Main part
Mythology of ancient Rome
Main part
Mythology of ancient Rome
Introduction.
A myth is a legend, a legend of a special kind. In its briefest form, its main feature is expressed in the following definition: a myth is a fiction accepted as truth. People who accept myth as truth cannot see it as fiction; and those who consider myth to be fiction cannot accept it as truth. This means that a myth is truth for some people and fiction for others.
Mythology acts not just as a collection of myths, but also as a cultural form (“form of social consciousness”) in which people perceive and realize the world, capture the life experience they have accumulated, preserve and pass it on from generation to generation.
Roman religion and mythology were subordinated to politics, the moral principles of Rome and civic duty. Citizens should not have doubts about the structure of their lives and the difference between classes. All rulers are chosen by the gods, heroes and sons of the gods. Therefore, they are closer to the celestials, and they know better what life should be like. Many myths and legends Ancient Rome glorified heroism, were epic. And the heroes, of course, were mostly emperors.
It should be noted that if among the Greeks religion had a divine meaning, then among the Romans the gods were an integral part of everyday life. They were necessary for plowing the land, sowing, successful germination, rich harvest, etc. The gods each patronized a certain type of activity among people, certain natural phenomena and needed sacrifices. In other words, rituals and cult occupied a central place in the religion of the ancient Romans. This could not but affect myths and legends.
"Roman Myth".
Roman mythology is a body of traditional stories relating to the legendary origins of Ancient Rome and its religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. The term "Roman mythology" can also refer to the modern study of these ideas, as well as material from other cultures of any period that examines Roman literature and art.
The Romans generally treated these traditional narratives as historical, even if they contained miracles or elements of the supernatural. The narratives often deal with politics and morality and how an individual's personal integrity relates to his responsibility to society and the Roman state. An important theme is heroism. When the narrative concerned Roman religious practice, it was more concerned with ritual, divination, and social institutions than with theology or cosmogony.
The study of Roman religion and myths is complicated by the early influence of Greek religion on the Apennine Peninsula during the protohistoric period of Roman history, and later by the artistic imitation of Greek literary models by Roman authors. The Romans curiously sought to identify their own gods with the Greek ones, and reinterpreted the stories of the Greek deities under the names of their Roman counterparts. Early Roman myths and legends also have dynamic intertwinings with Etruscan religion, which is less documented than Greek.
While Roman mythology may lack as much of a divine narrative as Greek literature, the image of Romulus and Remus suckling a she-wolf is as famous as any image from Greek mythology, except for the Trojan horse. Because Latin literature was more widely known in Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Romans' interpretations of Greek myths often had a greater influence on pictorial representations of "classical mythology" than did Greek sources. In particular, the versions of Greek myths in Ovid's Metamorphoses, written during the reign of Augustus, came to be regarded as canonical.
The character of the Roman myth.
Because ritual plays a central role in Roman religion, as well as in the myths created by the Greeks, it is sometimes doubted that much of Roman myth is of original Roman origin. This perception is a product of 19th-century Romanticism and classical studies, which regarded Greek civilization as more “credibly creative.” But from the Renaissance to the 18th century, Roman myths were part of the inspiration for European painting. Roman traditions are especially rich in historical myths or legends concerning the founding and rise of the city. These narratives focus on a human figure in whose life there are only occasional divine interventions, but an all-pervading sense of divinity always accompanies his fate. In the early period of Rome, history and myth have a mutual and complementary relationship. As T. P. Wiseman notes:
Roman history still matters as much as it did to Dante in 1300, Shakespeare in 1600, and the Founding Fathers of the United States in 1776. What does it take to be a free citizen? Can a superpower also be a republic? How does well-meaning power turn into murderous tyranny?
The main sources of Roman myths are Virgil's Aeneid. And the first few books of the history of Libya. Other important sources are Ovid's Fastas, a six-part book of poems structured according to the Roman religious calendar, and Propertius's fourth book of elegies. Scenes from Roman myth also appear in Roman wall paintings, on coins and in sculpture, particularly reliefs.
Divine storytelling played a more important role in the Greek system of religious belief than among the Romans, for whom ritual and cult were primary. Although the Roman religion was not based on holy scripture and his interpretation, priestly literature was one of the earliest written forms of Latin prose. The books (Libri) and commentaries (Commentarii) of the college of pontiffs and augurs contained religious procedures, prayers, decrees and opinions on points of religious law. Although at least some of this material was available for consultation by the Roman Senate, it was often an occultum genus litterarum, an arcane form of literature to which only the priests had access. Prophecies relating to world history and the fate of Rome, appearing at critical moments in history, were unexpectedly discovered in the obscure books of the Sibyls, which, according to legend, were acquired by Tarquin the Proud at the end of the 6th century BC from the Cuman Sibyls. Some aspects of archaic Roman religion were recorded in the lost theological works of a 1st century BC scholar. e. Mark Terence Varro, and are now known from the works of other classical and Christian authors.
