Religion, Power, Identity

[Ursus]

“…it was the senate as a whole that made the actual decisions concerning the public religion … The colleges of augurs and pontifices were in many ways more like standing sub-committees of the senate than independent religious authorities. …public religion was no different from foreign policy or the governance of the city…

 

… There was little connection, however, between public and private worship … The only general obligation individuals had toward public religion was to abstain from business during religious festivals.

 

… Although mythology, philosophical speculation and antiquarian investigation were all important parts of Roman religion, they were left entirely up to individuals to pursue or ignore as they pleased.

 

… In general, the public authorities seem to have been little concerned with private cults … Since private religion was largely uncontrolled, individuals in a sense had the freedom to construct their own religious identities, in so far as in their private lives they were not obligated to worship any particular set of deities or adhere to any particular doctrine.

 

… In their private lives, people could to a large extent worship whatever gods they chose in whatever ways they pleased. Public religion, however, was another thing entirely. The elite, as embodied in the senate, were the ones who decided which gods the Roman people as a whole would worship and in what ways, and who were responsible for performing the required cult acts. They were in short the mediators between the community and the divine world …

 

… the cult of Bacchus provoked such a strong reaction from the senate because … it served almost as an alternative, rather than a supplement, to public religion. Although the senate allowed people to pursue their private religious interests as they wished, it seems to have drawn a line at the point where private pursuits began to affect people’s public identities or where private religious specialists began to acquire independent social power.

 

… The lack of any doctrine meant that the very ideas of mission and conversion are inapplicable to Roman religion. … There was little reason for Roman authorities to prohibit or discourage the worship of ..local gods. …. Roman authorities were actually more likely to want subject peoples to maintain their traditional cults.

 

…. The druids, however, did not fit this model at all. Although the evidence is uncertain and open to debate, it seems that they derived their authority not from wealth but from command of arcane traditional wisdom, acquired over many years of study. It was because of this knowledge that they had important roles in cult, education and the resolution of disputes. Roman authorities, however, were accustomed to religious authority lying in the hands of the political and economic elite. They thus found it very difficult to understand the social role of the Druids, and accordingly viewed them with suspicion. The arcane nature of Druidic lore only increased their mistrust, since religious authority that was not exercised in the open was a potential source of resistance and unrest.

 

…. This was even more true of Christianity, which claimed the highest level of allegiance from its adherents and explicitly forbade them to participate in traditional public religion: it thus completely severed the normal ties between religious identity and civic identity. This seems to have been one of the chief underlying reasons for the persecution of Christians, although its mechanics were in practice more complex than this would suggest."

 

 

James Rives. "Religion in the Roman Empire." Experiencing Rome. Routledge. New York, New York. 2000.

[Gaius Octavius]

I believe that the Druidic cults practiced human sacrifice in their rituals. This is another reason why the Romans suppressed Druidism.

[Ursus]

There has been some acidic debates about whether or not the Druids really practiced human sacrifice as Caesar described it, or if it was merely Roman wartime slander.

 

For my own part, I think the ultimate answer is superfluous. The Druids were simply one of the few people who could not fit into the Roman socio-religious scheme (for reasons described above), and thus they had to go.

[Favonius Cornelius]

Ursus, you include religions who's existance removed power from the state cult and concentrated it within. What of philosophies, did the Romans ever find reason to suppress doubtful philosophies?

 

"We will derive nature's first principle from this: nothing is ever created by divine power out of nothing. The reason that dread constrains all mortals is that they cannot visualise a rational explanation for the causes of many things they see happening in heaven and on earth. And so they think these things happen through some divine power.

 

But once we have seen that nothing can be created from nothing, then we will more accurately perceive what we are seeking, both the source from which each thing can be made and the manner in which everything happens without the working of gods."

 

-Lucretius, 'On the nature of things' 1.149-158

[Gaius Octavius]

I believe that corpses have been unearthed in Denmark, Ireland and England that had their throats slit. This was attributed to Druidic ritual.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

There has been some acidic debates about whether or not the Druids really practiced human sacrifice as Caesar described it, or if it was merely Roman wartime slander.

