Roman religion
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Roman religious beliefs date back to the founding of Rome,
around 800 BC, but the Roman religion commonly associated
with the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire did not start
forming until around 500 BC when Romans came in contact with
Greek culture and adopted many of the Greek’s religious
beliefs including the representation of Greek gods in the
form of humans.
Private and personal worship was an important aspect of
religious practices of ancient Rome. In a sense, each
household in ancient Rome was a temple to the gods. Each
household had an altar (lararium), at which the family
members would offer prayers, perform rites, and interact
with the household gods. |
Many of the gods that Romans worshiped came from the
Proto-Indo-European pantheon, others were based on Greek gods. The
three central deities were Jupiter (who was the god of rain,
thunder, and lightning, of Proto-Indo-European origin), Mars (the
god of warfare), called Ares by the Greeks, and Quirinus (who
watched over the senate house), one of the truly Roman gods who was
associated with the people of Sabine and with the founder of Rome,
Romulus.
From simplest form of such private worships and religious practices,
religion in ancient Rome developed into an elaborate system, with
temples, altars, rituals and ceremonies, priesthood, beliefs of
traditional paganism and the cult of the Roman emperors. The power
of Ancient Rome spread ever further across a vast geographical area
and Romans met with other cults and religions, like cults of Cybele,
Bacchus, and Isis, as well as Judaism.
With its cultural influence spreading over most of the
Mediterranean, Romans began accepting foreign gods into their own
culture, as well as and other religious traditions such as the
Cynicism and Stoicism. There were even attempts by many Roman and
Greek philosophers to accept other gods that countered their
religion such as the Jewish deity Yahweh (viewed as the only Supreme
god by the Israelites) by stating that the Jews merely worshiped
Jupiter but just under a different name and therefore there should
be an acceptance of the Jewish culture. With the fall of the Roman
Republic and the reign of the emperors which created the Roman
Empire in 31 BC the Roman emperors were considered to be gods
incarnate.
Two major philosophical schools of thought that derived from Greek
religion and philosophy that became prominent in Rome in the 1st and
2nd century AD was Cynicism and Stoicism which, according to Cora
Lutz were “fairly well merged” in the early years of the Roman
Empire. Cynicism taught that civilization was corrupt and people
needed to break away from it and its trappings and Stoicism taught
that one must give up all earthly goods by remaining detached from
civilization and help others. Because of their negative views on
civilization and of their way of life, in where many of them just
wore a dirty cloak, carried a staff, and a coin purse, and slept
outdoors, they were the targets of the Roman aristocracy and of the
emperor and many were persecuted by the Roman government for being
"subversive". The philosopher Lucian attacked the cynics in his book
"The Philosophies for Sale" in which he mocked the cynics by stating
"First...stripping you of your luxury...I will put a cloak on
you...Next I will compel you to undergo pains and hardships,
sleeping on the ground, drinking nothing but water...Leading this
life you will say that your are happier than the Great
King...Frequent the most crowded market place...and in [it] desire
to be solitary and uncommunicative..."
Much of the Roman practices of their religion and philosophy began
to dwindle after 312, when the Roman Emperor Galerius legalized
Christianity, hitherto brutally suppressed. Soon after his death,
Emperor Constantine switched allegiance from Apollo to Christus as
his patron, and won the battle of Milvian Bridge in 313. Under
Constantine's direction, the Council of Nicaea (325) was held to
decide the elements of orthodox Christianity, although Constantine
himself was only baptized shortly before his death. Through all
this, a few pagans clung to the old Roman religion – even enjoying
something of a brief Renaissance under Julian the Apostate (361–63)
– and continued to be tolerated until the reign of Theodosius I, who
finally outlawed paganism in 390.
Christianity had originally arisen in the Roman province of Judea,
growing out of Judaism, and picking up influences from Greek
philosophy as it spread throughout the Roman Empire. |
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