The Roman pantheon has many analogues greek gods and goddesses, have their own deities and lower spirits. Particularly revered gods were called “fathers” (“patres”), the lower ones were called “famuli divi” and “virgines divi”. Divine law (“fas”) was not confused with human law (“ius”). Lower deities (“numina”) existed among the Romans apparently already in an early era. The Greek books “Indigitaments” list the deities of sowing, seed germination, flowering and ripening, harvesting ears of grain, marriage, conception, development of the embryo, birth of a child, his first cry, going for a walk, returning home, etc., in connection with which initially, for some, the gender was not fixed (cf. Pales, Fawn - Fawn, Pomona - Pomon, etc.). From the mass of numinas, the triad of the Roman pantheon stood out - Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, reflecting the threefold nature of civil functions - respectively religious-priestly, military and economic. From the calendar of holidays attributed to Numa Pompilius and the list of flamines assigned to them, from the references to ancient sanctuaries, it is known about the existence of the cults of Vulcan, Palatua, Furrina, Flora, Carmenta, Ceres, Pomona, Volupia, etc. Around the same time, the colleges of Luperci and Salii were doubled. Class cults appeared (Neptune and Dioscuri among the patricians, Ceres and Liber among the plebeians) and individual family cults (among the Cornelii, Emilians, Claudii and possibly others), grouped around Vesta, Lares and Penates. There were also cults of rural communities.
First generation - gods borrowed from Greek religion (according to Hyginus)
Children of Chaos:
Erebus (Darkness)
Knox (Night)
Etar (Light)
Diez (Day)
Children of Etar and Diez:
Tellus/Terra (Earth)
Tartarrus (Abyss)
Cupid (Love)
Tempus (Time)
Children of Chaos and Tellus:
Uranus (Sky)
Mar (Sea)
Second generation of deities:
Children of Uranus and Tellus - titans:
Hyperion
Justice
Children Mara and Tellus:
Eurybia
Taumanthus
Turscivers
Third generation
Jupiter Optimus Maximus (god of thunder and lightning)
The gods were listed by the poet Quintus Ennius at the end of the 3rd century BC, with reference to an unknown Greek poet
Third generation
The main (Olympic) gods are the children of Saturn and Ops
Jupiter Optimus Maximus (god of thunder and lightning)
Juno the Mentor (goddess of family and marriage)
Neptune (god of the seas and oceans)
Ceres (goddess of fertility and agriculture)
Vesta (goddess of quiet fire, home comfort and family traditions)
Pluto/Dispater (god of wealth, lord of the dead and death)
The gods were listed by the poet Quintus Ennius at the end of the 3rd century BC, with reference to an unknown Greek poet
Fourth generation (children of Jupiter)
Vulcan (god of fire, son of Jupiter and Juno)
Mars (god of war and power, son of Jupiter and Juno)
Bacchus/Bacchus (god of wine, son of Jupiter and Libera)
Mercury (god of travelers, merchants and thieves, son of Jupiter and the Pleiades of Maya)
Minerva (goddess of wisdom and science, daughter of Jupiter and Metis)
Diana (goddess of hunting and war, daughter of Jupiter and Latona)
Phoebus (god of hunting and poetry, eldest son of Jupiter and Latona)
Venus (goddess of love, marriage and passion, youngest adopted daughter of Jupiter and Juno; child from the body of the dying Uranus-Sky)
Borrowed Gods:
The absorption of neighboring local gods occurred constantly as the Roman state conquered surrounding territories. The Romans usually gave the same honors to the local gods of the conquered territory as to the gods of the Roman one. state religion. In addition to Castor and Pollux, the conquered settlements of Italy contributed to the Roman pantheon in the form of Diana, Minerva, Hercules, Venus and lesser deities, some of which were Italic deities, others originally derived from Greek culture Magna Graecia. In 203 BC. the cult object representing Cybele was brought from the city of Pessinus in Phrygia and was welcomed with due ceremony to Rome, many centuries before its territory was annexed to Rome. Two poets of the era, Lucretius and Catullus, expressed disapproval of her wild, ecstatic cult in the mid-first century BC.
In some cases, deities of enemies of power were formally invited to undergo the ritual of evocation in order to take their place in new sanctuaries in Rome.
Communities of foreigners (peregrines) and former slaves (libertines) continued their religious practices within the city. Mithras arrived in Rome in this way, and his popularity in the Roman army spread his cult to places as far away as Roman Britain. Important Roman deities were eventually identified with the anthropomorphic Greek gods and goddesses, and many of their attributes and myths were adopted with them.
Conclusion.
In general, the Romans borrowed gods not only from the Greeks, but also from all the peoples they conquered. They revered foreign gods as well as their own. The culture of Ancient Rome was intertwined with the achievements of other peoples. It cannot be said that the Romans blindly copied other people’s legends in their works. Much was processed, some were brought to perfection and surpassed in beauty the original sources.
Reading the myths and legends of Ancient Rome is no less interesting than fairy tales. Moreover, many of them are still pearls of literary art, on the creation of which many of the greatest ancient Roman poets spent many years. For example, Virgil wrote the Aeneid for 10 long years.
On the mythology and religion of the Romans big influence were provided by neighboring peoples - the Etruscans and Greeks. But at the same time, the legends and myths of ancient Rome have their own identity.
The Origins of Roman Mythology
The date of the emergence of the religion of ancient Rome is difficult to determine. It is known that at the end of the 2nd - beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. There was a migration of Italics (the so-called peoples who inhabited it before the formation of the Roman state), who settled throughout Italy for several centuries and then assimilated with the Romans. They had their own culture and religion.
In 753 BC, according to legend, Rome was founded. From the 8th to the 6th centuries. BC e. The tsarist period lasted, when the foundations of the social, state and religious life empires. The official pantheon of gods and the myths of ancient Rome took shape around this period. Although it should immediately be noted that with the conquest of new territories by the Romans, they willingly included foreign gods and heroes into their mythology and religion, so the list of deities and legends was constantly updated.
Distinctive features of the religion of ancient Rome
As in Greece, there was no strict organization of doctrine. The gods and myths of ancient Rome were partly borrowed from neighboring countries. The difference between the Roman religion and the Greek religion was significant.