 

For my own part, I think the ultimate answer is superfluous. The Druids were simply one of the few people who could not fit into the Roman socio-religious scheme (for reasons described above), and thus they had to go.

 

Since the druids were the religious/ scholar/ priestly social class, they almost certainly would have participated in human sacrifice, and probably officiated at them.

 

Here's a site about druid sacrifice www.digitalmedievalist.com/faqs/sacrific.html

[M. Porcius Cato]

If we can leave aside the druids for a minute... the suppression of the Bacchants strikes me as a quite interesting case. According to Rives, this suppression reflected the senate's desire to draw "a line at the point where private pursuits began to affect people

[Favonius Cornelius]

To echo Cato, and what of the new cults of Isis and Magna Mater, Mithras etc?

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

To echo Cato, and what of the new cults of Isis and Magna Mater, Mithras etc?

 

There was also another pagan belief which competed with christ for the control of the western world, this was the cult of the Sun, it was revered by millions of the inhabitants of the Roman empire, it's religion for a time even became the state worship, the Roman people believed that they must greet the suns orb as a beneficient divinity- and their conviction was confirmed afresh each day as the god rose again.

 

The emperor Aurelian established a massive temple of the Unconquerable Sun as the focal point of the entire religious system of the state. The birthday of the god was to be 25 December, and this, transformed into christmas day, was one of the heritages which christianity owed to his cult.

Edited September 11, 2006 by Gaius Paulinus Maximus

[M. Porcius Cato]

To address, FC's query: there seem to have been a rash of "Roman values" expulsions in the mid-Republic.

 

In 161, the Senate authorized the expulsion of philosophers and rhetors, but in 155 B.C.E., at least Greek philosophers were again in Rome. Also, in 139, Jews, Chaldeans and worshippers of Sabazius were expelled, and again at least the Jews returned judging by Cicero's Pro Flacco.

 

Gruen has argued that alll these expulsions were rather like the sumptuary laws that were passed from time to time--completely unenforceable and almost certainly not universally popular.

 

EDIT: Also, Domitian's expulsion of philosophers prompted this mock-epic complaint by Sulpicia

Edited September 11, 2006 by M. Porcius Cato

[Ursus]

the suppression of the Bacchants strikes me as a quite interesting case. According to Rives, this suppression reflected the senate's desire to draw "a line at the point where private pursuits began to affect people

[Ursus]

If you enjoyed the snippets from Rives in the first post, you may enjoy his _Religion in the Roman Empire_ which I have just read. It's a full length analysis which expands on some of the topics above, and some other topics as well. Great stuff.

[M. Porcius Cato]

The clergy of the Bacchic cults demanded a high level of slavish following from the cult adherents. Many of the clergy were women and/or foreigners. Well-to-do Roman citizens were pledging their lives and fortunes to these women and foreigners, who reputedly were demanding their adherents to engage in disreputable orgies and even murder.

 

Does anyone really believe these absurd charges against the Bacchants? The charges--like those against the Christians or like those of the Christians against the pagans many centuries later--are so transparently inflammatory and vague that I can't believe they have any merit. This is typical in-group/out-group political posturing.

[Ursus]

But the point is that the Romans were tolerant, or at least practical, regarding religious differences. For a cult to be deemed to be an enemy of the state it would have to be radically outside the traditions of normative Greco-Roman religion - which the Bacchic cult was, and which early Christianity (or at least certain strands) were as well, regardless of the surface validity of the charges.

[M. Porcius Cato]

But the point is that the Romans were tolerant, or at least practical, regarding religious differences. For a cult to be deemed to be an enemy of the state it would have to be radically outside the traditions of normative Greco-Roman religion - which the Bacchic cult was, and which early Christianity (or at least certain strands) were as well, regardless of the surface validity of the charges.

 

If the charges were wrong, then in what way was the Bacchant cult outside the traditions of normative religion? Isn't it possible that the normally tolerant Romans truly acted intolerantly in a few cases?

 

I do agree that the Romans were tolerant about religion--certainly more tolerant than the Christians of the middle ages--but I don't see that admirable tolerance on display with respect to the Bacchants. It looks to me like a case of anti-Hellenic reactionary fervor, which would also explain the contemporaneous expulsion of philosophers from the city.