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Chapter Twenty-TwoLecture One
Legends of Aeneas
Legends of Aeneas
• Greek myths developed later by the Romans
• They bring to them their own cultural heritage
• Romans had no creation account or divine myths
• Mostly Roman legend for national and social functions
Early Rome: Myth, Legend, History
Early Rome
• Rome was one of many small towns
• Earliest influences were Greek and Near Eastern by way of the Etruscans
• Rome first ruled by Etruscan kings
Early Rome
• Replaced in 500 by the “republic”– Patricians (senate)– Consuls (two-year terms of office)– Symbolism of the fasces
• Plebeians not in the government at first– Gradually acquire a role
• Legendary traditions justify the rule of the patricians
Early Rome
• Rome expanded greatly under its republic
• New duties of running an empire brought down the Republic and ended in the Roman Empire, with an emperor
Roman Religion
Roman Religion
• Latini arrive in 1500 BC
• Had different practices and attitudes from the Greeks whom we’ve studied
Numina and Sacrificium
Numina and Sacrificium
• Religion of the Latini had deities that weren’t anthropomorphic
• Theirs were the “nodders,” who inhabited certain functions of daily life
• Robigus/o– Fungus on grain
Numina and Sacrificium
• The Robigalia– Priest of the Quirinus (co + viri)– wine, incense, gut of a sheep, entrails of a
dirty, red dog . . .
• Sacrificium– do ut des– Carefully scripted rituals that had to be
observed– Appius Claudius Pulcher’s chickens
Numina and Sacrificium
• Potentially innumerable– First-Plower, Second-Plower, Maker-of-
Ridges-between-Furrows, Implanter . . .
• Some central to the state as a whole– Janus
• Some numina become identified with Greek deities and assume their myths
Roman Deities Equated with Greek
Roman/Greek Deities Equated
• Identification mostly poetic innovation
• Made by poets
• Pushed during the reign of the emperors for political reasons
Roman/Greek Deities Equated
RO/GK Original Roman Function
Jupiter/Zeus Sunny Sky/Rain
Juno/Hera Family/Moon
Diana/Artemis Spirit of the woods
Ceres/Demeter Wheat
Mercury/Hermes Not an original Roman numen
Neptune/Poseidon Waters
Roman/Greek Deities Equated
RO/GK Original Roman Function
Vulcan/Hephaestus Volcanoes; destructive fires
Mars/Ares Wolf; month of the beginning of the campaign season
Minerva/Athena Handicrafts
Liber/Dionysus “Freer”?; wine
Faunus/Pan Release from forest terror
Venus/Aphrodite Fresh water; vegetable fertility
Roman/Greek Deities Equated
RO/GK Original Roman Function
Hercules Heracles: Brought in as a foreign cult; no original Roman numen
Asculepius Asklepius: no original Roman numen
Proserpina Persephonê: no original Roman numen
Dis Hades: no original Roman numen
Hercules and the Meat Market
Hercules and the Meat Market
• Shows mixture of sources
• The Forum Boarium– Hercules passed through Rome with the cattle
of Geryon and freed Rome from the cattle-rustler Cacus
– Numerous honorific statues and buildings erected to him there
Gods of the Family and State
Gods of the Family and State
• Gods of the family weren’t absorbed by Greek deities– No Greek equivalent for them
• Lar (plural Lares)– Etruscan for a ghost– Of the fertile field first => of many places– Worshipped in shrines at crossroads– Family members in the shrines
Gods of the Family and State
• Penates– Protected a household’s things– Portable
• The gens– Paterfamilias– A man’s genius
• All of Rome a family– Vesta (Hestia)– Pietas
Gods of the Family and State
• “No doubt it was the native Roman predisposition to regard abstractions as divine that enabled them to transfer pious devotion from the head of a family to an invisible entity of great power, the Roman state. Greek religious anthropomorphism, by contrast, stood in the way of granting obedience to a divine abstraction, and the Greeks never did evolve a nation state.”
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