by Horatius Piscinus on Sat Jan 25, 2003 8:34 pm
Salvete
DIVOS ET EOS, QUI CAELESTES SEMPER HABIT, COLUNTO ET OLLUS, QUOS ENDO CAELO MERITA LOCAVERINT, HERCULEM, LIBERUM, AESCULAPIUM, CASTOREM, POLLUCEM, QUIRINUM, AST OLLA, PROPTER QUAE DATUR HOMINI ASCENSUS IN CAELUM, MENTEM, VIRTUTEM, PIETATEM, FIDEM, EARUMQUE LAUDUM DELUBRA SUNTO, NE UNCULA VITIORUM.
May they worship as gods both those who have always been regarded as dwelling in the heavens, and also those whose deeds have merited their admittance into the heavens ? Hercules, Liber, Aesculapius, Castor, Pollux, Quirinus, and also those qualities through which men and women may themselves aspire to ascend into the heavens ? Intellect, Virtue, Piety, Faithfulness. In their praise may shrines be established, but none for the vices.
Pliny the Elder Hist. Nat. 2.14-16: To believe in either an infinite number of deities corresponding to the vices of men, as well as their virtues, like the goddesses of Chastity, Concord, Intelligence, Hope, Honour, Mercy, Faith, or like Democritus in only two, namely Punishment and Reward, plumbs an even greater depth of foolishness... Even the gods of the lower world, together with diseases and many kinds of plagues are listed in groups in our fearful anxiety to appease them. For this reason there is a Temple of Fever on the Palatine, dedicated by the State, one of Bereavement at the Temple of the Penates, and an altar of Bad Fortune on the Esquiline.
In De Natura Deorum II.61 Cicero has the Stoic Balbus say that the deification of Desire, Pleasure, and Sexual Joy are "vicious and unnatural forces, even if Velleius thinks otherwise, for these very vices rage too fiercely, and banish our natural instincts." Deification of Fever and Mala Fortuna he says was depraved (vitiosum). Then as the Platonist Cotta (Nat Deor. III.39-64), Cicero speaks of the "ignorance of the naive herd. Those simple souls" (with the) "beliefs of the ignorant" who deify practically anything. "Mind, Faith, Hope, Virtue, Honour, Victory, Safety, Concord, and other concepts of the same kind we must envision as in essence abstractions, not as gods; for they are either qualities that reside within us...or they are aims to which we aspire." They are "beneficial qualities," but not "divine powers." If Cicero could make such argument against deifying virtues and vices, and place those arguments in the mouth of Cotta who he identifies as a priest, then why would he propose such deities for his ideal religion?
"(This law) makes it clear that while the souls of men are immortal, those of good and brave men are divine. It is a good thing also that?in Rome temples have been dedicated by the State to all these qualities, the purpose being that those who possess them, and all good men do, should believe that the gods themselves are established within their own souls (DEOS IPSOS IN ANIMIS SUIS CONLOCATOS PUTENT)?And since the mind is encouraged by anticipation of good things, Calatinus was right in deifying Hope also (De Legibus II.xi, 27-8. See Tacitus Annales II.49 for the Temple of Hope dedicated by Aulus Atilius Calatinus)."
"Then too we have our Hercules, Aesculapius, the sons of Tyndareus (Castor and Pollux), and Romulus, who together with many others the common folk believe have been admitted into the heavens as newly enrolled citizens (Nat. Deor. III.39)." This other category of gods Cicero ties closely to the virtues, in that those "men who conferred outstanding benefits were translated to the heavens through their fame and our gratitude," since they exemplified the very virtues Cicero allowed should be personified as gods (Nat. Deor II.61). Cicero's Dream of Scipio is the very doctrine that all men and women can seek and attain godhood through virtue. However, in that treatise it is not personal virtues that attains the stars so much as civic virtues. This view is echoed perhaps by Pliny the Elder, "A god is man helping man; this is the way to everlasting glory...The apotheosis of such men is the oldest method of rewarding them for their good deeds (Hist. Nat. 2.18)." As the cynical Cotta though, Cicero says, "There are many communities in which the memory of brave men has clearly been hallowed by endowing them with the status of immortal gods. The purpose of this was to promote valour, so that the best citizens would more willingly confront danger on behalf of the State (Nat. Deor. III.50)." We might better understand today what Cicero describes as not being godhood so much as it is merely fame. In both categories, personified virtues and deified men, these are gods created by men. As Cotta, Cicero carries this further still, putting forth the theory that even the celestial gods were once deified men, or that they were invented by men as personification of natural forces, and that there were multiple Jupiters, multiple Venuses, and so forth, so that it becomes an argumentum ad absurdum that questions the existence of any gods. But Cotta concludes his argument by saying, "My purpose has not been to deny their existence, but to make you realize how hard it is to understand it, and how problematical are the explanations offered (III.93)."
