History of Roman history

[StephenGoranson]

Proposing Torah "history" as parallel in time to (an interpretation of) Roman history, imo, lacks evidence.
And may be similar (in terms of assertion) to claiming gMark totally fiction?

[MrMacSon]

Etymology

---

Cicero defined religio as cultus deorum, "the cultivation of the gods" [De Natura Deorum 2.8 and 1.117.]. The "cultivation" necessary to maintain a specific deity was that god's cultus, "cult," and required "the knowledge of giving the gods their due" (scientia colendorum deorum). The noun cultus originates from the past participle of the verb colo, colere, colui, cultus, "to tend, take care of, cultivate," originally meaning "to dwell in, inhabit" and thus "to tend, cultivate land (ager); to practice agriculture," an activity fundamental to Roman identity even when Rome as a political center had become fully urbanized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_(religious_practice)

TERMS AND CONCEPTS—RELIGIO: CICERO

The concept ‘religion’ appears at first sight to have enjoyed historical continuity; but it is not identical to the conceptions comprised in the Latin word religio. In order to investigate the terminological differences, I shall in the following analyse the meaning, and, where it seems necessary, the history of the meanings of various expressions that fall within our conception of religion. My investigation will concentrate on Latin texts, because it is in those texts that are to be found the most important lines of thinking that largely defined political, legal, and religious activities in the Roman Empire.

Of all words that may signify something like ‘religion’, religio is clearly the one with the most momentous history. The word (and its derivative religiosus) is attested since Plautus, thus from the early second century bce onwards, and plainly implies something that we would describe as religious language. Its semantic spectrum extends from a direct reference to a deity to a rather more general kind of religious reflection. The term occurs frequently in Cicero, in the speeches as well as the philosophical texts. It appears with striking frequency in the speeches against Verres, administrator of the province of Sicily, collector of statues, and, in Cicero’s view, unscrupulous offender against the rights of property both human and divine. The term and its derived adjective are used more than 100 times in those texts. The much shorter speeches On His House and On the Response of the Haruspices contain between 50 and 60 instances; the term occurs with similar frequency in the philosophical treatises On the Nature of the Gods and On the Laws, whose second book concentrates on what we would call religion. The selection of works of itself demonstrates the terminological link between religio and our concept of religion.

But distinctions are important. As Ernst Feil has shown in his multi-volume history of the term, religio in Cicero certainly by no means corresponds to our own umbrella concept. But Feil’s analysis, which primarily uses On the Nature of the Gods, does not take into account the fact that Cicero’s use of the term in this dialogue, and therefore in the mouths of different speakers, is tactical; it forms part of the prosopoieia, the characterization of the protagonists. The triad pietas, sanctitas, [and] religio, which appears to juxtapose piety and dealings with the gods, is therefore only part of the introductory section. As is shown by the academician protagonist Cotta’s translation of the title of Epicurus’ treatise Peri osiotetos as De sanctitate, de pietate adversus deos, sanctitas as ‘knowledge of the worship of the gods’ is an attempt to translate a Greek conception. While, in the introductory section, sanctitas is used in questions and very general statements, Cotta doubts the possibility of such ‘knowledge’ in the context of Epicurean thinking.

When the Stoic Balbus speaks generally of the increase in deorum cultus religionumque sanctitates, and shortly thereafter defines religio as ‘the cult of the gods’, he appears to be indicating two distinct ideas. Cicero as author plainly identifies the former, vague statement as unclear, thus diminishing it. The connection between pietas and religio appears relatively easy to explain. The first term describes a relationship to a superior being, human or divine.

Religio is then the particular corollary in the case of the divine: the cult. The existence of the gods is therefore a prerequisite for any piety or religious sentiment towards them.