If for the Greeks a deity is, first of all, a person with his own, completely human, character traits, then the Romans never imagined gods as anthropomorphic creatures. At the very beginning of the formation of their religion, they could not even name their gender. The Greeks presented their pantheon divine powers like a large family in which scandals and disagreements constantly occur between relatives. For the Greeks, gods are individuals endowed with supernatural powers and possessing ideal qualities. Therefore, an aura of myths was created around them.
The Romans' attitude towards deities was different. The world in their view was inhabited by entities hostile or favorable to the world of people. They are everywhere and constantly accompany a person. The myths of ancient Rome say that before growing up, a young man or girl was under the protection of a large number of divine entities. It was the god of the cradle, first steps, hope, sanity and others. As he grew older, some deities left a person, while others, on the contrary, took him under their wing - these are the six gods of marriage, luck and health, and wealth. The dying man was accompanied to last way the same number of higher beings as at birth: depriving of light, taking away the soul, bringing death.
Another one distinguishing feature Roman religion - its close connection with the state. Initially, all religious rituals associated with the life of the family were performed by its head, the father. Later, many family and tribal celebrations acquired national significance and turned into official events.
The position of the priests was also different. If in ancient Greece they were identified as a separate group of the population, then among the Romans they were civil servants. There were several priestly colleges: vestals, pontiffs and augurs.
The religion and ancient myths of Rome were of a mixed nature. The basis is the original Roman deities. The pantheon of gods included borrowed characters from Greek and Etruscan religion and personified concepts that appeared much later. These include, for example, Fortuna - happiness.
Pantheon of Roman Gods
The Romans originally had special treatment to the gods. They weren't related family relations, like Greek deities, there were no myths about them. For a long time they refused to give their gods character traits and appearance. Some of the legends about them were eventually borrowed from the Greeks.
The ancient myths of Rome indicate that the list of Roman gods was very extensive. This included Chaos, Tempus, Cupid, Saturn, Uranus, Ocean and other deities, as well as their children - the Titans.
The third and fourth generations became the main ones in the pantheon and were represented by 12 gods. They are brought into line with the Olympians of the Greeks. Jupiter (Zeus) is the personification of thunder and lightning, Juno (Hera) is his wife and patroness of family and marriage, Ceres (Demeter) is the goddess of fertility. Minerva and Juno were borrowed from Etruscan religion.
The Roman pantheon also included personified creatures who became gods:
Victoria - Victory;
Fatum - Fate;
Libertas - Freedom;
Psyche - Soul;
Mania - Madness;
Fortune - Luck;
Yuventa - Youth.
Most important for the Romans they had agricultural and tribal deities.
Influence of Greek mythology
The myths of ancient Greece and Rome are very similar, since the Romans learned a lot about the gods from their close neighbor. The borrowing process begins at the end of the 6th - beginning of the 5th centuries. The opinion that the 12 main deities of Olympus were taken by Rome and given new names is completely erroneous. Jupiter, Vulcan, Vesta, Mars, Saturn are originally Roman deities, later correlated with Greek ones. The first gods borrowed from the Greeks were Apollo and Dionysus. In addition, the Romans included Hercules and Hermes in their pantheon, as well as the Greek gods and Titans of the first and second generations.
The Romans had many deities, which they themselves divided into old and new. Later they created their own pantheon of main gods, taking as a basis the host of Greek higher powers.
Myths of ancient Rome: summary. Gods and heroes
Since the mythological imagination of the Romans was poor, they adopted many tales from the Greeks. But there were also original Roman myths, which were later supplanted by Greek ones. These include the story of the creation of the world by the god Janus.
He was an ancient Latin deity, the gatekeeper of Heaven, the personification of the sun and beginning. He was considered the god of gates and doors and was depicted as having two faces, since it was believed that one face of Janus was turned to the future, and the other to the past.
The servants took pity on the babies and put them in a trough, which they set sail along the river. The water that stood high in it sank and the trough landed on the shore under the fig tree. A she-wolf who lived nearby with her brood heard the cries of the children and began to feed the babies. The shepherd Favstul once saw this sight and took the children to his home.
When they grew up, their adoptive parents told the brothers about their origins. Romulus and Remus went to Numitor, who immediately recognized them. Having gathered a small detachment with his help, the brothers killed Amulius and declared their grandfather king. As a reward, they asked for land along the banks of the Tiber, where they found their salvation. There it was decided to lay the capital of the future kingdom. During a dispute over whose name she would bear, Remus was killed by Romulus.
Heroes of Roman myths
Most legends, except those borrowed from the Greeks, tell about characters who performed feats or sacrificed themselves for the sake of the prosperity of Rome. These are Romulus and Remus, the brothers Horatii, Lucius Junius, Mucius Scaevola and many others. Roman religion was subordinated to the state and civic duty. Many myths were epic and glorified heroic emperors.
Aeneas
Aeneas is the founder of the Roman state. The son of the goddess Aphrodite, Hector's friend, the hero - the young prince fled with his little son and father after the fall of Troy and ended up in an unknown country where the Latins lived. He married Lavinia, the daughter of the local king Latin, and together with him began to rule the Italian lands. The descendants of Aeneas, Romulus and Remus, became the founders of Rome.
Myths of ancient Rome for children - the best books for young readers
Despite the abundance of books, it is difficult to find decent literature on the study of the myths of ancient peoples. What stands out here is a work that was created exactly 100 years ago and is still a standard. N. A. Kuhn “Myths of Ancient Rome and Greece” - knows this book great amount readers. It was written in 1914 specifically for school students and all connoisseurs of the mythology of ancient peoples. The collection of myths is written in a very simple and at the same time lively language, and is perfect for a children's audience.
