The Religious Experience Of The Roman People - free ebook by W. Warde (William Warde) Fowler

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The Religious Experience Of The Roman People

W. Warde (William Warde) Fowler

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50 chapters

PREFACE

PREFACE

Lord Gifford in founding his lectureship directed that the lectures should be public and popular, i.e. not restricted to members of a University. Accordingly in lecturing I endeavoured to make myself intelligible to a general audience by avoiding much technical discussion and controversial matter, and by keeping to the plan of describing in outline the development and decay of the religion of the Roman City-state. And on the whole I have thought it better to keep to this principle in publishing

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LECTURE I

LECTURE I

Accounts of the Roman religion in recent standard works; a hard and highly formalised system. Its interest lies partly in this fact. How did it come to be so? This the main question of the first epoch of Roman religious experience. Roman religion and Roman law compared. Roman religion a technical subject. What we mean by religion. A useful definition applied to the plan of Lectures I.-X.; including (1) survivals of primitive or quasi-magical religion; (2) the religion of the agricultural family;

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LECTURE II

LECTURE II

Survivals at Rome of previous eras of quasi-religious experience. Totemism not discernible. Taboo, and the means adopted of escaping from it; both survived at Rome into an age of real religion. Examples: impurity (or holiness) of new-born infants; of a corpse; of women in certain worships; of strangers; of criminals. Almost complete absence of blood-taboo. Iron. Strange taboos on the priest of Jupiter and his wife. Holy or tabooed places; holy or tabooed days; the word religiosus as applied to b

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LECTURE III

LECTURE III

Magic; distinction between magic and religion. Religious authorities seek to exclude magic, and did so at Rome. Few survivals of magic in the State religion. The aquaelicium . Vestals and runaway slaves. The magical whipping at the Lupercalia. The throwing of puppets from the pons sublicius . Magical processes surviving in religious ritual with their meaning lost. Private magic: excantatio in the XII. Tables; other spells or carmina . Amulets: the bulla ; oscilla...

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LECTURE IV

LECTURE IV

Continuity of the religion of the Latin agricultural family. What the family was; its relation to the gens . The familia as settled on the land, an economic unit, embodied in a pagus . The house as the religious centre of the familia ; its holy places. Vesta, Penates, Genius, and the spirit of the doorway. The Lar familiaris on the land. Festival of the Lar belongs to the religion of the pagus : other festivals of the pagus . Religio terminorum. Religion of the household: marriage, childbirth, b

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LECTURE V

LECTURE V

Beginnings of the City-state: the oppidum . The earliest historical Rome, the city of the four regions; to this belongs the surviving religious calendar. This calendar described; the basis of our knowledge of early Roman religion. It expresses a life agricultural, political, and military. Days of gods distinguished from days of man. Agricultural life the real basis of the calendar; gradual effacement of it. Results of a fixed routine in calendar; discipline, religious confidence. Exclusion from

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LECTURE VI

LECTURE VI

Sources of knowledge about Roman deities. What did the Romans themselves know about them? No personal deity in the religion of the family. Those of the City-state are numina , marking a transition from animism to polytheism. Meaning of numen . Importance of names, which are chiefly adjectival, marking functional activity. Tellus an exception. Importance of priests in development of dei . The four great Roman gods and their priests: Janus, Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus. Characteristics of each of these

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LECTURE VII

LECTURE VII

No temples in the earliest Rome; meaning of fanum, ara, lucus, sacellum . No images of gods in these places, until end of regal period. Thus deities not conceived as persons. Though masculine and feminine they were not married pairs; Dr. Frazer's opinion on this point. Examination of his evidence derived from the libri sacerdotum ; meaning of Nerio Martis. Such combinations of names suggest forms or manifestations of a deity's activity, not likely to grow into personal deities without Greek help

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LECTURE VIII

LECTURE VIII

Main object of ius divinum to keep up the pax deorum ; meaning of pax in this phrase. Means towards the maintenance of the pax : sacrifice and prayer, fulfilment of vows, lustratio, divination. Meaning of sacrificium . Little trace of sacramental sacrifice. Typical sacrifice of ius divinum : both priest and victim must be acceptable to the deity; means taken to secure this. Ritual of slaughter: examination and porrectio of entrails. Prayer; the phrase Macte esto and its importance in explaining

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LECTURE IX

LECTURE IX

Vota (vows) have suggested the idea that Roman worship was bargaining. Examination of private vows, which do not prove this; of public vows, which in some degree do so. Moral elements in both these. Other forms of vow: evocatio and devotio . Lustratio : meaning of lustrare in successive stages of Roman experience. Lustratio of the farm and pagus ; of the city; of the people (at Rome and Iguvium); of the army; of the arms and trumpets of the army: meaning of lustratio in these last cases, both be