At the end of the dialogue of De Natura Deorum Cicero concludes by saying his own views agree with the Stoic Balbus more than with Cotta. Of the three protagonists in the dialogue, it is Balbus that Cicero most closely follows in the De Legibus. We turn now to the remaining category of gods that Cicero proposes, those "who have always been regarded as dwelling in the heavens." Varro, quoting from Pontifex Maximus Mucius Scaevola, divided the theology of the Religio Romana into three types (Augustine De Civitate Dei VI.5). First is the "mythical" form exemplified among poets like Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. Cicero says of them, "These idiotic narratives induce idiotic beliefs; they are utterly unprofitable and frivolous (Nat. Deor. II.70)." Second was the "physical" or "natural" theology, "the subject of many books left to us by philosophers; there they discuss the identity of the gods, their location, their type and nature." Cicero's De Natura Deorum is just such a work, presenting the arguments of the Epicurians, Stoics, and Platonists. And there he asks whether the arguments and allegories offered by philosophers are any better than "the beliefs of the ignorant," when the philosophers "take such pleasure in rationalizing fables and in pursuing etymologies (III.40, 62)." Last among Varro was the "civil" theology, which is "that which citizens and especially priests in cities must know and put into practice. It tells us which gods are to be worshipped officially, and the rites and sacrifices appropriate to each."
For some, Cicero included, traditional forms of ritual, "guided by pontifical law and ancestral custom," was more important than the speculations of philosophers or the fables of poets. Yet they could not divorce the three "theologies" from one another. The intellectuals of Rome, and of Greece, pursuing an intellectual understanding of religion through allegorical stories, convoluted explanations, and formalistic ritual moved ever further away from the religious feeling that had been the basis of their respective traditions. In the end, what Cicero proposed for the Religio Romana would make valid Augustinus' criticism. "In the rituals of 'civil' theology, the role for the wisemen advocated by Seneca is to pretend to conformity in action while having no religious commitment. These are his words: the wiseman will observe all these customs as being fixed by law, not as being acceptable to the gods." Cicero's De Legibus, if you read the whole of it, is a political document, proposing to use religion as a means of controlling people for political ends. In the whole of Cicero's proposals on religion the objective is to divorce the people from direct contact with the gods, impose a political priesthood to pontificate on acceptable practices, and end religious conviction in private practices. Today we might say that he proposed to institutionalize the Religio Romana, controlling it from above rather than as the tradition had originally developed through evolution from below. There was no problem therefore later when another priesthood was imposed by an emperor, with a new philosophical explanation and a different tradition, to meet the political ends of the empire.