A. A. Neihardt compiled an interesting collection “Legends and Tales of Ancient Rome,” which provides concise information on Roman gods and heroes.
Conclusion
Thanks to the fact that the Romans borrowed Greek gods and myths, these legends have survived to this day. Building on them works of art, ancient Roman authors preserved for posterity all the beauty and epicness of Greek and Roman mythology. Virgil created the epic "Aeneid", Ovid wrote "Metamorphoses" and "Fasti". Thanks to their efforts modern man now has the opportunity to find out about religious ideas and the gods of two great ancient states - Greece and Rome.
About Roman mythology
Before we begin the story about Roman myths, we should say a few words about the essence of ancient Roman mythology as such. We often perceive Roman mythology as borrowed from the Greeks, which is hardly true. In fact, the ancient Roman religion is very original and all the Greek influence on it is rather late, although impressive. The Roman pantheon is extremely vast and complex in its composition and the functions of the deities included in it, while various aspects of beliefs permeated all spheres of life of the ancient Romans.
The Roman religion developed over many centuries as the Roman state grew - from a small city to a huge empire. Let's try to briefly and superficially understand various aspects of the formation of the classical Roman pantheon - the one with which we are all most likely familiar from Greek mythology.
The most ancient objects of religious veneration among the Romans were spirits - the patrons of the family, whose cult is older than the city of Rome itself. The Romans themselves believed that the veneration of these spirits came to Rome from Lavinium and Alba Longa, the more ancient cities of Italy. Such patron spirits include manas - the shadows of the dead, protecting their family after death, household deities penates and lares. Penates, Lares and Manes did not have their own names, were not personified and were revered by the Romans as a kind of nameless multitude. They will be discussed in more detail in the relevant sections.
The cult of the patrons of the clan had, of course, a private, family character. Often the patron of the clan was a certain legendary ancestor, for example, the Yuliev clan honored Yul, the son of Aeneas, in this capacity. As the state formed and the clan organization lost its significance, some clan gods began to be revered within the entire state, changing the functions attributed to them. There is an opinion, for example, that the cult of Faun, the cheerful god - patron of shepherds, originally belonged to the families of the Fabii and Quinctilians.
Like most ancient peoples known to us, the Romans also deified streams and springs. Like the Penates and Lares, these forces were represented by the Romans as a nameless multitude of spirits. The Romans revered a group of such water spirits under the name “stones.” The legendary Roman king Numa Pompilius dedicated a spring in Rome to the stones; small bronze chapels were built in their honor in the groves, where water and milk were sacrificed. Their analogues, in some way, were the Greek nymphs, and subsequently the stones were identified with the Greek muses, goddesses of the arts and sciences.
The most important starting point for the formation of the classical Roman pantheon are the so-called agrarian cults: rituals and beliefs associated with agriculture and cattle breeding. Many of the most important gods of the Roman pantheon, who received other functions in the future, trace their origins precisely to agrarian cults. For example, Mars, the god of war in the classical era, in ancient times was considered the god of fertilization, the patron saint of agriculture and cattle breeding; Venus, later identified with the Greek Aphrodite and transformed into the goddess of love and beauty, was originally the deity of gardening and viticulture.
To a large extent, the complex composition of the Roman pantheon was generated by the diversity of groups that made up the Roman community: it included Latin, Sabine and Etruscan tribes. Each tribe, each clan brought their own deities into the Roman pantheon. Over time, the Roman state grew, and when its territory included new lands, the Roman pantheon acquired new gods from all over Italy.
It should be noted that ancient Roman mythology, in comparison with Greek, is rather poor in vivid images of gods and memorable myths about their deeds. We have already mentioned the veneration of nameless multitudes of spirits; cults of such deities as Peace, Hope, Valor, and Justice were also common. These abstract concepts were practically impersonal; they could not even be considered real personifications. Nevertheless, sacrifices were made in their honor and temples were built.
It is curious that some of the ancient Roman gods did not have a specific gender, for example ancient deity shepherds Pales is mentioned as both a god and a goddess. Often the priests themselves were not sure which gender the deity belonged to, and addressed him “sive deus, sive dea” - “either a god or a goddess.”
Roman rites were just as stingy and formal. The veneration of the gods was reduced to performing clearly regulated actions and pronouncing legal formulas. The most terrible thing was the deviation from the verified ritual, which promised divine punishment. In his prayers, the Roman listed in detail what he wanted to receive from God and what he was ready to give him in return. Often such punctuality in relationships came down to the art of deceiving God so as not to give him anything extra, for example, instead of how many heads (of cattle), the Roman offered God the same number of heads of garlic and put himself in the calculations with higher powers.
The ancient Roman religion, dry and practical, turned out to be very susceptible to the influence of the Greeks with their vivid poetic myths and complex relationships between the gods, each of which had its own history and distinct character. The earliest influence on the Romans came through the Greek colonies on the west coast of Italy: Cumae and Naples. Then the god Apollo and Hercules, a deified hero, who, by virtue of consonance, united with the Roman Hercules and became first the national patron of war, and then of trade, came to the Romans.
The Greeks had a serious influence on the Roman religion even after the subjugation of the Greek colonies in Southern Italy to Rome; this influence increased even more after the conquest of Greece itself in the 2nd century BC. e. Gradually, the Romans adopted the rich Greek mythology and transferred it to their gods. This is how the syncretic Greco-Roman pantheon emerged, and the believers themselves ceased to distinguish between the origins of the gods.