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LECTURE X

LECTURE X

Recapitulation of foregoing lectures. Weak point of the organised State religion: it discouraged individual development. Its moral influence mainly a disciplinary one; and it hypnotised the religious instinct. Growth of a new population at end of regal period, also of trade and industry. New deities from abroad represent these changes: Hercules of Ara Maxima; Castor and Pollux; Minerva. Diana of the Aventine reflects a new relation with Latium. Question as to the real religious influence of thes

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LECTURE XI

LECTURE XI

Plan of this and following lectures. The formalised Roman religion meets with perils, material and moral, and ultimately proves inadequate. Subject of this lecture, the introduction of Greek deities and rites; but first a proof that the Romans were a really religious people; evidence from literature, from worship, from the practice of public life, and from Latin religious vocabulary. Temple of Ceres, Liber, Libera (Demeter, Dionysus, Persephone); its importance for the date of Sibylline influenc

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LECTURE XII

LECTURE XII

Historical facts about the Pontifices in this period; a powerful exclusive "collegium" taking charge of the ius divinum . The legal side of their work; they administered the oldest rules of law, which belonged to that ius . New ideas of law after Etruscan period; increasing social complexity and its effect on legal matters; result, publication of rules of law, civil and religious, in XII. Tables, and abolition of legal monopoly of Pontifices. But they keep control of (1) procedure, (2) interpret

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LECTURE XIII

LECTURE XIII

Divination a universal practice: its relation to magic. Want of a comprehensive treatment of it. Its object at Rome: to assure oneself of the pax deorum ; but it was the most futile method used. Private divination; limited and discouraged by the State, except in the form of family auspicia . Public divination; auspicia needed in all State operations; close connection with imperium . The augurs were skilled advisers of the magistrates, but could not themselves take the auspices. Probable result o

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LECTURE XIV

LECTURE XIV

Tendency towards contempt of religious forms in third century B.C. ; disappears during this war. Religio in the old sense takes its place, i.e. fear and anxiety. This takes the form of reporting prodigia ; account of these in 218 B.C. , and of the prescriptions supplied by Sibylline books. Fresh outbreak of religio after battle of Trasimene; lectisternium of 216, without distinction of Greek and Roman deities; importance of this. Religious panic after battle of Cannae; extraordinary religious me

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LECTURE XV

LECTURE XV

Religion used to support Senatorial policy in declaring war (1) with Philip of Macedon, (2) with Antiochus of Syria; but this is not the old religion. Use of prodigia and Sibylline oracles to secure political and personal objects; mischief caused in this way. Growth of individualism; rebellion of the individual against the ius divinum . Examples of this from the history of the priesthoods; strange story of a Flamen Dialis. The story of the introduction of Bacchic rites in 186 B.C. ; interference

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LECTURE XVI

LECTURE XVI

Religious destitution of the Roman in second century b.c. in regard to (1) his idea of God, (2) his sense of Duty. No help from Epicurism, which provided no religious sanction for conduct; Lucretius, and Epicurean idea of the Divine. Arrival of Stoicism at Rome; Panaetius and the Scipionic circle. Character of Scipio. The religious side of Stoicism; it teaches a new doctrine of the relation of man to God. Stoic idea of God as Reason, and as pervading the universe; adjustment of this to Roman ide

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LECTURE XVII

LECTURE XVII

Early Pythagoreanism in S. Italy; its reappearance in last century b.c. under the influence of Posidonius, who combined Stoicism with Platonic Pythagoreanism. Cicero affected by this revival; his Somnium Scipionis and other later works. His mysticism takes practical form on the death of his daughter; letters to Atticus about a fanum . Individualisation of the Manes; freedom of belief on such questions. Further evidence of Cicero's tendency to mysticism at this time (45 B.C. ), and his belief in

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LECTURE XVIII

LECTURE XVIII

Virgil sums up Roman religious experience, and combines it with hope for the future. Sense of depression in his day; want of sympathy and goodwill towards men. Virgil's sympathetic outlook; shown in his treatment of animals, Italian scenery, man's labour, and man's worship. His idea of pietas . The theme of the Aeneid; Rome's mission in the world, and the pietas needed to carry it out. Development of the character of Aeneas; his pietas imperfect in the first six books, perfected in the last six,

