 | Culture of ancient Rome: Encyclopedia II - Culture of ancient Rome - Religion
Culture of ancient Rome - Religion
Main article: Roman religion
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 AD 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 Nicea 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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 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Religion", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