The Roman poet Ennius writes about the twelve main gods of Ancient Rome, in many ways similar to the ancient Greek Olympian pantheon. Together these deities formed the council of Jupiter and were responsible for maintaining world order. Here they are:
Jupiter (Zeus among the Greeks) is the god of the sky, thunder and lightning, the father of the gods, the supreme deity of the Roman pantheon;
Neptune (Poseidon among the Greeks) is the god of the seas;
Vulcan (among the Greeks Hephaestus) is the god of fire and blacksmithing;
Apollo - god of light, sciences and arts;
Mercury (Hermes among the Greeks) is the god of trade;
Mars (Greeks Ares) - god of war;
Juno (among the Greeks Hera) - goddess of marriage, wife of Jupiter;
Minerva (Athena among the Greeks) is the goddess of wisdom and crafts;
Ceres (Demeter among the Greeks) is the goddess of fertility;
Venus (Aphrodite among the Greeks) is the goddess of love and beauty;
Vesta (Hestia among the Greeks) is the goddess of the family hearth;
Diana (Greeks Artemis) is the goddess of the hunt.
They were called dii consentes, advisory gods. Subsequently, eight more gods were added to them: Janus, Saturn (for the Greeks Kronos), Genius, Pluto (for the Greeks Hades), Liber the Father, Earth, Sun and Moon. Collectively they were called dii magni, the great gods. There were also a huge number of different dii minores, minor gods.
Most of the Roman myths about the great and lesser gods are identical to the Greek ones. We see no need to retell them in this book and recommend that the interested reader turn to works on Greek mythology for them. Our goal in this chapter is to acquaint the reader with specific Roman beliefs and myths that have no analogues among the Greeks, as well as the characteristic features of Roman religious holidays and superstitions.
From the book Sex Life in Ancient Greece by Licht Hans by Werner Edward From the book Myths and Legends of China by Werner Edward From the book Myths and Legends of China by Werner Edward From the book New chronology and concept ancient history Rus', England and Rome authorChapter 12. Parallels between English history and Byzantine-Roman history. The English Empire is the direct successor of the Byzantine-Roman Empire. A rough comparison of the dynastic flows of England and Rome-Byzantium. As we already know, the ancient English chronicles claim that
From the book From Scythia to India [Ancient Aryans: Myths and History] author Bongard-Levin Grigory Maksimovich“BLESSED ABUSE” IN IRANIAN MYTHOLOGY “On the luminous High Hara there is neither night, nor darkness, nor cold wind, nor hot wind, nor destructive diseases, nor the defilement created by the daivas, and no fog rises from the High Hara” - this is how it is told in the Avestan hymns to the gods
From the book Forbidden Rurik. The truth about the “calling of the Varangians” author Burovsky Andrey MikhailovichFrom mythology to science In ancient Greece, three graves of Hercules were shown at once. In Rus' there are three graves of Ilya Muromets at once, and this did not bother anyone. For a long time, no one asked a simple question: why did Hercules alone or Ilya Muromets need so many graves?! But sooner or later
From the book Medieval chronologists “lengthened history.” Mathematics in history author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich7. Correspondence between Roman history of the 1st–6th centuries AD. e. (Roman Empires II and III) and the Holy Roman Empire of the 10th–13th centuries (Hohenstaufen Empire) SECULAR HISTORY Let us continue the description of repetitions in Scaligerian history, due to the shift by 1053. Action of the detected
From the book Myths and facts of Russian history [From the hard times of the Troubles to the empire of Peter I] author Reznikov Kirill Yurievich6.7. PETER I IN THE SOVIET PATRIOTIC MYTHOLOGY Peter, Stalin and “Comrade Count”. Attitudes towards Peter changed dramatically in the first half of the 1930s. If in the 1920s. The Bolsheviks denied continuity between the Soviet Union and Tsarist Russia, but now Stalin saw such a connection
author Byshok Stanislav Olegovich6.2. Fundamentals of social-national mythology Mythology plays a significant role in the organization and subsequent activities of any real party, which is something more than a business or PR project. This is the foundation on which all other parts of the party structure are built,
From the book The Illusion of Freedom [Where the new Banderaites are leading Ukraine] author Byshok Stanislav Olegovich11.11. OUN, UPA and the development of nationalist mythology On January 1, 2013, Ukrainian nationalists celebrated the anniversary of the birth of the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) Stepan Bandera. According to tradition, a torchlight procession was organized, in which people took part
author From the book History of World Religions author Gorelov Anatoly Alekseevich From the book Beliefs of Pre-Christian Europe author Martyanov Andrey author Team of authors From the book Comparative Theology. Book 2 author Team of authorsThe origin of ancient mythology To complete the presentation of the issue, let us briefly compare the myths about the origin of the world among the Greeks and in the Jewish Torah. The first book of Deuteronomy “Genesis” begins algorithmically similar to the Greek creation (the latter is given by us in the subchapter
In the middle of the 3rd century. BC e., when the Greeks had their classical literature behind them, and the Hellenistic one had already reached its highest peak, in the western part of the Mediterranean, in Italy, a second literature began to develop ancient society- Roman. Rome, the central community of the Latin tribe, which led the unification of Italy, creates its own literature, parallel to Greek, and creates it in its own Latin language.
