An idea and question

[Anonymous]

Hellenic Reconstructionists have the benefit of Drew Campbell's Old Stones, New Temples. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0738832014/qid=1040676236/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-7310431-4679111?v=glance&s=books

It's a modern and practical, "how to" approach on the basics of Hellenic Reconstructionism, not a scholarly treatise on esoteric or minute aspects of the Hellenic religion (though of course, the approach to the religion, like any good Recon, is grounded in scholarship). The text usually serves as a basic intro and resource manual to modern Hellenismos.

I was thinking The Religio could use such a book. The articles on this site and elsewhere are fine, but a book like the above on the Religio would not only be a handy resource for practitioners, but would serve admirably to inspire others to follow the Religio. I was wondering if any of the senior members of the College ever thought of writing something along these lines. I personally feel Roman Reconstructionism sorely needs some sort of widespread, standardized text in circulation, one that can be accessible to a broad segment of society.

[Anonymous]

I would very much appreciate such a book if it existed, in fact I am looking to buy books on the Religio Romana, but they are not so easy to find and I do not know any books on the matter.

[Horatius Piscinus]

Salve Mars Ultor

John Scheid' book An Introduction to Roman Religion is just that, an introduction. It does not go far by itself. There are somethings in it, at least in its English translation, that I do not agree with, or like how it was phrased, so I think it would be best used with someone lending instruction along with reading the book.

The book I usually recommend is Religions of Rome by Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price, 1998. This comes in two volumes, with the second volume being a valuable source book.
An excellent book for its insight into the Religio Romana is Robert Turcan, trans Antonia Nevill, The Gods of Ancient Rome, 2001. Turcan does pay lip-service to Dumezil's theories on the religio, which I won't hold against him even though I am adamantly against the infection of Dumezilism. Turcan's insight is the best I have seen in any author.

Two older books to consider are Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, H. H. Scullard, 1981, and The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, W. W. Fowler, 1899. Both of these books are very dated in their over all views. Scullard supports Dumezil's ideas, Fowler has some of the still older views. Both though have much information on the Religio Romana that is beyond the mere overview. After that you beginning going into the primary and secondary sources of Latin authors themselves.

Vale optime

[Anonymous]

Salve!

Thanks for your book recommendations, I saved your post in a Notepad file to check the books you mentioned later on.

I have a question:
I have heard of Georges Dumezil and I would like to know what do you know about him and what is wrong with what he asserts?

[Horatius Piscinus]

Salve

You cannot study the Religio Romana today without running into people repeating Rose's ridiculous ideas of the Romans being primitive and having no concepts of gods before the arrival of Greeks, other than as numina, and then the references to Dumezil's theories on archaic Roman religion based on his concepts of Indo-European society. Nothing in Rome ever fit into Dumezil's ideas on IE society. It was not organized into three distinct social groups either by ethnicity or by function. In fact it was the very opposite to that Dumezil posed for IE society [modelled after the Indian caste system]. But since Latin is catagorized by modern linguists as an IE language, Dumezil had to show that Rome too fit into his self defined pattern. Not finding it anywhere in the Roman record, its institutions, traditions or the mos maiorum, Dumezil then claimed that evidence for an archaic Rome of an IE nature lay hidden in the texts of Latin authors. He tried to use the words of Latin authors to prove that he knew more about the Religio Romana than did the Romans themselve, through comparing Roman myths and institutions to those of Norse, Celtic and Indian societies. The fact of the matter was that many of what myths Dumezil claimed were Roman do not appear anywhere in the Roman record. While he picked and chose different parts of Roman record to suit his theories, he ignored everything else that would disprove his theory. Then he projected things back to an earlier time to create a form of archaic Roman religion that NEVER existed.

Well, I can go on and on about Dumezil, and his followers. Dumezil is still respected among linguists. Archaeologists never accepted his theories, and most of todays historians of Rome in Italy, the UK and other English speaking countries, US included, and then in Germany too, reject Dumezil's ideas completely. In France there is still some respect for a fellow countryman, but even there his influence is waning among French historians. Momigliano wrote "My objection to Dumezil's view... is not only that his evidence is weak, but that his theories are unnecessary. Nothing is explained in Roman history if we believe that in a prehistoric past Roman society was governed by a rigorous separation of priests, warriors and producers. The fundamental fact of Roman society remains that warriors and producers and priests were NOT spearate elements of the citizenship" That was true in historical Rome and there is no archaeological evidence of the earlier periods to show otherwise. No amount of analogous examples, or wiccan-like arguments can alter that fact. Trying to use myths of other cultures from distant lands, written down centuries later, has absolutely nothing to do with Rome . Dumezil's methodology I find now being used in German universities as the primary example of fallacious thinking, of how not to write history. I compare his methodology to that of Eric von Daniken, which some Dumezilists do not appreciate, but that is a fact too.

Dumezil's book Archaic Roman Religion is not to be disgarded entirely. I do not think a beginner should read Dumezil's book because it is so filled with faulty reasoning, and misrepresentations, poorly drawn conclusions and just outright falsehoods. Dumezil began with a theory he wanted to prove, and then tried to fit the evidence to his need. That in itself is a wrong approach in any inquiry, and it led to Dumezil making many errors because he saw only what he wanted to see, like van Daniken. But there is also a valuable analysis by Dumezil when he compares the remains of Roman evidence to that of other contemporary Italian cultures. It is only where Dumezil goes beyond Rome to attempt proving his grandiose theories on IE society that he goes afoul. So there is much useful information to be gleaned from Dumezil's books. I think you need a good background in Roman history, as even Dumezil admitted he did not have, before you try to read what he says.

The controversy about Dumezil and his theories are laid out in T. J. Cornell's The Beginnings of Rome, 1995. Cornell, Mary Beard, John North, Michael Crawford, that is your leading English historians on Rome at Cambridge, Oxford, and University College London, and then all of your leading Italian archaeologists (mostly students of Momigliano anyway) have laid out the argument against Dumezil's theories and methodology far better than I can. Myself being educated as an historian, and having an interest in archaeology, and as one who relies on Italian sources for the latest information on Roman archaeology, I tend to side with the historians and archaeologists against linguists, eclectics, and a few other uninformed people. My advise is that before reading Dumezil one should first attain a knowledge of Rome and of the Religio Romana as it was recorded in historical times.

Vale

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the information, I am glad to find well-informed people at this Forum. I am highly interested in the common Indo-European past and thus I was inclined to inquire into Georges Dumezil's works. A North Indian had suggested a book by him which suggested the correlation between the various Indo-European Religions and that sounded highly interesting. I forgot the name of the book and I cannot find any file containing the name on my PC.

People make the mistake of believing what they want to believe many times and they back up their beliefs with faith and myths at times, perhaps Dumezil fell into this trap.