Homepage Syllabus Schedule Instructor Resources Introduction: Greek And Roman Religions
ANCIENT RELIGIONS GENERALLY
For the most part, ancient religions had a lot in common. The way I'll proceed here is to use Greek religion as a model, then look at the ways Roman religion differed from Greek religion.
But a few thoughts about the big picture are useful now. In a world of polytheistic religions, the whole idea of religion is different than what we're used to in modern world. Think for example about idea of religious choice: I want to belong to religion A or religion B. This assumes that there are distinct options; but in the ancient world we should begin with idea of a continuum of similar practices with local differences (if we want simple model to start out).
Hence the idea of a traditional religion. This is an abstraction and a generalization from the documented evidence. But it is a good starting point, and a good heuristic.
This makes study of ancient religion quite difficult. We tend to import modern assumptions, many of which are wrong. Further, it is not immediately clear which assumptions we should make.
-- Virtually all classical texts talk about religion. -- Virtually none tell us what we would like to know.
-- They assume background knowledge that we don't have. -- Texts (our primary source of evidence) were written for very particular purposes. We have to understand these purposes to know what to make of the evidence they provide.
TRADITIONAL GREEK RELIGION
A general definition of religion in the ancient world:
Religion = Myth + Ritual (things said + things done) (ta legomena + ta pragmata) (Note that I am using looser definitions of myth and ritual than is customary. G. S. Kirk, for example, defines myth as a 'traditional tale', so only stories with a plot count. But my use of the term, which is intended to pick out a notion familar to the Greeks, encompasses also many non-narrative sorts of discourse.)
What's missing here? Theology (i.e., formalized theories about the divine) and belief.
Generally in the ancient world, religion was a social thing and a civic thing. People did not class themselves by religious denomination/affiliation, even though everyone practiced slightly differently. The operative word is more orthopraxy (right action) than orthodoxy (right belief). Often similarity of ritual practice, among other factors, helped to define ethnic affiliation:
"Again, there is the Greek nation --- the community of blood and language, temples (theon hidrumata) and ritual (thusiai); our common way of life; if Athens were to betray all of this, it would not be well done."
-- Herodotus 8.144.2 (de Selincourt)Acropolis at Athens: the high, fortified citadel that formed the heart of the city. Notice the prominence of temples.
It therefore should not be surprising that the greatest factor encouraging religious uniformity was the polis (the city-state, or the local political order). We will see the same phenomenon in Rome (esp. in the Imperial Cult). This shouldn't be surprising, considering the labor needed to produce the great Greek temples --- they were a symbol of civic and national pride and identity, as well as being the dwellings of the gods. (Compare the role of the temple in the creation of Mesopotamian cities.)
Temples of Artemis at Ephesus and Apollo at Didyma
Problem of Belief. Two trials for atheism in classical Athens: Anaxagoras and Socrates. These indicate a shift in Greek views of religion, in large part influenced by philosophical thought about the gods. In proposing that the traditional stories about the gods were incorrect, and substituting rationalizing accounts in their place, the philosophers introduced the idea that it was possible to disbelieve in the gods of tradition; before this, no Greek would have thought that belief in the gods was valuable, because it would not have occurred to him that anyone might not believe in the gods. So in a sense rationality bred intolerance.
"[Anaxagoras] began to be a philosopher at Athens in the archonship of Callias (456/5), at the age of twenty, as Demetrius Phalereus tells us in his Register of Archons, and they say he spent thirty years there. . . . There are different accounts of his trial. Sotion, in his Succession of Philosophers, says that he was prosecuted by Cleon for impiety, because he maintained that the sun was a red-hot mass of metal, and that after Pericles, his pupil, had made a speech in his defence, he was fined five talents and exiled."
-- Diogenes Laertius II, 7 (D-K 59A1), trans. KRSGeneral comment on polytheism: Polytheism, ceteris paribus, is a more tolerant position than monotheism, because the polytheist can more easily include someone else's gods into his own worldview. Another factor relevant in the ancient world, however, was syncretism, or the practice of identifying other people's gods with one's own. Int his way, the Romans identified the gods of the Greeks with their own indigenous gods, whenever possible (e.g., they took Zeus to be another name for Jupiter). They later did the same thing with the German gods (thus they identified the German ruler of the gods, Wotan, with the god Mercury, since both were psychopomps --- they led dead souls to the afterlife).
The one thing Roman polytheism was intolerant of was monotheism --- see below.
My definition of ancient religion made no reference to the divine or to gods. What was the traditional view of the gods? Well, Archilochus (fl. c. 700-650 on Paros and Thasos, islands in the Aegean) wrote:
"All things are easy for the gods. Often out of misfortunes they set men upright who have been laid low on the black earth; often they trip even those who are standing firm and roll them onto their backs, and then many troubles come to them, and a man wanders in want of livelihood, unhinged in mind."