Historical meaning of this option, the place of Roman literature in the history of European literature is determined by history! the role of Rome in the cultural" development of the European West. Roman literature served as a transmission link between Greek and Western European literatures. The formative role of antiquity for Western European literature was based until the 18th century on the influence of the Roman, not the Greek, version. Both in the Renaissance and in the 17th - 18th centuries centuries, Greek literature was perceived in Europe through the prism of Rome. The ancient current in the tragedy of European “classicism” came much more from the Roman playwright Seneca than from Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides; and not on Homer’s poems. Only the bourgeois “neo-humanism” of the 18th century (p. 7) brought with it a new orientation, this time directed directly to Greek literature. The change in orientation led to the fact that in the 19th century Roman literature began to be underestimated. , considered as purely imitative. Its meaning began to be reduced to a single “intermediary” role, supposedly due only to the fact that the Latin language was more widespread in Western Europe than Greek. This point of view is completely wrong. Indeed, in the first half of the Middle Ages and during the early Italian Renaissance, the Greek language was almost unknown in Western Europe, while Latin was known everywhere. But the period of greatest impact ancient literature the European language begins in the 15th - 16th centuries, when the Greek language was already known in Europe. And if. Europe is now turning to ancient literature in its Roman version, this is not due to unfamiliarity with Greek, but because the Roman version was more consistent with the artistic taste of that time and its literary needs. Theorists of European classicism of the 16th - 17th centuries, engaged in a comparative assessment of both ancient literatures, always come to the conclusion about the “superiority” of the Romans. Very indicative in this regard is the “Poetics” of Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484 - 1558), one of the most influential treatises on literary theory at that time. Scaliger, after a detailed comparison of the Homeric epic with Virgil’s Aeneid, gives preference to the Aeneid. Judgments of this kind, for all their historical limitation to the tastes of a certain era, nevertheless indicate that the “intermediary” role fell to the lot of Roman literature not by chance, as a result of the greater prevalence Latin language, and due to its own specific qualities, which distinguish it from Greek literature and make it more consonant with the aesthetic requirements of the Renaissance and classicism of the 16th - 17th centuries.
On the other hand, Roman literature at its best is often a synthesis of everything that Greek literature provided different periods. Virgil's epic and Horace's lyrics are oriented, for example, to Greek literature classical period, but at the same time they also use the achievements of Hellenistic literature, all the accumulated skill of centuries. Old Greek genres received an updated form from the Romans. In Rome, therefore, an expanded reproduction of the literary forms of Greece takes place, freed from local peculiarities.
The historical significance of Roman literature lies, therefore, in the fact that this is a variant of ancient literature, the flowering of which took place on a more expanded basis of the Roman power and at a later stage of ancient society, a variant that, due to its specific qualities, could more easily contribute to the formation of a new Western European literature .
^ Ancient Roman mythology, its features. The only thing I found. I'll find it and send it.
Religious rites Activities related to family life or household and private affairs were carried out by the father of the family himself. In the village, he could be replaced by an estate manager with special powers. Official state ceremonies were performed indirectly by certain bearers of supreme power - first by the king through the so-called priestly kings, then by consuls and praetors, and at critical moments - by the dictator. At the same time, the emperor, who combined the function of the Great Pontiff, usually did not express his initiatives. The institution of priests was introduced according to tradition by Numa Pompilius. At the same time, the Roman priestly colleges were not a closed caste - access to them was open through social activities. For example, Cicero and Pliny the Younger achieved the rank of augur, and for example, Caesar and Nero were flamines in their early careers. An important role was played by the college of fetials, which was in charge of the sacred ritual of declaring war and partially supervised Roman diplomacy. The College of Vestal Virgins also played an important role.
The Roman pantheon has many analogues of the Greek gods and goddesses, and has its own deities and lower spirits. Particularly revered gods were called “fathers” (“patres”), the lower ones were called “famuli divi” and “virgines divi”. Divine law (“fas”) was not confused with human law (“ius”). Lower deities (“numina”) existed among the Romans apparently already in an early era. The priestly books “Indigitaments” list the deities of sowing, seed growth, flowering and ripening, harvesting ears, marriage, conception, development of the embryo, birth of a child, his first cry, going for a walk, returning home, etc., in connection with which initially, for some, the gender was not fixed (cf. Pales, Fawn - Fawn, Pomona - Pomon, etc.). From the mass of numinas, the triad of the Roman pantheon stood out - Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, reflecting the threefold nature of civil functions - respectively religious-priestly, military and economic. From the calendar of holidays attributed to Numa Pompilius and the list of flamines assigned to them, from the references to ancient sanctuaries, it is known about the existence of the cults of Vulcan, Palatua, Furrina, Flora, Carmenta, Ceres, Pomona, Volupia, etc. Around the same time, the colleges of Luperci and Salii were doubled. Cults of classes appeared (Neptune and Dioscuri among the patricians, Ceres and Liber among the plebeians) and individual family cults (among the Cornelii, Emilians, Claudii and possibly others), grouped around Vesta, Lares and Penates. There were also cults of rural communities
In contrast to the artistically gifted and active Hellenes, the Romans did not have folk epic poetry; Their religious ideas, completely resulting in a cult, were expressed in a few, monotonous and poor in content myths. The essence of R. religion was not in mythology, but in a strictly formal cult - this purely Roman concept (religio is a word of R. origin and means connection), which later became the property of the whole world. In the gods the Romans saw only the will (numen), which intervened in human life.