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LECTURE XIX

LECTURE XIX

Connection of Augustus and Virgil. Augustus aims at re-establishing the national pietas , and securing the pax deorum by means of the ius divinum . How this formed part of his political plans. Temple restoration and its practical result. Revival of the ancient ritual; illustrated from the records of the Arval Brethren. The new element in it; Caesar-worship; but Augustus was content with the honour of re-establishing the pax deorum . Celebration of this in the Ludi saeculares, 17 B.C. Our detaile

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LECTURE XX

LECTURE XX

Religious ingredients in Roman soil likely to be utilised by Christianity. The Stoic ingredient; revelation of the Universal, and ennobling of Individual. The contribution of Mysticism; preparation for Christian eschatology. The contribution of Virgil; sympathy and sense of Duty. The contribution of Roman religion proper: (1) sane and orderly character of ritual, (2) practical character of Latin Christianity visible in early Christian writings, (3) a religious vocabulary, e.g. religio, pietas, s

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APPENDIX

APPENDIX

I. On the Use of Huts or Booths in Religious Ritual II. Prof. Deubner's Theory of the Lupercalia III. The Pairs of Deities in Gellius IV. The Early Usage of the Words Ius and Fas V. The Worship of Sacred Utensils...

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LECTURE I

LECTURE I

I was invited to prepare these lectures, on Lord Gifford's foundation, as one who has made a special study of the religious ideas and practice of the Roman people. So far as I know, the subject has not been touched upon as yet by any Gifford lecturer. We are in these days interested in every form of religion, from the most rudimentary to the most highly developed; from the ideas of the aborigines of Australia, which have now become the common property of anthropologists, to the ethical and spiri

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LECTURE II

LECTURE II

My subject proper is the religion of an organised State: the religious experience of a comparatively civilised people. But I wish, in the first place, to do what has never yet been done by those who have written on the Roman religion—I wish to take a survey of the relics, surviving in later Roman practice and belief, of earlier stages of rudimentary religious experience. In these days of anthropological and sociological research, it is possible to do this without great difficulty; and if I left

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LECTURE III

LECTURE III

Taboo, the traces of which at Rome we examined in the last lecture, is, as we saw, closely allied to magic, even if it be not, as Dr. Frazer thinks, magic in a negative form. We have now to see what traces are to be found of magic in the proper or usual sense of the word—active or positive magic, as we may call it. By this we are to understand the exercise of a mysterious mechanical power by an individual on man, spirit, or deity, to enforce a certain result. In magic there is no propitiation, n

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LECTURE IV

LECTURE IV

Some of the survivals mentioned in the last two lectures seem to carry us back to a condition of culture anterior to the family and to the final settlement on the land. Some attempt has recently been made to discover traces of descent by the mother in early Latium; 131 if this could be proved, it would mean that the Latins were already in Latium before they had fully developed the patriarchal system on which the family is based. However this may be, the first real fact that meets us in the relig

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LECTURE V

LECTURE V

The religion of the household had two main characteristics. First, it was a perfectly natural and organic growth, the result of the Roman farmer's effective desire to put himself and his in right relations with the spiritual powers at work for good or ill around him. His conception of these powers I shall deal with more fully in the next lecture; but I have said enough to prove that it was not a degrading one. The spirits of his house and his land and his own Genius were friendly powers, all of

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LECTURE VI

LECTURE VI

We must now turn our attention to what is the most difficult part of our subject, the ideas of the early Romans about "the Power manifesting itself in the universe." In my first lecture I indicated in outline what the difficulties are which beset us all through our studies; they are in no part of it so insurmountable as in this. Material fails us, because there was no contemporary literature; because the Romans were not a thinking people, and probably thought very little about the divine beings

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LECTURE VII

LECTURE VII

In the last lecture we interrogated the calendar as to the deities whose festivals are recorded in it, with the aid of what we know of the most ancient priesthoods attached to particular cults. The result may be stated thus: we found a number of impersonal numina , with names of adjectival form, such as Saturnus, Vertumnus, and so on; others with substantival names, Tellus, Robigus, Terminus; the former apparently functional deities, concerned in the operations of nature or man, and the latter s

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LECTURE VIII

LECTURE VIII

I have already frequently mentioned the ius divinum , the law governing the relations between the divine and human inhabitants of the city, as the ius civile governed the relations between citizen and citizen. 340 When we examined the calendar of Numa, we were in fact examining a part of this law; we began with this our studies of the religion of the Roman city-state, because it is the earliest document we possess which illuminates the dark ages of city life, so far as religion is concerned. The

