Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206

• The Role of Cults in Roman Religious Life
  
  • When we talk about Roman cults, we are talking about three kinds of religious practices. Every family had its own 'cult' in which it worshipped its dead ancestors. Some elite families also had devotions to particular gods. Generation after generation, sons of these families would pay for the maintanence of temples and serve as priests in the rituals which honored the gods. Romans also developed an official 'public' cult of emperor worship. Finally, the Roman empire in general and beginning around the time of Augustus (with a few notable earlier exceptions, like the Magna Mater) 'mystery cults' of foreign antecedents began to acquire popularity in the city of Rome.
    
• The Cult of the Emperor
  
  
  • The Romans began the practice of deifying their dead rulers with Julius Caesar. This was not as bizarre as it sounds to us. Ruler cult had been an instrumental part of Hellenistic religion and rule since Alexander the Great and a number of cultures in the world believe that their temporal rulers have a special relationship with the divine. Before he died Ceasar received the right to have a flamen for a cult in his honor, to mark his house like a temple and to place his imago in the procession of the gods that featured in Roman parades and festivals. After he died, the Senate passed a decree formally deifying Ceasar, and altars and tempes were erected to him.
    
  • Scholars have shed much ink and Romans some blood on how to understand Caesar's deification. While his assimilation to divine status would have seemed ordinary to inhabitants of the eastern parts of Roman empire, accustomed to Hellenistic ruler cults, it was a novel (and therefore frightening) and foreign (and therefore bad) gesture from the point of view of ordinary Roman citizens in the western part of the empire. Romans, nevertheless, did not draw as sharp a distinction between the mortal and divine as we do. They clearly believed, for example, that Romulus had become a god. Roman rites in honor of the dead clearly ascribed divine attributes to their dead ancestors. The Roman triumph clearly elevated the successful general to almost divine status.
    
  • By the third century BCE, moreover, prominent Roman politicians and generals had begun to claim that their families were descended from the gods (Scipio Africanus, Aemilius Paullus and Julius Caesar). Similarly, by the end of the Republic dominant figures like Marius and Pompey received honors "like those received by the gods." In the eastern part of the Roman empire, conquering Roman governors and generals since the second century BCE had been honored by the defeated with divine honors (again a normal gesture in the context of Hellenistic ruler cult).
    
  • In a sense, the only innovation that Caesar's deification represents, is that divine honors were paid to him in Rome. The distinction the honor provided, moreover, coincided with the fall of the Roman republic, whose political structure was premised on an ideal of libertas (or equality, at least among members of the political elite). Divine status indicated that, at least in ideological terms, the power of the princeps (a son of a god who would be deified upon his death) was distinct and better than that enjoyed by members of the senatorial elite. Augustus, the first successful sole ruler of Rome since the days of the monarchy, moreover, consciously associated himself with the authority Romans granted to religion. He became (as Julius Caesar had) pontifex maximus. Augustus was brilliant in the way he aligned religious authority with political. While there were numerous rites and cult activities associated with the emperor, there was no single ceremony that clearly marked his special status or in which he participated as the dominant actor (e.g. a coronation). Instead, worship of the emperor was incorporated into the pre-existing structures of Roman religion (e.g., the assumption of duties by the Fratres Arvales in imperial cults).
    
  • Augustus, moreover, never personally claimed divine status within his lifetime. Rather, he permitted the worship of his genius and numen. For the Romans, everyone (and every being) had a genius. It was the vital energy and generative power inherent in life. When Romans celebrated their birthdays, for example, they celebrated their genius. Augustus also instituted public worship of his family's Lares and of his numen. The nod that Jupiter gave assenting to an action was his numen. The term signifies divine will. It is the immortal equivalent to genius. Unlike genius, most folks don't have a numen. By organizing cult worship of his numen Augustus walked a fine line. On the one hand, the worship signalled that there wasn't much difference between himself and a god. On the other hand, Augustus wasn't explicitly saying he was a god.
    
  • After Augustus died, his successor and adopted son, Tiberius, arranged to have him deified. A senator announced (and took an oath) that he had seen Augustus ascend into heaven. The senate ordered a temple built, designated a flamen and instituted a college of priests. It became the practice of Rome to deify its emperors after their death. The rhetoric of these actions always suggested that the emperor, because of his achievements in his lifetime, had earned the recognition. Occassionally a "bad" emperor didn't follow the rules. Caligula, for example, claimed to be a god while he was alive. The Roman historians and biographers of Caligula found this outrageous and proof of Caligula's dementia.
    
  • The imperial cult became a useful way for Rome to integrate the increasingly large numbers of different types of peoples within its empire into a single cultural identity. Outside of Italy, for example, worship of the emperor was usually linked to worship of the goddess, Roma. Members of local elites could be recognized by their nomination to membership in the college of priests devoted to Augustus and Rome. Men of newfound wealth but very poor antecedents (freedmen) could be assimiliated into the power structure by such priesthoods.
    