Despite its initial appearance in the context of the triad religio-pietas-sanctitas, religio nevertheless emerges as the central concept. It is, however, only in the introductory and concluding parts of the argument that it occurs frequently, and its use is unequally distributed among the individual participants in the discussion. The Epicurean Velleius never used religio. Apart from the passage already cited, and a rejection of superstitio as the opposite of religio, the Stoic Lucius Balbus mentions the term only in a few instances where he speaks of regard for public omens. It is the academician and pontifex Cotta who uses the expression religio most frequently, in both the singular and the plural form. Religiones, in the plural, is juxtaposed with caerimoniae (1.161), sacra, and caerimonia (3.5), in the first instance being more precisely defined as ‘public’. It is the pontiffs’ function to protect such public manifestations of the concept. In a section where the singular form of the term dominates, the juxtaposition is amplified by means of a hierarchy of concepts: ‘the entire cult of the Roman people is divided between sacrifices and the interpretation of bird flight, with a third category arising in certain instances when the custodians of the Sibylline Books or the readers of entrails provide a prophecy in reaction to unusual events or unnatural phenomena’ - omnis populi Romani religio in sacra et in auspicia divisa sit, tertium adiunctum sit, si quid praedictionis causa ex portentis et monstris Sibyllae interpretes haruspicesve monuerunt.

Religio is not a vague sentiment (for which Cotta criticizes his opponents), or a ‘groundless fear’, like superstitio, but something that arises from acceptance of the gods as part of the social order; it is a human predisposition, a habit that finds its expression in appropriate rituals (cultus deorum). It is therefore contingent on the existence of gods, and the uncontrolled proliferation of gods would pose a danger.

... In the exchange preceding Cotta wordy refutation of the Stoic position, he gives further precision to his definition cited above, asserting that it represents the view of the pontifex; he adds: ‘From you, the philosopher, therefore, I must hear a compelling argument for belief in the gods (rationem ...religionis); to our forefathers on the other hand I must give credence, even if they fail to justify their arguments’.

Religio represents a social reality of the highest importance for the stability of the community, but it is not an argument, and cannot be introduced as such into philosophical discourse. Religio, rather, has to be tempered by ratio; and this is precisely the purpose of the entire work, as the author declares in the very introduction of the first book: quaestio ... de natura deorum, quae et ad cognitionem animi pulcherrima est et ad moderandam religionem necessaria (‘Inquiry into the nature of the gods aids supremely in our knowledge of our souls, and is indispensible to just measure in worship of the gods’). This is the philosophical programme, repeated by Cicero in his appended treatise On Divination. In a hierarchy in descending order of general validity, he lists mos, religio, disciplina, ius augurium, collegii auctoritas (‘tradition, religion, instruction, augural law, and collegiate authority’).24

The singular and plural forms used by Cicero do not correspond to our conception of religion and religions. In the singular, religion is a necessary, logical consequence of any theism. It finds expression in different religions (in the plural), but such expression is accompanied by restriction. It is possible to argue about theism, as it represents a theoretical problem and standpoint, but not about religio.

Religiones, on the other hand, can be assessed by social standards of legitimacy and sound human understanding: for example, as to whether a particular religio actually relates to a deity.

In his earlier fictional exercise in legislation, his books On Laws, Cicero had dealt with this problem by restricting cults strictly to the public and familiar, with new or foreign cults being allowed legal entry into the local system only by public decision. It is worth noting that Cicero had already dealt with the problem of religious separatism in the second clause of his religious laws (‘nobody should follow new or foreign cults on his own account’ — separatim nemo habessit deos neve novos neve advenas). His attempt to list the gods, conceived of either as heavenly beings or as earthly beings deified on the grounds of merit or praiseworthy virtues, points at every turn to the problems in terms of public acceptance and legitimacy that arise from such a precise definition.

In On the Nature of the Gods, Cotta reacts to this problem with a strict reference back to traditional practice, invoking Numa (3.43), and a reductio ad absurdum of all historical, mythological, or similar thinking. To summarize his long argument, based on the countless gods already worshipped in practice: if all those are gods who are known to possess altars in Greece (3.46), would the lack of any known cult be an argument against other candidates (3.45)?