-- Miller trans. #27 (fr. 130)Similarly in the Iliad:
"Such is the way the gods spun life for unfortunate mortals, that we live in unhappiness, but the gods themselves have no sorrows."
-- Homer, Iliad 24.525-6 (Lattimore)This view of the gods was tied to a certain understanding of the human condition. Solon's alleged reply to King Croseus of Lydia illustrates a common view, that men can only be truly happy in death:
"I know God is envious of human prosperity and likes to trouble us; and you question me about the life of man. . . . You can see from this, Croesus, what a chancy thing life is. You are very rich, and you rule a prosperous people; but the question you ask me I will not answer, until I know that you have died happily. . . . until he is dead, keep the word 'happy' in reserve. Till then, he is not happy, but only lucky."
-- Herodotus (de Selincourt) 1.32In sum, the traditional view was that the gods are like mortals, but better. They live longer (forever, actually), they're more beautiful (or at least some of them are), they have more power --- in a word, life is easy for the gods.
TRADITIONAL ROMAN RELIGION
We know virtually nothing about it. The Romans got writing about the same time as the Greeks (eighth century B.C.), but they did not start writing serious literature until after they became heavily influenced by the Greek colonists in southern Italy --- and when they did start writing literature, it was verse in Greek meters, translations of Greek plays, etc. that they wrote.
The few literary works that would be most useful to the historian of religion were lost (not recopied by the medievals) or exist only in fragments. Therefore, what we do know about traditional Roman religion is highly fragmentary, and cannot easily be summarized.
Key element: it is the religion of a city, then an empire, so Roman religion centers around public life (similar to Greece, at least at broadest level).
Differences between Greece and Rome:
Parenthesis on religious terminology: religio, whence ModEng 'religion', has four major senses: 1) reverence for or fear of the gods, as the attitude that results in proper ritual action, 2) reverence for or fear of the gods, used to refer to the inner quality that accounts for such actions; 3) holiness, sacredness, sanctity inhering in any object (a deity, temple, utensils, etc.); 4) an object of religious veneration, a sacred place or thing. Note that (except in later, Christian Latin) religio never means a system of religious belief, or religion in modern sense of A or B.
1) More variation in Greece. 2) Influence of literature in Greece vs. Rome. 3) Greek religion appears much richer (is this really true?). 4) Human and divine spheres not as firmly separated in Rome (perhaps religion and politics not as firmly separated as well).
In Greece, civic organization was a major means of religious organization; rise and organization of polis was major influence on evolution of religion; but power not as centralized, so political figures had less influence on religious forms. IMPERIAL ROMAN RELIGION AND THE NEW RELIGIONS
Under the Republic, Rome was ruled by a semi-hereditary aristocracy in combination with certain forms of direct democracy, but the ruling class perpetuated a strong anti-authoritarian ideology contrasting the freedoms of the Republic with the domination under the Kingdom. When the Republic had self-destructed and Rome was ruled by Emperors, they introduced the notion that the Emperor was divine, and should be sacrificed to in the same way as other gods. Probably few people believed the Emperor was a god like Jupiter or Minerva (after all, the Romans were the heirs to the Greek philosophical tradition), but almost everyone participated in the imperial cult when it was appropriate.
Even under the Republic, there are stories of many people who disbelieved in the traditional gods, and our sources roundly criticize such people as being disloyal to the state and nation. In the Empire things work the same: people could believe whatever they wanted at home, but they should nevertheless practice the same as everyone else in public. The Roman persecution of Jews and Christians had its source here, since as monotheists they were unwilling to perform the rituals that most people did when they had to, perhaps with little or no devotion or faith. We again see that ancient religion is not concerned with belief, but is defined by civic practice.
Foreign religions became popular at all periods of Roman religion. Minerva is possibly imported from Etruria (north Italy) during the kingdom, and the worship of the Greek god Bacchus entered Rome during the Republic. But the cults of Isis (an Egyptian goddess) and Mithras (the name at least is borrowed from the Indo-Aryan Mithra/Mitra) are perhaps the best known, Isis thanks to Apuleius' Golden Ass and Mithras thanks to his adoption by many Roman legionaires.
PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETATION
Main approaches to ancient religion. They appear largely inconsistent (if taken strictly). We haven't found a way to escape them yet, so most scholars try for variations on a theme.
Many people are offended by reduction, particularly of religion. Other people think there's no reason to treat religion, a priori, as privileged.
1) Historical / Evolutionary: History is the tracing of causal connections within time.
2) Formalistic: Focus on structure, or organization. (difficult notion for many)
3) Sociological: Treats religion by examining social relations and structures.4) Phenomenological: Treats religion as privileged sphere a priori.
Strong version: reductionistic
Weak version: understanding relies on knowledge of context.Possibility that it is an empirical question whether religion is sphere unto itself, or reduces to something else. Otherwise, this is a problem deriving from our act as interpreters; in that case, evidence might never decide the issue.