As the priest Cotta, Cicero wrote, "The religion of the Roman people in general has two separate aspects, its rituals and the auspices, to which a third element is added when, as a result of portents and prodigies, the interpreters of the Sibyl or the diviners offer prophetic advice (Nat. Deor. III.6)." Implicit in Cicero's division of the Religio Romana, and Varro's division of theology, and contrasting with the "officially" recognized rites of the state religion, there is a fourth form of the Religio Romana from which the others derive. I have already mentioned Ovid writing of such "plebeian" rites as the festum geniale on 15 March (Fasti 3.523 ff.). Virgil and Tibullus tell of the ambarvalia rites performed in the countryside, which was not part of the civic form of the Religio Romana. Among the philosophers is Seneca?s criticism of popular practices performed on the Capitolium (Augustine De Civ. Dei VI.10). In various records there is mentioned the practice of unofficial rites (Livy IV.30.9), and of the introduction of new rites into the civic religion that began first in popular practices (Livy V.13.5; Cicero Pro Balbo 55). Underneath the diversity, the tradition of the Religio Romana was essentially ecstatic rather than the staid, impersonal, and pompous form it took for Cicero. Numa was regarded as the founder of much of the cultus civile, and if we look at the stories told of Numa, he received some rites directly from the gods while in ecstasy or through incubation (Fasti 3.285-348; 4.641-673). Numa's counselor on religious matters was his wife Egeria, who was a nymph that he would meet in a sacred grove, we must presume, while in an ecstatic state (Ovid Fasti 3.275-6; Livy 1.21.3 ff). Groves of Faunus were used by others as well, where "the tribes of Italy and all the Oenotrian land in doubt seek answers...in wondrous wise, and divers voices hear...when suddenly a voice gave utterance from the forest depth (Virgil Aeneid VII.81-106)." Others, too, were recognized hearing the gods speak directly to them outside of rituals, whether individually as in the case of Aius Locatus or when Silvanius spoke to whole groups (Livy 2.7.2; 5.32.6-7 and 5.50.5). Certain individuals were recognized for their ecstatic gifts such as the Sibyl of Cumae, Marcius, and Attius Navius (Dio Hal. Rom Ant. IV.62; Cicero Div. 1.89; Livy 1.36.2-7). The rites of the Capitolium, where attendants to Jupiter "only mime the movements with their hands" and women attending Juno "move their fingers in the style of hairdressers," miming "at a distance away, not just from the statue but from the temple," for all the criticism made by Seneca, must be recognized as part of the cultus civile, and quite out of character from what Cicero poses (Augustinus Civ Deo. VI.10). Then, too, the criticism by Juvenal of women's rites, where through diverse means they evoked ecstatic states, must also be recognized as part of the cultus civile. Beneath such officially recognized expressions of worship were the popular cultus that included the rite of Tacita described by Ovid (Fasti 2.571-583), Cato's healing rite (De Agr. 160), and all the diverse practices mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Historia Naturales. Such superstiones as Cicero would call them were nonetheless the foundation on which the cultus civile rested.
Missing from the three types of gods Cicero proposes in this law of the De Legibus, are the gods of the culti geniale and of popular practices who were known as the Di inferi. Politicians creating abstract gods, poets inventing fables for the celestial gods, and philosophers forming convoluted explanations, really had little to do with the common practices of the Religio Romana. If you look at the rites of marriage, of child birth, of house blessing, of gentile augury as opposed to State augury, the gods who are invoked in each case is Pilumnus and Picumnus. If you look at Latin inscriptions in Italy, after Jupiter, the most common deities to whom dedications were made were Hercules and Fortuna. The images most commonly found in lararia, in addition to the Lares and Penates, are likewise Hercules and Fortuna (or the Tyche of the City in the eastern provinces if one looks at the examples from Antioch). To read Pliny the Elder commenting on how the Religio Romana manifested in his day one could get the impression that Fortuna was the most important deity. She was certainly one most commonly invoked as the Latin inscriptions show, yet little mentioned by poets or philosophers, and by few politicians.
Throughout the whole world, in all places and at all times, Fortuna alone is invoked, alone commended, alone accused and subjected to reproaches, deemed volatile and indeed, by most men, blind as well, wayward, capricious, fickle in Her favors and favouing the unworthy. To Her is debited all that is spent, and to Her is credited all that is received. She alone fills both pages in the ledgers of mortal's accounts (Pliny the Elder Hist. Nat. 2.22)
Cicero too comments, "Fortuna has the strongest claim to inclusion in this category of deities (Nat. Deor. III.61)." Appearing more frequently in Roman art than do the celestial gods, and mentioned in bucolic Roman poetry as the deities of rustic rituals, are the "demigods and fauns, nymphs, rustic numina, sylvans of the hills, satyrs; all these, unworthy of heavenly abodes," living on the earth in addition to the superior and lesser gods of the heavens (Ovid Metamorphoses 1.192-5, repeated at 6.392-5). These Cicero dismissed, "If nymphs are divine, then so are pans and satyrs, but pans and satyrs are not deities, so neither are nymphs. Yet temples have been vowed and dedicated to nymphs by the State, so it follows from this that the rest who have temples dedicated to them are not deities either (Nat. Deor. III.43)." There is quite a contrast here between Cicero's recognition of divinity in the souls of men (but then he did not for the souls of women), linked through virtues as divine qualities, to the celestial gods, and the theory of Chrysippus for the hierarchy of being in the universe. Cicero purports to support the argument of Balbus who he has voice Chrysippus' theory. Even there, though, he neglects the Di inferi as a link in the hierarchy of divine being between men and the celestial gods, instead saving them for Cotta to voice his argument of the Di inferi as the link that disproves the existence of the gods. In fact it was just such demigods who received the most attention in the popular form of the Religio Romana; they were the mediators between men and the celestial gods, just as Faunus and Egeria were between Numa and Jupiter.