The Roman gods had neither their own Olympus nor genealogy, and were depicted in the form of symbols: Mana - under the guise of snakes, ^ Jupiter - under the guise of stone, Mars - under the guise of a spear, Vesta - under the guise of fire. The original system of R. mythology - judging by the data modified under a variety of influences that is reported to us ancient literature- boiled down to a list of symbolic, impersonal, deified concepts, under the auspices of which a person’s life consisted from conception to death; no less abstract and impersonal were the deities of souls, whose cult formed the most ancient basis of family religion. At the second stage mythological ideas deities of nature stood, mainly rivers, springs and earth, as producers of all living things. Next come the deities of heavenly space, deities of death and the underworld, deities - personifications of the spiritual and moral aspects of man, as well as various relationships public life, and, finally, foreign gods and heroes.
49. Philosophical epic Lucretius "On Nature".
In his poem “On the Nature of Things,” Lucretius elegantly, in poetic form, depicts a light and subtle, always moving picture of the influence that atoms have on our consciousness through the outflow of special “eidoles,” as a result of which sensations and all states of consciousness arise. It is very interesting that Lucretius’ atoms are not exactly the same as Epicurus’s: they are not the limit of divisibility, but a kind of creative principles from which a specific thing is created with its entire structure, i.e. atoms are the material for nature, which presupposes something located outside them, creative principle. There are no hints of spontaneous activity of matter in the poem. Lucretius sees this creative principle either in the progenitor Venus, or in the skilled Earth, or in the creative nature - nature. A.F. Losev writes: “If we are talking about the natural philosophical mythology of Lucretius and call it a kind of religion, then let the reader not get confused here in three pines: the natural philosophical mythology of Lucretius... has absolutely nothing in common with the traditional mythology that Lucretius refutes.”
According to Losev, the independence of Lucretius as a philosopher is deeply revealed in an episode of the history of human culture, which constitutes the main content of the 5th book of the poem. Taking from the Epicurean tradition a negative assessment of those features of improvements in the material situation of life, which, without ultimately increasing the amount of pleasure people receive, serve as a new subject of acquisitiveness. Lucretius ends book 5 not with an Epicurean morality of self-restraint, but with praise to the human mind mastering the heights of knowledge and art.
In conclusion of this chapter, it should be said that we are accustomed to interpret Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius and others only as materialists and atheists. Following the brilliant expert on ancient philosophy A.F. Losev many adhere to the point of view according to which ancient philosophy I didn’t know materialism at all in the European sense of the word. It is enough to point out that both Epicurus and Lucretius most unequivocally recognize the existence of gods.
Lucretius, Titus Lucretius Carus (1st century BC), Roman poet and materialist philosopher. The earliest biographical information about Lucretia dates back to the 4th century AD. e., but cannot be considered reliable, the philosophical poem of Lucretius “On the Nature of Things,” written in the form of a didactic epic, sets out the doctrine Greek philosopher Epicurus - mainly his physics, only touching on his theory of knowledge and ethics in passing. This is the only completely preserved monument to the materialistic thought of antiquity. It was lost and found by the Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini only in the 15th century. The poem of Lucretius consists of 6 books; in the book 1st and 2nd it is stated atomic theory the universe and the interference of gods in worldly affairs is rejected; the theme of book 3 is the doctrine of the soul, its materiality and mortality, its connection with the body; Book 4 - the doctrine of man and sensory perceptions as the basis of knowledge; Book 5 - cosmogony and history of the development of the human race, as well as the origin of language. The use of fire and the formation of a family were, according to Lucretius, the first steps on the path from a primitive, “wild” state to the formation of society and culture; This was especially facilitated by the emergence of language. The origin of religion in book 6 is explained by three natural reasons: fantastic images of beautiful and powerful creatures that appeared in dreams became objects of worship; natural phenomena exceeding human powers were attributed to supernatural beings; Finally, people are susceptible to feelings of fear. The greatest promoter of Lucretius's ideas was the French philosopher P. Gassendi. Everything that is known about the life of Lucretius comes down to the message of St. Jerome, who, in all likelihood quoting Suetonius, says: “Drunk with a love potion, Lucretius lost his mind, in bright intervals he wrote several books, later published by Cicero, and took his own life.”
^ Titus Lucretius Carus
On the nature of things (fragments)
<...>Nature sets no limit
For the fragmentation of things, the body of matter now,
Having become fragmented by the force of past centuries, they would have reached the point where
That nothing was conceived from them at a certain time
It would be impossible to break through to the highest limit of life.
Because, we see, anything can quickly collapse,
What to be restored; therefore what has hitherto
Long days and centuries of endless times gone by
They were torn apart, crushed and torn into small pieces,
It could never be recreated again in the remaining centuries.
But, undoubtedly, a certain limit has been set for fragmentation.
Since we see that a thing is reborn every time...
<...>But I continue the thread of my reasoning again.
All of nature itself consists of two things:
This is, firstly, bodies, and secondly, empty space,
Where they stay and where they move can vary...
<...>There are such bodies that are both durable and eternal:
These are the seeds and beginnings of things in our teaching,
That's what the whole world that exists today came from.
These bodies cannot decompose due to external shocks,
Neither, struck from within by something, fall apart,
Not to be completely destroyed by the influence of another force.
Being in the void and wandering through it, inevitably
The origins of things are carried away by their own weight
Or the pushes of others. And often, when faced with movement
Together, one from the other, they fall to the side at once.
And one should not be surprised: they are extremely strong.
They are dense and weighty, and nothing stops them from jumping back...
<...>So that you better understand that the main bodies are restless
Always in perpetual motion, remember that there is no bottom
The Universe does not exist anywhere, and the original bodies remain
Nowhere in place, since there is no end or limit to space,
If it is immeasurable and extends in all directions,
As I have already proven in detail on a reasonable basis.