... . Of course, different religions spoke to different deities; but such a one-to-one relationship was not the rule. Religiones might multiply; different religious conceptions and resulting differences in religious practice might be directed at one and the same god, and pursued by the same individuals at the same time, or by different individuals. Tacitus’ expression religione Herculis (‘the religion of Hercules’), suggesting a direct connection, is thus relatively unusual. When the same writer, in a section on behaviour in war, maintains that the religio Veneris of the Aphrodisians and the religio Iovis et Triviae of the inhabitants of Stratonice had been retained (3.62), he is modifying the conception of religio, and pointing to a different level of pluralization. Just as the Romans had their public religio (in the singular), so others had theirs, and these could be compared to one another. In this connection it is important to note that, in his speech relating to that comparison, Cicero does not use the plural form: ‘Every community has its religion, Laelius, and we have ours ’ (sua cuique civitati religio, Laeli, est, nostra nobis). In the speech on behalf of Flaccus this is an affirmation, a confirmation of radical differences, but it does not suggest a possible choice, or the possibility of meaningful coexistence.

As in On the Nature of the Gods, religio here includes the idea of a generality; but it is a local generality, and justifies our talk of ‘Roman’ and ‘Athenian’ religion; I will not address here the problems indicated by the recently coined expression ‘religions of Rome’. It is in any event safe to say that Cicero’s ‘we’ and ‘our’ do not reflect the complex composition of the Roman population; this was already the case in his time. [pp.186-90]

Jörg Rüpke (2014) From Jupiter to Christ: On the History of Religion in the Roman Imperial Period (translated by David M.B. Richardson), OUP

Previously:

Cicero addresses the problem of religious separatism as early as the second paragraph of his religious laws (‘nobody should pursue his own new or foreign cult’, separatim nemo habessit deos neve novos neve advenas). He ‘resolves’ the problem, however, by deferring it to a dichotomy (itself evidently precarious) between the public and the private, while, at the same time, suggesting public, priestly control of the private sphere. He takes no account of external limits. As he states in his speech for Flaccus: just as the Romans had their public religio (in the singular), so others had theirs (sua cuique civitati religio, Laeli, est, nostra nobis). This allows for no possibility of choice or cooperation; above all, no account is taken of the complex composition of the Roman population, which was the factor that created the initial problem, the choice of new and imported gods, in the first place. [p.11]

As Cicero’s speech concerning the religions of every group of citizens had previously shown (Flac. 69), it was easy to conceive of a religion belonging to another political group. On the other hand, the formation or stabilization of social groups or networks was not reflected in terms of religion; and it was not the term ‘religion’ (singular or plural) that was used subsequently to describe them, but two terms from a different sphere. Secta was a translation of the Greek hairesis, and was used from the Hellenistic Age onwards to differentiate philosophical schools. Accordingly, other mutually comparable elective alternatives could be expressed in the language of philosophical tendencies, so as to imply group-specific knowledge as well as a particular way of life. Both of these categories were also covered by the term disciplina, which, already in the Late Republic, could be used in respect of particular kinds of religious mystics, such as magicians, haruspices, and even augurs; so far as we know, however, only in Christian Apologetic texts from the end of the second century onwards was it applied more generally to religions. It does not appear in official texts before the fourth century. [p.15]

[MrMacSon]

From the very endo of Rüpke's From Jupiter to Christ:

Religion’, if an old word, is a comparatively recent concept. By it we refer, not to Cicero’s sentiment of obligation towards the divine, but to cultural ‘systems’ such as Christianity. The term arose as an attempt to develop a general term to describe equivalents to Christianity that did not emerge from Christianity itself: for such would be heresies ...

What historians investigate as ‘religion’ in pre-modern societies may in form and function have comprised highly heterogeneous contexts. Egyptian priests and Germanic groves, river deities, and the variable pantheons of Middle Eastern cities, performed in very different ways for the political community and the individual, and the effective reach of the contexts within which they existed and acted also varied greatly. This did not exclude cultural exchange, as may be illustrated by the reception of Mediterranean sculpture by the Celts on the Glauberg, and the orientalizing phase in early Iron Age Latium.