Saturnus does not appear in any inscriptions in Rome, Juno is practically non-existant throughout Italy, and Mars, for all the importance one might expect of a god of war for a military empire, shrinks in size when compared to the number of dedications that were made to Silvanus. What is found instead, and to be expected in a mercantile empire such as Rome really represented, rather than Mars, Mercury is the most significant deity called upon throughout the empire. While an image of Minerva might be found in the private laraium of an emperor, there was no house, no matter how humble, no garden, no gateway, no roadside shrine that did not have its Priapus. From the examples offered by Pompeii, Roman houses were filled in every room with images of polyphallic Mercury and Priapus as charms to ward off evil spirits. There is a considerable discrepancy between the few scraps of texts that have survived and all the images, inscriptions, and other material evidence available to us, that show what was written by Cicero and in many of our other written sources does not reflect what was actually practiced in the Religio Romana or to whom worship was most often devoted. Further evidence of the void that existed between what was written and what was practiced may be what occurred after the imperial politicians adopted Christianity for their state religion. For all the laws issued to suppress the old culti deorum, and all the polemics offered by Christian priests, the people could not be persuaded to give up their traditional devotions for the next thousand years. Politicians could do as Cicero suggested, exchange one set of abstract gods for another, adopt or reject one set of saints and heroes for another, but they could not change the gods of Nature that people still directly experienced in their daily lives. Trying to redefine the Di inferi into demons and devils did not alter the fact that divinity still manifests itself in Nature. If anything else, the new 'theologies,' whether you want to speak of Cicero or the later Christians, tried to divorce men and women from Nature.
The traditional Religio Romana of the culti geniale and that instituted by Numa for the Roman people celebrated the direct relationship held between demigods, the Manes, and humans. Visiting the groves of Faunus for an incubation, consulting the auspices, drawing the sortes, or simply by paying attention to the signs of Nature around you, one was is direct communication with the gods without need of any priests. Music, dance, even the performance of work was made for the benefit of the gods, and in return men and women felt the beneficial presence of the gods in their lives. Men and women shared their meals and their bounty with the gods, spoke with the gods, walked with the gods, at every moment of their lives they were aware of the presence of the gods, the Lares, the ever present forces of Nature. Cicero's abstractions, and his religious form without religious commitment or conviction, imho is rather alien to the tradition of the Religio Romana. One can see in the prayers of Cato, recorded in the De Agricultura, where he speaks directly to the gods in order to directly receive their benefices for himself, his children and family, his house and household, his crops and farm animals. The same is true in the direct appeals made to the gods by the characters in the plays of Plautus. And then in the inscriptions found as dedications of altars, there is an immediacy, an interpersonal relationship between the gods and men and women, who ask for good health, for happy marriages, for children, for safe journeys and profitable enterprises, or else simply given in thanks for all they share in with the gods. Velleius was probably more correct to look upon Desire, Pleasure, and Sexual Joy as the virtues most commonly sought and that connected people directly with the gods, than were those civic virtues that Cicero would have us believe in. The tenor of the rites commonly practiced by the multitude was different from those of the cultus civile that Cicero addresses, and the very gods, demigods, sylvani, nymphs, Lares, Penates, and Manes to whom these rites were offered in a personal manner differ from the hollow abstractions alone that Cicero was willing to recognize in the pomp of the cultus civile.
Valete
Moravius Piscinus
M Horatius Piscinus
Sapere aude!