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LECTURE IX

LECTURE IX

In the last lecture we found that the magical element in the Roman ritual is exaggerated by recent writers. But it has also long been the practice to describe that ritual as a system of bargaining with the gods: as partaking of the nature of a legal contract. "The old Roman worship was businesslike and utilitarian. The gods were partners in a contract with their worshippers, and the ritual was characterised by the hard formalism of the legal system of Rome. The worshipper performed his part to t

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LECTURE X

LECTURE X

I said in my first lecture that the whole story of Roman religious experience falls into two parts: first, that of the formularisation of rules and methods for getting effectively into right relations with the Power manifesting itself in the universe; secondly, that of the gradual discovery of the inadequacy of these, and of the engrafting on the State religion of Rome of an ever-increasing number of foreign rites and deities. The first of these stories has been occupying us so far, and before I

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LECTURE XI510a

LECTURE XI510a

I said at the beginning of my first lecture that Roman religious experience can be summed up in two stories. The first of these was the story of the way in which a strong primitive religious instinct, the desire to put yourself in right relation with the Power manifesting itself in the universe, religio as the Romans called it, was gradually soothed and satisfied under the formalising influence of the settled life of the agricultural family, and still more so under the organising genius of the e

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LECTURE XII

LECTURE XII

In the last lecture we saw how the new experiences of the Roman people, during the period from the abolition of the kingship to the war with Hannibal, led to the introduction of foreign deities and showy ceremonies of a character quite strange to the old religion. But there was another process going on at the same time. The authorities of that old religion were full of vigour in this same period; it may even be said, that as far as we can trace their activity in the dim light of those early days

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LECTURE XIII

LECTURE XIII

"The one great corruption to which all religion is exposed is its separation from morality. The very strength of the religious motive has a tendency to exclude, or disparage, all other tendencies of the human mind, even the noblest and best. It is against this corruption that the prophetic order from first to last constantly protested.... Mercy and justice, judgment and truth, repentance and goodness—not sacrifice, not fasting, not ablutions,—is the burden of the whole prophetic teaching of the

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LECTURE XIV

LECTURE XIV

We have noticed two different, if not opposing, tendencies in Roman religious experience since the disappearance of the kingship. First, there was a tendency towards the reception of new and more emotional forms of worship, under the direction of the Sibylline books and their keepers; secondly, we have seen how, in the hands of pontifices and augurs, religious practice became gradually so highly formularised and secularised that the real religious instinct is hardly discernible in it, except ind

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LECTURE XV

LECTURE XV

The long and deadly struggle with Hannibal ended in 201 B.C. , and no sooner was peace concluded than the Senate determined on war with Macedon. This decision is a critical moment in Roman history, for it initiated not only a long period of advance and the eventual supremacy of Rome in the Eastern Mediterranean, but also an age of narrow aristocratic rule which remained unquestioned till revolution broke out with Tiberius Gracchus. But we cannot safely deny that it was a just decision. Hannibal

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LECTURE XVI

LECTURE XVI

I said at the end of the last lecture that ideas about the Divine might be discussed at Rome by philosophers, as the Romans began to read and in some degree to think. At the era we have now reached, the latter half of the second century B.C. , this process actually began, and I propose in this lecture to deal with it briefly. But my subject is the Roman religious experience, and I can only find room for philosophy so far as the philosophy introduced at Rome had a really religious side. Another r

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LECTURE XVII

LECTURE XVII

We have now reached the end of the period of the Republic; but before I go on to the age of Augustus, with which I must bring these lectures to an end, I must ask attention to a movement which can best be described by the somewhat vague term Mysticism, but is generally known to historians of philosophy as Neo-pythagoreanism. The fact is that such tendency as there ever was at Rome towards Mysticism—which was never indeed a strong one till Rome had almost ceased to be Roman 804 —seems to have tak

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LECTURE XVIII

LECTURE XVIII

My justification for devoting a whole lecture to Virgil must be that this great poet, more warmly and sympathetically than any other Latin author, gives expression to the best religious feeling of the Roman mind. And this is so not only in regard to the tendencies of religion in his own day; he stands apart from all his literary contemporaries in that he sums up the past of Roman religious experience, reflects that of his own time, and also looks forward into the future. No other poet, no histor

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LECTURE XIX

LECTURE XIX

It is a long descent from the inspiring idealism of Virgil to the cool, tactical attempt of Augustus to revive the outward forms of the old religion. It seems strange that two men so different in character and upbringing should have been working in the same years in the same direction, yet on planes so far apart. How far the two were directly connected in their work we cannot know for certain. It is said that the subject of the Aeneid was suggested to Virgil by Augustus, and it is quite possible