Notice connections with other fields, esp. debates in anthropology and theory of knowledge (esp. hermeneutics, "theory"). This is not coincidence.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Civilization evolved (more or less) independently in six places worldwide: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, Yellow River region, Peru, and the Yucatan peninsula. Greece and Rome are (if we may say) second generation civilizations: they were deeply influenced by Mesopotamia and Egypt, along with a great variety of other second generation civilizations, including a variety of Anatolian civilizations, Phoenicians, Cretans, and Persians.
A map of the ancient Mediterranean
Chronology of the Ancient World #1
Chronology of the Ancient World #2
Want to know how the ancients built things?
Early urbanization: c. 5000
Writing evolves from tokens between 5000 - 3000
Mesopotamia: cradle of civilization, inhabited by numerous 'peoples' or language-speakers, notably Sumerians and Akkadians; two senses, geographic Mesopotamia (between Tigris and Euphrates) and cultural Mesopotamia (including Levant and Anatolia). Most invaders into region speakers of Semitic languages; numerous 'indigenous' linguistic and political groups; Sumerians created writing, so they get pride of place in histories.
Egypt: region around northern (lower) Nile river valley; ancient history divided into early historic period, three 'kingdoms', separated by 'intermediate periods', plus conquest by Persia, Macedonia, and Rome.
Early period: Sumer (south) and Akkad (north), roughly Sumerian and Semitic Sargon unifies Sumer and Akkad (fl. 2340 - 2315)
Disruption by Amorites (among others) c. 2000
Old Babylonia (south): 2000 - 1595
Old Assyria (north): 2000 - 1363
Neo-Assyrian period: 1000 - 612
Early dynastic period (3100 - 2600): some relations with W. Asia; perhaps idea of writing arrives from Mesopotamia? Old Kingdom (2600 - 2150): time of great pyramids; Egypt relatively isolated; pharaonic power greatest
Middle Kingdom (2040 - 1650): literature becomes richer; independent priesthood appears to strengthen
New Kingdom (1567 - 1069): Egypt becomes more imperial, clashes more with Mesopotamian powers in Levant region
Persia: or more generally, western and central section of central Asian highlands, inhabited by a number of Iranian-speaking groups, from prehistoric period up to spread of Turkic speakers (roughly middle of first millenium AD). Going west to east, three major divisions, with intertwining histories: Media, Persia, and Parthia.
Greek history divides into five periods: Helladic (Bronze Age Mycenaean, 3000-1200), Archaic Period (rise of city-states, 800 - 550), Hellenic (Classical Greece 550 - 323), Hellenistic (from the death of Alexander, 323 - 146 BC), and Roman (when Greek history is part of Roman history). Scholars used to put a Dark Age between Bronze Age and Archaic Period, but now our evidence is better, so this is no longer necessary.
Roman history divides into four periods: Kingdom (753 - 509), Republic (509 - 44 BC), Empire (19 BC - AD 330), and Late Antiquity (330 - 750).
THE PRE-HISTORY OF GREEK RELIGION
Greeks arrived in mainland Greece during the Bronze Age: we have documents written in proto-Greek dialect (in script called Linear B) c. 1400-1200 B.C., so this gives us a terminus ante quem. Based on similarities of Greek with Latin, Sanskrit, English, Russian, etc., we conclude that the Greeks migrated from elsewhere, though dates are hard to arrive at during the pre-historic period. Greeks are an Indo-European people; this has to do with their language, not their race.
A Linear B document and its translation
We have a little evidence regarding religion of Bronze Age (see Marinatos 1993 and the work of Nilsson); scholars assume many contours of later Greek religion date from this period, but evidence does not allow for strong conclusions. Greek religion was strongly influenced by Western Asian traditions in the Dark Ages and Archaic Period.
The sarcophagus from Hagia Triada (Crete), with a ritual scene painted on it.
Greece also owes a strong debt to the ancient culture of Crete: for one thing, Linear B derives from a script originating in Crete, now called Linear A, which the mainland Greeks probably adopted for their language after they conquered Crete.
The citadel at Mycenae (a modern plan). The Lion Gate. Corridor of east Galleries.
A building from Akrotiri (Thera). Thera is an island near Crete that shared with Crete and mainland Greece in a culture that (to some extent) spanned the Aegean Sea. Thera is the Greek Pompeii: its city was buried by volcanic ash, and thus it presents us with a unique view of life in the Bronze Age.
Influence of Western Asia on all aspects of Greek culture through the Archaic Period was quite substantial; the influence of Egypt was much less, although the ancient Greeks themselves thought that most of their culture came from Egypt. The book Black Athena has brought these issues to the attention of a mass audience over the last decade. For our purposes, many of the literary genres found in Greek mythological texts are imported fromWestern Asia. Most of Hesiod is in this tradition, and some of Homer and the lyric poets.