It was into this heterogeneous but in many respects partly interconnected world (one thinks of the Hellenistic empires of the Diadochi in the East) that Rome, itself a Hellenistic polis at the edge of the Greek ‘Late Ancient Oriental fringe culture’ (Hubert Cancik), irrupted. Religion, which is to say figures of gods, temples, priests, festivals, and rituals, played a large role in this Rome; as established at the beginning here, it was a vital means of public communication about the status and legitimacy of decisions, and facilitated both group formations and individual crisis management.

... : ‘religion’ for the city of Rome is not the same as for other poleis. From the fourth and third centuries bce onwards, the particular historical characteristic of religion in Rome appears to have been that it became an important medium for political decision processes, and a vital means of legitimation. It had a correspondingly strong presence. Public rituals acquired great significance, which means that they were centralized.

Cults outside Rome were either unimportant or made subject to controls, as were the ‘alliance festivals’ of the feriae latinae and the laurentes lavinates, the fictitious federation of communities in Rome’s geographical neighbourhood. All was potentially public religion, to be controlled by laws and sacerdotes (‘priests’). At the same time, there is no question of an autonomous, specifically religious authority; control was, again, fragmentary. Religion thus appeared to be part of the apolitical everyday: and it was this very air of seeming independence that enabled it to become a source of political legitimation

This religious model in the city of Rome led to a comprehensive process of standardization, which was frequently of a negative nature: the destruction of sanctuaries, the banning of cults, the removal of religious specialists from their roles; the banning of human sacrifice and the persecution of the druids have become proverbial. The agents in this process were not only the military, as already mentioned, and provincial administrations; defeated cities and their local elites, eager to be participants in the greater, ‘global’ forum of communication, also took part.

So what did Rome export? Not gods, but a concept of religion: in the form, not of theory, but of practice. Where theory was required, the preferred recourse was to universalizing Greek themes and narratives; these had assimilated to the particular demands and requirements encountered during the centuries of the great colonization and into the Hellenistic Age. Provincial Roman practice was to embrace local deities, and, when appropriate in particular instances, translate them in a process of interpretatio Romana. So religion had no ‘national’ connotation; it did not relate to political elements susceptible of rapid change, but served individuals and groups as a mode of communication in new situations.7 The tendency towards written expression, which very much increased the durability and reach of religious communication, is thus understandable. But communication should not be equated with harmony: rituals, like the construction of religious sanctuaries, lent themselves to the working-out of sectional interests and conflicts.

Standardization does not mean levelling, or reducing to the ‘smallest common denominator’. In the process described above, religion became increasingly complex. As already shown, the number of religious options, of available gods, grew enormously, although it is true to say that, at the same time, local and familial traditions continued to impose restrictions. But functional variety also increased. As circumstance and economic possibility allowed, individuals made public the choices and combinations they had arrived at from among the religious options, and the innovations they had made. Religion served for public entertainment: we speak of ‘games’. It served for decoration, on clay lamps and in murals and floor mosaics.

Religion was also intellectualized; religious knowledge was collected and classified in antiquarian and historical texts. Under Middle Platonism, Platonic and post-Platonic theology was recontextualized to accord with the new cultural abundance and variety. Finally, religion was used by both smaller and larger groups for the systematization of Lebensführung (the allusion to Max Weber is unavoidable), gaining a more general, ethical dimension. Used negatively, it could create new, hostile spectres in a diffusely hostile world. But the ancient world made only occasional use of such standardizing measures as were available to it. A real plurality of religious practices persisted beyond the end of Antiquity.

IMPERIAL RELIGION

But what of ‘imperial religion’? In short, it was not religious practices that created the Empire, but the Empire that created ‘religion’. This ‘imperial religion’ did not legitimate Roman rule, nor did it prevent uprisings. Only a few intellectuals, such as Plutarch, Lucian, and Athenaeus, reflected its unity; only a few jurists discussed it, and then usually indirectly, in standardizing their claims on their own particular local religions: I have cited Gaius. But the Roman Empire created such space for, and mobility and complexity in, this ‘religion’, that religion became an innovative factor in, and indeed for, the Empire.