• Mystery Cults
  
  
  • One of the most striking things about the 'foreign' cults which came to Rome is the degree to which Romans took great care to control their operations in the city. We saw in the case of the Magna Mater for example, that Rome forbade citizens to become priests of Cybele (until the reign of Claudius) and limited the public worship the Great Mother could receive. Most foreign cults and gods, moreover, were invited to Rome at the behest of the Senate after consulation with the Sibylline Books. During the Republic, 'cult' religion seems to have been subject to effective control by the Roman elite. There were several significant changes during the imperial period.
    
  • First, Rome's conquest of the Mediterranean world meant that the range of cultures now incorporated into the Roman empire was quite large. As Roman citizenship expanded it became increasingly inevitable that Roman citizens would be as likely to worship Baal or Mithras as they would Vestia or Jupiter. Second, during the imperial period, political power in Rome increasingly became a function or military authority and regionally generated wealth. Thus Rome found itself led by emperors from prominent families of Spain, North Africa and Syria who had known great success as generals. Typically these individuals were highly "Romanized": they and their fathers had lived in Rome and been educated in Rome, but Romans perceived them as "Spanish" and "African" Romans. As Emperors, these men all held the office of pontifex maximus and it is not surprising that they often tolerated and encouraged the cults of deities with whom they were quite familiar, even if peninsular Italians were not. Third, Romans themselves, at a variety of levels of social classes were increasingly well traveled and thus exposed to a variety of types of religious worship. A young member of the elite was likely to do some military or imperial service in some far flung corner of the Empire as he climbed the ranks of Roman political power. Once Augustus imposed relative political peace in Rome, Romans who made their business in trade, had every interest in expanding their operations through the Empire. They, their sons and their freedmen would have to travel widely to pursue these interests and thus observe and often experience "exotic" cult worship. When they returned to Rome, finally, they would find sites of cult worship established at home, by foreign traders, immigrants and slaves. Thus, what had been highly localized modes of worship, increasingly became cosmopolitan and international societies.
    
  • Cults, accordingly, afforded a site of social interaction based on individual identity and preference. One Roman returning from the east might find a group in Rome who worshipped Isis, another Mithras. In Rome, they could pursue the society of those who shared whatever personal enthusiasm had first sparked their interest in the god. If they travelled again, they could meet similarly minded folks at cult sites for Isis or Mithras in cities throughout the empire. The energy this association based on individual interest afforded was quite different than that offered by participation in the public, state religion of Rome. Romans continued to uphold that religion (although, as we have seen, various public religious observances waxed and waned in popularity) because it was essential to their Romanitas. But cults offered a form of behavior and association that was essential to their personal sense of identity - who they were and what being in the world meant.
    
  • The organization of cults was highly specific. Some were quite loose and easy going - you joined, you could, if you were interested become a priest or priestess. Others, were very hierarchical - only individuals born of the priestly caste in Egypt could be high priests of Isis - even in cult sites located in Rome. While the cult of Mithras was limited to men and tended to draw upon the military for its adherents, many, if not most, cults were highly democratic in their membership - women and men from a range of ethnic identities worshipped together, as did freedmen and senators (and sometimes slaves).
    
  • Mystery cults offered their adherents a very specific vision of the nature of the world, and access to a personal relationship with the divine that would offer them a transcendent peace in their human existence, and very often the prospect of a life that transcended death. Typically, the gods of mystery cults, according to their mythology had died and been resurrected. Orpheus, Dionysis, Attis, and Jesus were all gods whose cult adherents believed had died and risen again. They offered their followers the same possibility of resurrection. Many mystery cults shared similar structural features: new worshippers were initiated into the cult after a ceremony in which they confessed or claimed their identity as adherents of the god. Cult ceremonies often included hymns and ritual feasts. Most observed a calendar of yearly celebrations which were preceeded by periods of ritual preparation (e.g., fasting). Few cults had highly developed literary or scriptural traditions and thus they typically lacked a consistent and coherent theology. While they resembled one another structurally, the specifics of their beliefs and practices could vary dramatically.
    
• The Affair of the Bacchanalia
  
  • Many of the features of cult worship that made them so popular with citizens of the Roman Empire, disturbed Rome's political/religious leadership. The cults were typically inclusive and not hierarchical, except in the social deference cult members paid their priests. The priests, moreover, were often not Roman, and not of the 'best' social background. The cults, moreover, potentially offered a form of social identity that seemed to transcend (or undermine) Roman values of that undergirded that hierarchy of gender, status and class. Most 'foreign' cults were required to maintain their cult site outside the pomerium. When cult popularity advanced beyond a local and ethnically distinct group (Phoenicians or Jews, for example) within Rome, the Roman Senate (and Emperor) tended to pay attention. Cults that maintained private, even secret, sites of worship and/or complex grades of initiations (e.g., Mithras, Christianity) raised Roman suspicion. If cult rites and ritual language seemed imcomprehensible to Roman sensibilities (e.g, 'take this bread, it is my body') suspicion quickly turned to overt hostility and policies of suppression. Conversely, cults that welcomed affiliation with and assimiliation to more traditional Roman deities and incorporated celebrations for the emperor's well being in their ritual calendar (e.g., Isis), posed far less difficulties to the Roman elite.
    
