguries and auspices (i.e. built up over time). Rome is full of certain places where rites
are done. Is it not forbidden for the flamen Dialis to remain a single night
outside the city? So Camillus argues
that the Romans should not uproot from Rome to move to another city. Camillus
is strictly interpreting the rule on the flamen
Dialis. He is very inflexible in his interpretation of Roman religion, but Romans in general tried to follow things
according to the letter of the law.
According to Virgil, Evander lived in the area where Rome was to be
formed. He notices that there is a
divinity on Capitaline Hill. He doesn’t
know that it is. So it wasn’t
necessarily Jupiter Optimus Maximus. So
perhaps the latter could be in other places.
Virgil has Jupiter avoid specific historical and geographical
associations in handing down Roman religion; so non-Romans share in Roman customs
and rituals. So there is a precedent for
Augustus’ reforms.
Orlin (81-86) argues that it was
unlikely that Augustus built 84 temples in one year, as Augustus claimed. Recall that Romans could vow a temple at any
point (i.e. as a promise). The temples
were places for ritual activity, but they were also monuments in which Roman
memories and history resided. The latter
is why the Senate attended to the temples, making sure they are integrated. The temple makes the people imagine their
present in a certain way, which can shape the future. Augustus’ rebuilding involved trying to move
the Romans way from Camillus’ stance.
For example, the Pantheon, which was built after Augustus, was created
by Agrippa. It was rebuilt by Hadrian a
hundred years later. Hadrian left
Agrippa’s name on the temple. Hadrian
was reshaping Roman perceptions by showing piety by giving Agrippa credit for
the temple. Augustus began with temples
of the remote past (e.g. Saturn). The
temple of Castor and Pollux he ignored (that temple was vowed in victory over
the Latin people—the latter being separate from the Romans). Augustus wanted the Romans to ignore
this. Augustus is creating an image for
a certain perception. Augustus changed
the day of foundation of Rome to a new date that also marked Augustus’
rebuilding. Augustus realized that if he
did something in his present, he could change things in the future—how Rome
would be viewed. Augustus reshaped the
past for a new present, which in turn could lead to a “new” future. A societal memory is accomplished as much by
forgetting as by remembering. New
memories of the past can be created to help or guide us in how we think of
ourselves in the present (thus changing the debate going in the present). The temple of Concord was built by Camillus
in 367 BCE when the Plebeians gained consulship. It was restored by Opimius in 121 BCE to
stress that the Romans should come together after fighting. Augustus rededicated it in 10 CE with the
meaning unity within the empire. He
changes the notion behind that temple.
Not displacement; rather, re-placement.
He refounded Rome in the sense of reshaping what people thought of it
and its history. He did it by founding cults and building temples.
Olin
(89-92): the effects of Augustus’ “re-shaping.”
Italians benefitted from the changes in attitude in Rome. Claudius tried
to bring in provincials as senators.
That Italians could be senators was not by then doubted (whereas that
people from the providences could be, was new).
Pliny the elder: Romans and Italians linked by ingenium (character),
ritus and lingua. So Augustus’ plan was
effective in reshaping perception.
Aeneus was reshaped by Virgil to reflect what was going on in Virgil’s
own time.
By 300 CE,
the empire was geographically at its
peak, surrounding the Mare Internum, where there was stability. The warfare was along the north-central
border in Europe. Eventually, the empire
splits in two and the western part breaks up into kingdoms.
What
allowed Roman religion that allowed it to be replaced by Christianity? Look at the characteristics as well as
weaknesses of Roman religion. Roman
religion was so intertwined with the state that it is difficult to understand
how the religion could have been replaced and the state continue. Roman religion allowed foreign religions
in. Also, Augustus having changed Roman
religion, perhaps he opened the door for others to change Roman religion. The empire stayed intact and yet something so
basic to its functioning changed. In the
late republic, there had been turmoil in the government and religion became
more rigid as a result—keeping religion from being changed (as it had been
changed in the early Republic and would again in the early Principate by
Augustus).
The sources
we have concerning Christianity in the empire include the New Testament
(Gospels, Book of Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse). We also have writings about people. Acts of
Polycarp and Tertullian, Against the
Jews. We also have some historical
texts. Eusebius was the first to write
an ecclesiastical history (by that title) (3rd-4th
century), arguing that the Church is legitimate. He is making an argument even as he is
writing history.
Concerning
these sources, we need to consider the fibula (a chronological series of
events—i.e. what happened), story (a logical selection and arrangement of the
events of a Fabula), and text (a verbal representation of the story by a
narrator). The story is the important
thing for us to think about here. Don’t confuse it with the events that really
happened. The story already involves
some selection. “Literature, especially ideological and doctrinal, tends to
stress differentiation, whereas social and religious experience tends to be
more untidy (Humphries, p. 106). That
is, the attempt to differentiate Christianity shows up in the texts.
The spread
of Christianity. The scattered in Asia
Minor, the Middle East and Egypt, which in Europe a density of Christians in
some places. It is easier to explain the
scatter in the East. There must have
been two methods of spreading Christianity.
The mechanisms were influenced by the missionary element. The Greeks and Romans were not trying to
spread their respective religions. In
fact, the notion of place and Romanness made it difficult for outsiders to join
up. Christian missionary activity
followed the Jewish Diaspora (spreading out).
That is, reaching out to Jews in Diaspora, especially in the East. Then once out there, look to the Greeks. There were also secondary missions from
established places (e.g. to Lyons).
Stability made it easier to travel within the empire—e.g. trade networks. It was a multi-cultural empire. With intersection came an exchange of
ideas. Consider Paul in Acts.
Paul has caused controversy because he took Christianity to the
Gentiles, telling them that they wouldn’t have to follow Jewish customs. The Christian Apostles in Jeruselem were
concerned about this. Paul sought to bring
Gentiles into the Jewish temple but the Jews there objected. The Roman police arrested Paul, and they were
surprised that Paul could speak Greek.
Paul could speak Greek with Romans and Hebrew with Jews. Paul tried to integrate these, whereas the
Jews in Jerusalem who opposed him sought differentiation. Paul was born a Roman citizen and he was in
contact with prominent Romans, such as Gallio (brother of Seneca, advisor to
Nero).
Conversion.
Early Christians called their movement
“the way.” The right way. This was a theological argument. Also, the lifestyle of Christian was
attractive to others (e.g. communalism).
Also, miracles and the supernatural were said to be related to
Christians such as Paul. They could add
credibility and would be hard to refute.
Martyrdom was also impressive.
Christianity, unlike Roman religion, was monotheistic, so it was less
tolerant of other religions. So
Christians tried to get Romans to drop Roman religion, and such Christians were
prosecuted for this and were willing to die for it. Thirdly, there was a community of Christians,
so you could have people welcome you in another town. There were also philosophical works that
esteemed Christianity. Justin Martyr,
for example, preferred Christianity to the Stoics, Peripaetics, Pythagoreans,
and the Platonists. Augustine too found
intellectual answers in Christian texts.
There had been no ethical dimension and theology in Greek and Roman
religion. Eventually, converting for
political reasons became popular. Constantine
claimed to see a cross in the sky that claimed he would conquer. So he used the cross to unite the army (and
the empire). The religious melting pot
in the empire tried to incorporate monotheism, calling it Theos Hyposistos (the highest god).
Augustus
had been referred to as a savior (soter).
This word had been used in Alexandria for Ptolemy I Soter. The Christians applied this term to their
god. So there is overlap in the
language. So Christianity was a movement
within an empire that had a way of thinking.