The question now should not be whether the Empire needed an imperial religion, and what that religion comprised. We should be asking how the Empire produced religion, how the geographical and political conditions of the Roman Empire produced this type of ‘religion’, this ensemble of public and private practices and conceptions that became a central factor in the history of ancient, medieval, and modern Europe.

[rgprice]

Proposing Torah "history" as parallel in time to (an interpretation of) Roman history, imo, lacks evidence.
And may be similar (in terms of assertion) to claiming gMark totally fiction?

Not what I'm proposing at all.

I'm talking about understanding how the narrative history of civilizations was written at this time.

We know that the Romans introduced the idea that the founders of Rome (Romulus and Remus) were descendants of Aeneas in the Hellenistic era, after having been influenced by Homeric tales.

It would seem that as of the 5th or 6th century Romans did not consider themselves descendants of the Trojan Prince, but by the 3rd century this was a ubiquitous view. So this is an example of how these types of changes in identity took place and were affected by Greek literature.

But in addition, we can see that the story of the founding of Rome was written by early, and even later, "historians" and poets in ways that were really more about establishing the credibility and precedent for the political, ethnic, and legal circumstances of their own time. For example, the augers were a politically powerful group of distinctly Roman prophets. Thus, accounts of the founding of Rome claim that Romulus was an auger.

The name of Rome had long been established. No one really knows where it came from, but classicists today agree that it had nothing to do with Romulus. However, Roman historians claimed that the city got its name from its founder, Romulus. This is really just an anachronistic projection onto the past to explain the present state of affairs that no one really understood how it came to be.

So the point here is in showing how these types of histories were written and the motivations behind the accounts. The accounts are not necessarily based on oral traditions handed down from the time that the events took place. In other words, it isn't the case that knowledge of Aeneas' journey to Italy dates back to the 12th century BCE, where tales of his exploits were passed down from generation to generation until they were recorded in the 3rd century BCE by Roman writers. Rather, around the 4th century Romans started Greek stories about Aeneas and used that figure in their own mythology to create a new founding story that was previously unknown.

[StephenGoranson]

Without comment on your views on Rome, how are you proposing, if you are, relevance to Bible criticism and history?
You seem to assert parallels and to default to declaring absolute fiction. (Somewhat similarly to RE Gmirkin?) If so, your choice, though not necessarily persuasive.

[rgprice]

I'm merely working out an example to show that the proposal that Jews invented a new history for their civilization based on Hellenistic stories and historical accounts is not novel. Other civilizations, such as the Romans, did the this very thing.

[StephenGoranson]

I'd rather not get sidetracked on your analysis of Rome or Greece, and who believed, or not (skeptics?), what may or may not have been offered there, but I think that for Jewish history that what you propose you did not show.
You're free to go on on your track, of course, but, so far, you've lost me.

[andrewcriddle]

Proposing Torah "history" as parallel in time to (an interpretation of) Roman history, imo, lacks evidence.
And may be similar (in terms of assertion) to claiming gMark totally fiction?

Not what I'm proposing at all.

I'm talking about understanding how the narrative history of civilizations was written at this time.

We know that the Romans introduced the idea that the founders of Rome (Romulus and Remus) were descendants of Aeneas in the Hellenistic era, after having been influenced by Homeric tales.

It would seem that as of the 5th or 6th century Romans did not consider themselves descendants of the Trojan Prince, but by the 3rd century this was a ubiquitous view. So this is an example of how these types of changes in identity took place and were affected by Greek literature.

But in addition, we can see that the story of the founding of Rome was written by early, and even later, "historians" and poets in ways that were really more about establishing the credibility and precedent for the political, ethnic, and legal circumstances of their own time. For example, the augers were a politically powerful group of distinctly Roman prophets. Thus, accounts of the founding of Rome claim that Romulus was an auger.