  • Male members of the Roman senatorial elite and the order of the equites overwhelmingly did not join (even when they tolerated) mystery cults until well into the third century of the common era. They might, however, when in the provinces, offer respectful sacrifices to the gods in questions. Similarly, they might make donations to the cults as open-minded patrons. Conversely, members of the municipal elite, quite often fully and publicly participated in cults. In the city of Rome, itself, cult members came from the ranks of the ordinary and the despised: free-born citizens of no particular economic security, freedmen and slaves (and foreigners visiting or emigrating to Rome). The adherence of the hoi polloi, for members of the Roman elite, was itself a reason for scorn.
    
  • In one segment of their membership, however, mystery cults typically transgressed Roman class hierarchies. Roman women of the senatorial elite frequently played major roles as patrons of and participants in mystery cults. While traditional Roman, public religion offered a place for women, it did not offer them much of an active role in ritual observations and, with very few exceptions, offered them no positions of religious authority. Male members of the Roman elite frequently complained about the superstitio of their wives and daughters (well, actually, the uncontrolled wives and daughters of others). This complaint was usually exaggerated. The exaggeration itself represents the fear members of the male, senatorial elite felt when confronting the ,"other," represented by the foreign, feminine mystery cult. The cult, they feared, would infect traditional Roman male authority first by infecting weak and susceptible women.
    
  • The earliest evidence we see of a hostile Roman response to a foreign, feminine cult is very early indeed. Livy tells us that during the Second Punic War a Roman praetor took public action against an religious practice by Roman women that the Senate found offensive. We don't know much about this case, but scholars believe it is linked to the more famous senatorial action (in 186 BCE) against adherents of the Greek god Dionysus (also called Bacchus ). Worshippers of Dionysus were called Bacchants and celebrations in his honor were called the Bacchanlia.
    
  • The Bacchic cult had been established in Greece for centuries and was established in Etruria and southern Italy long before 186 BCE and for some time in Rome as well. Thus, the Senate's action was taken against a cult it had tolerated for at least a while. Its adherents included slaves and free, Romans and Latins, and men and women. The cult appears to have been organized quite hierarchically, with adherents granting priests signfiicant authority over the conduct of their personal lives. To members of the Roman elite, the inclusiveness of membership combined with this authority was a strange and threatening religious practice. The cult also engaged in "ecstatic" practices - they drank and at least talked in highly erotic language about their encounter with the god.
    
  • While much of the Roman propaganda against the cult focused on critiques of ritual practice, the Senate's edict was, in fact, directed only against the hierarchical organization of the cult. It forbade Romans to be priests. It forbade adherents to share money and property in kind. It forbade adherents to recognize the authority of Bacchic priests in their daily lives. Thus, devotees of Bacchus could get drunk and have sex as much as they liked, as long as their worship didn't create a structure of social and religious authority that members of the Senatorial elite could not control. Similarly, while the propaganda Livy reiterates attacks the role of women in the cult, what appears to have prompted at least part of the Senatorial response was the fact that cult had begun to become popular with Roman men. The existing cult structure, accordingly, would have permitted women authority over the daily lives of male adherents that completely subverted the traditional authority of the Roman pater familias.
    
  • The timing of the Senate's response is also interesting. Senators clearly knew of the cult and its activities for sometime before they sought to repress it? Why the delay? Roman soldiers just returning home from Rome's first extensive and extended foreign activities might have resented the intrusion. Roman allies, who tolerated, if not encouraged, Bacchic cults might have resented the intrusion of Roman authority into their domestic affairs precisely when Rome needed their help against Hannibal. The popularity of the cult, however, signalled a need within the Roman population that existing state religious practices failed to satisfy. Many scholars believe that the decision of the Senate to import the cult of the Magna Mater, but under rigid control, was an attempt to satisfy this need in a way that did not threaten their authority. The Bacchic cult, meanwhile survived, at least outside of Rome, and certainly more quietly than it had at the time of its suppression. You should think about Bacchus' reception in Rome when you consider Rome's response to Jesus, several centuries later.

The Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii

numerous sources on particular cults are available in the Late Antiquity section of the Ancient History SourceBook (scroll down for quite a while)

Cults you know about: Magna Mater; Mithras, Hercules; Imperial