Religio in Managing Empire Religio Augustus--First Roman Emperor –Pax Romana Fides –Patronage...

Religio in Managing Empire

• Religio

• Augustus--First Roman Emperor– Pax Romana

• Fides– Patronage System

• Pietas

• Socio-Economic/Socio-Political concerns in This Life

What Religio is Not!• Not Grace/Faith but Fides

• Not Morals/Ethics but Pietas

• Not Scriptural writings or theological treatises

– Jus Divinum

• Not Separation between Religion and State

• Not Individual Devotional Practice

• Not about this world and the next

• Not strict divide between human and divine

• Not universal, all pervasive idea of deity

• Not Personal, Private, but communal and public

• Not Belief, but Practice (Ritual)

Philosophy

• Stoicism

– Zeno (3rdc.bce) to Marcus Aurelius (2ndc ce)

– Self-Control– Autarkeia (self-sufficiency) – The Wise Man - ethics

Augustan Reforms--Pax RomanaPromoting Roman Pietas

• Reform Priesthoods– Pontifices (Pontifex Maximus)– Augures– Fetiales– Duoviri Sacris Faciundis

• (Sibylline Books)– Haruspices– Vestal Virgins

• Reform Temple Cult– Sacrificial Ritual and Socio-Economic Order

• Religio as Method Managing Empire– Institutionalizing religious traditions of conquest

Religio in Managing Empire

• Tolerance

• Syncretism

• Superstitio

• Religiones Lictae & Illictae

Rome and Foreign Cult:Examples of Uneasy Alliances

• Cult of Magna Mater– (Cybele, Phrygia)– 204BCE, 194 BCE

Rome and Foreign CultExample of Uneasy Alliances

• Cult of Bacchus – Greece (Dionysus)– Introduced in 3rd c.– Banished 187BCE

• Ecstatic Ritual

• Personal Redemption

• Oaths of loyalty

Rome and Foreign CultExample of Uneasy Alliances

• Isis Cult– Popular with women

and lower classes– Focus on afterlife– Power in this life

Rome and Foreign CultExample of Uneasy Alliances

• Judaism– Ancient Cult&Sacrificial Practices – Jewish Law and Moral Philosophy

– But also a Monotheism!!– Destruction of Temple (70ce)– Destruction of Jerusalem (132-135ce)