My family thinks I have the flu, and I probably won’t be at school for a while. Just when I thought that was dumb cough was going away, I got all weak and felt like I was going to fall over every time I stood up. My sore throat and stuffy nose are back too. I had a fever as well. It really sucks. I had to miss my brother’s Eagle Court of Honor today. I feel like crap… =(
This is so weird, because I never get sick! I haven’t missed a day of school for illness in ages, and here I am! =(
So anyway, the Romans were extremely tolerant people (excepting the cult of Cybele, as earlier discussed). Romans would commonly adopt other deities (also like with Cybele, but also Isis and Mithras among others). They would go as far as to worship the gods of the city they were about to conquer! It wasn't uncommon for people to even include the Christian God into their pantheons, either.
"There's a tombstone of a woman called Fasiria at the city of Makhtar in what is now Tunisia in North Africa. The Christian Chi-Rho symbol is clearly carved on the stone, but so also is the pagan DM for Dis Manibus ('To the Spirits of the Departed'), suggesting she believed in the Christian God but wasn't prepared to risk annoying the pagan gods."
- The Romans For Dummies
Fascinating! What’s even more interesting is that this was common. The idea of pagans including the Christian God was not so far-fetched as it may seem.
“Theoretically, Christianity was just another of the mystery cults [religious group with secret rites] because in its early form, and as far as the Roman were concerned, it was just anotherstrange cult from the East that promised eternal life to believers. In fact, until Christianity became the state religion, for many Romans the idea of Christ as another god to add to the list of the ones they already worshipped was a perfectly good one. The emperor Severus Alexander (222-235) kept a collection of statues of gods of all types, even the Christian God, in his apartment and worshipped them all. So it’s not surprising that some finds of early Christian worship show people apparently worshipping Christ in the old pagan way of making vows and leaving gifts…”
- The Romans For Dummies
I personally would find polytheism too pressing on my brain. Everyone knows all the big names, Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Venus, etc. But then there was also a swarm of minor divinities lurking in the background. There were three separate deities that had different duties in protecting Roman doors!
~ Forculus ….. the actual door
~ Cardea ….. for the hinges
~ Limentinus ….. for the threshold
Believe it or not, Rome had a god (known as a lares (household spirit)) for each and every crossroad in the city! That’s 265! How are you supposed to remember all those?!?!?! I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of goats and wine to sacrifice…
I would definitely believe that they’d love nothing more than to incorporate another god into their religion. But I can also see at the same time how Christian like nothing more than to have only one god’s name to remember. They’d make things a lot simpler! It would be so much more agreeable with you pocketbook as well! That wouldn’t require near as many goats and wine.
Oh, Romans For Dummies also presented this fascinating form of propaganda! But first you must know something about Roman coinage.
"Unlike today's coins, each denomination was issued in lots of versions with different reverses, depicting anything from an impressive sounding imperial virtue like libertas (liberty) to pictures of great new public buildings, or commemorations of victories. Other coins might have his wife's, son's, or even mother's portrait on the obverse [ha, ha, ha... I love that word!] instead of the emperor's own."
- The Romans For Dummies
It goes on to say that it became fashionable for emperors to even show the image of his preferred successor (this trend was started by Augustus) to get the public used to the idea. That's ingenious! It really goes to show how obsessed the emperors were with manipulating.
Theodosius I on a Roman coin -
1 comment:
For that second poll I had to say that it would be unacceptable to publicize using propaganda, because that distorts the perspective of what truly happened. I really can't agree with that, because it would redefine hypocritical. Not that that matters anyway, because I don't agree with the idea of distorting facts to start with.
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