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LECTURE XX CONCLUSION

LECTURE XX CONCLUSION

"A time of spiritual awakening, of a calling to higher destinies, came upon the world, the civilised world which lay around the Mediterranean Sea, at the beginning of our era. The calling was concentrated in the life and death of the Founder of Christianity." 956 The writer of these words goes on to point out that the beginning of our era was "a time of general stirring in all the higher fields of human activity," and that all such stirring, all that brings higher ideals before the minds of men

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APPENDIX I

APPENDIX I

This may be taken as an addendum to Lecture II. on taboo at Rome; but owing to the uncertainty of the explanation given in it, I reserved it for an Appendix. The custom here dealt with is found both in the public and private worship of the Romans, and also in Greece and elsewhere, but has never, so far as I know, been investigated by anthropologists. On the Ides of March, at the festival of Anna Perenna, a deity explained as representing "the ring of the year," whose cult is not recognised in th

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APPENDIX II

APPENDIX II

In the Archiv für Religionswissenschaft , 1910, p. 481 foll., Prof. Deubner has published an interesting study of this puzzling festival, to which I wish to invite attention, though it has reached me too late for use in my earlier lectures. It has long been clear to me that any attempt to explain the details of the Lupercalia on a single hypothesis must be a failure. If all the details belong to the same age and the same original festival, we cannot recover the key to the whole ceremonial, thoug

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APPENDIX III

APPENDIX III

The first paired deity mentioned by Gellius is Lua Saturni , also known as Lua Mater , of whom Dr. Frazer writes (p. 412), "In regard to Lua we know that she was spoken of as a mother, which makes it not improbable that she was also a wife." We are not surprised to find him claiming that because Vesta is addressed as Mater in the Acta Fratr. Arv. (Henzen, p. 147), that virgin deity was also married. This he does in his lectures on Kingship (p. 222), quoting Ennius and Lactantius as making Vesta

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APPENDIX IV

APPENDIX IV

In historical times the two kinds of ius , divinum and humanum , were strongly distinguished (see Wissowa, R.K. p. 318, who quotes Gaius ii. 2: "summa itaque rerum divisio in duos articulos diducitur, nam aliae sunt divini iuris, aliae humani"). But it is almost certain that there was originally no such clear distinction. The general opinion of historians of Roman law is thus expressed by Cuq ( Institutions juridiques des Romains , p. 54): "Le droit civil n'a eu d'abord qu'une portée fort restre

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APPENDIX V

APPENDIX V

There can be no doubt that some kind of worship was paid by the Arval Brethren to certain ollae , or primitive vessels of sun-baked clay used in their most ancient rites. This is attested by two inscriptions of different ages which are printed on pp. 26 and 27 of Henzen's Acta Fratrum Arvalium . After leaving their grove and entering the temple "in mensa sacrum fecerunt ollis "; and shortly afterwards, "in aedem intraverunt et ollas precati sunt ." Then, to our astonishment, we read that the doo

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SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME

SOCIAL LIFE AT ROME

TIMES. —"In a series of interesting and not overcrowded chapters it presents this age in its form and habit, as it lived and moved, its social and intellectual atmosphere and the material conditions which surrounded it.... There is not a dull page in the book." OXFORD MAGAZINE. —"A book which will be of the highest value to all who wish to gain an insight into the reality of life and character in the Rome of Cicero's day." ATHENÆUM. —"A very readable as well as learned monograph on an attractive

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THE ROMAN FESTIVALS

THE ROMAN FESTIVALS

SPECTATOR. —"This work is intended as an introduction to the study of the religion of the Romans, and a very faithful and accurate piece of work it is, as indeed might be expected by those who know Mr. Fowler's previous studies of ancient life." GUARDIAN. —"A delightful volume which will attract and interest any educated and thoughtful reader." ACADEMY. —"A book with which every student of Roman religion will have to make his account.... Alike as a storehouse of critically-sifted facts and as a

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GREEKS AND ROMANS

GREEKS AND ROMANS

TIMES. —"The purpose is excellent, and Mr. Warde Fowler executes it in a very skilful and scholarly fashion." CLASSICAL REVIEW. —"This little book is excellent both in design and in execution, and it supplies a want which has been much felt by those engaged in teaching ancient history.... A book which will have a most stimulating effect on the teaching of ancient history, and which ought to become familiar to every schoolboy and undergraduate." WESTMINSTER GAZETTE. —"It is impossible within any

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