The name of Rome had long been established. No one really knows where it came from, but classicists today agree that it had nothing to do with Romulus. However, Roman historians claimed that the city got its name from its founder, Romulus. This is really just an anachronistic projection onto the past to explain the present state of affairs that no one really understood how it came to be.

So the point here is in showing how these types of histories were written and the motivations behind the accounts. The accounts are not necessarily based on oral traditions handed down from the time that the events took place. In other words, it isn't the case that knowledge of Aeneas' journey to Italy dates back to the 12th century BCE, where tales of his exploits were passed down from generation to generation until they were recorded in the 3rd century BCE by Roman writers. Rather, around the 4th century Romans started Greek stories about Aeneas and used that figure in their own mythology to create a new founding story that was previously unknown.

I think you should distinguish the stories about the early kings of Rome (including Romulus) from the stories about Aeneas. Both are legendary but the stories about the early kings of Rome are based on very early tradition, while the idea that Aeneas, a relatively minor character in Greek myth, was the founder of the Roman people seems to have developed much later.

Andrew Criddle

[rgprice]

I think you should distinguish the stories about the early kings of Rome (including Romulus) from the stories about Aeneas. Both are legendary but the stories about the early kings of Rome are based on very early tradition, while the idea that Aeneas, a relatively minor character in Greek myth, was the founder of the Roman people seems to have developed much later.

Andrew Criddle

Yes, very true. Of course, no one really knows the degree to which the legend of the kings are based on reality or not either, but it is widely believed that accounts covering the 7th through 5th centuries are based on "oral traditions". There is little evidence to argue against it at any rate. But yes, such "histories" are often a blend of real and fictious accounts.

[rgprice]

Just a few notes on Roman history and potential parallels between Roman and Jewish historical narratives.

The Greeks started colonizing the southern Italic peninsula around the 9th century BCE. The Romans began a conquest of the southern Italic peninsula in the 4th century BCE, completing their conquest of the southern Greek territories by the end of the 3rd century BCE.

Rome was sacked by the Gauls in 390 BCE, at which point apparently many important records and artifacts were lost.

The earliest accounts of Roman history, if they ever existed, have been entirely lost. Essentially the earliest written accounts of Roman history that we have were produced in the 3rd century BCE. The earliest accounts we have are epic poems written in Latin, but the earliest prose histories were all written in Greek.

Homeric works included narratives about the fleeing of Aeneas from Troy and settling in southern the Italic peninsula. It would seem that the Latin Romans lacked any account of the founding of their city. This is likely because Rome was actually founded by the Etruscans. The Latins rebelled against the Etruscans and took control of the city from them. The Greek stories about the settling of the hero Aeneas in Italy provided a way for the Romans to position themselves as heirs of an ancient hero and to take the founding of Rome away from the Etruscans. Rome's origins were not, then, indebted to the Etruscans whom they had vanquished, but rather to the bloodline of Trojan royalty, whom now all Latins could claim as their ancestors.

The earliest such known account is Naevius’ Latin epic Bellum Punicum. But the first account of Roman history is a work by Q. Fabius Pictor, who wrote a history of the Roman people, which, like Naevius', began with account of Aeneas' flight from Troy to the Italic peninsula. This was written in Greek, as most Roman works of scholarship during this time were all produced in Greek.

It is evident that both Naevius and Pictor made extensive use of Greek sources to fill in accounts of the early history of Rome and the Italic peninsula that were lacking in Latin sources. What all of these Roman accounts tend to have in common is that they rely heavily on Greek sources for accounts of Roman history prior to the 4rd century BCE, then switch to relying on Latin accounts and their own observations for the more recent history.

In the process, these Roman writers take Greek accounts that were not originally about the Latins and transform them into legends of the origins of the Latin peoples. The Greek accounts are blended with Latin legends, such as that of Romulus and Remus, but given Greek twists and aligned with Greek narrative patterns.

It strikes me that what Gmirkin proposes about the origins of the Jewish scriptures is very to the observed process of the development of Roman history by the Latins. Basically, it is widely agreed that the Latins did essentially what Gmirkin proposes that the Jews did.