Once this is established, then the primordial bodies, of course,
There is no peace anywhere in the vast emptiness.
On the contrary: constantly driven by different movements,
Some of them fly far away, colliding with each other,
Some of them disperse only for short distances.
Those who have closer mutual cohesion have few
And spinning apart for insignificant distances,
The complexity of their figures themselves are entangled, tenaciously,
Powerful roots of stones and bodies form iron
Persistent, just like everything else of this kind.
Others, in small numbers floating in the vast void,
They spin away and run far back
The gap is long. Of these a rare
They provide us with brilliant air and sunlight.
Many, moreover, hover in the vast void
Those that are thrown away from things of combinations and again
We were not yet able to combine with others in movement...
^ Brief and small
Lucretius, Titus Lucretius Carus (1st century BC), Roman poet and materialist philosopher. The earliest biographical information about Lucretia dates back to the 4th century AD. e., but cannot be considered reliable, the philosophical poem of Lucretius “On the Nature of Things,” written in the form of a didactic epic, sets out the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus - mainly his physics, only touching on his theory of knowledge and ethics in passing. This is the only completely preserved monument to the materialistic thought of antiquity. It was lost and found by the Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini only in the 15th century. The poem of Lucretius consists of 6 books; in books 1 and 2, the atomic theory of the universe is expounded and the intervention of gods in worldly affairs is rejected; the theme of book 3 is the doctrine of the soul, its materiality and mortality, its connection with the body; Book 4 - the doctrine of man and of sensory perceptions as the basis of knowledge; Book 5 - cosmogony and history of the development of the human race, as well as the origin of language. The use of fire and the formation of a family were, according to Lucretius, the first steps on the path from a primitive, “wild” state to the formation of society and culture; This was especially facilitated by the emergence of language. The origin of religion in book 6 is explained by three natural reasons: fantastic images of beautiful and powerful creatures that appeared in dreams became objects of worship; natural phenomena exceeding human powers were attributed to supernatural beings; Finally, people are susceptible to feelings of fear. The greatest promoter of Lucretius's ideas was the French philosopher P. Gassendi.
There are several opinions about the stages of development of Roman mythology. Some historians take as a basis the books of the priests "Indigitamenta", which says that in the world there are only impersonal harmful or beneficial forces - numina, characteristic of individual objects, living beings, actions. Initially, the gods were represented in the form of symbols: Jupiter - stone, Mars - spear, Vesta - fire. Characteristic feature At the early stage of the development of mythology, there was uncertainty about the gender of deities (Pales), which was reflected in the presence of male and female hypostases in some of them (Faun - Faun, Pomon - Pomona), in referring to the gods as “god or goddess”. According to some historians, myths in Ancient Rome appeared only under the influence of Etruscan and Greek mythology. The Greeks brought their anthropomorphic gods and the myths associated with them, taught the Romans to build temples. Some modern researchers have questioned the theory of numina, citing as an argument that the "Indigitaments" were created by priests, and not by the people. Many of the pontiffs were lawyers who were characterized by extreme detail in phenomena. Later, Etruscan and Greek influences began to be given less importance, emphasizing the originality of the Roman religion.
The ancient Roman religion was formed in parallel with the process of synoicism of communities that underlay the emergence of Rome, and the gods of individual communities merged with each other. As clan ties were replaced by neighbors and clans by surnames, the main role began to be played by cults of surnames grouped around Vesta, Lares and Penates. Along with them, there were cults of neighboring communities - curiae, cults of the entire Roman civil community, which, however, were not fenced off from each other. All of them were under the control of the college of pontiffs, which pushed aside the flamenian priests. It was believed that what was done for the benefit of the community also served the benefit of individual citizens, and vice versa. The gods were divided into heavenly, earthly and underground, but could act in all three worlds. The worlds of gods, people and the dead were delimited (the right of the gods, fas, did not mix with the right of man, ius) and at the same time interconnected (people did not begin any important business without knowing how the gods would react to it). A major role was played by augurs and haruspices, who explained the will of the gods by the flight and behavior of birds, the entrails (especially the liver) of sacrificial animals, and lightning strikes. The books of the Sibyl, associated with the cult of Apollo and kept secret by a special college of priests, served the same purpose. In the event of threatening signs, the priests, by special decree of the Senate, looked in books for instructions on what to do. It was believed that the gods of the enemy could be lured to the side of Rome using a certain formula of evocatio. With the transfer of the gods of the Italian cities to Rome, the images of the Roman gods became more complex. When Rome became the head of the Latin Union, it adopted the cults of its gods Diana of Aricia and Jupiter Latiaris. The center of the cult in Rome, which finally took shape as a single city, became the Capitoline Temple, and the god of Roman power and glory was Jupiter Capitolinus.
The further development of Roman mythology was influenced by three factors: the democratization of society caused by the victory of the plebs, victorious Roman aggression and acquaintance with more developed cultures and religions. Democratization, which made priestly positions previously occupied only by patricians available to plebeians, did not allow the development of a priestly caste. The highest authority became the civil community itself, which led to the absence of religious dogma. Citizens were obliged to honor the gods, who formed a unique part of their community (hence the later widespread idea of the world as a great city of people and gods), but they had the right to think, say and write anything about them, up to their complete denial. Ethics was determined not by religion, but by the good of the civil community, which rewarded some with honor and punished others with contempt. The aversion revered by the Romans to personal strong power, to people who placed themselves above the people, excluded the cult of kings and heroes, and, if such existed in ancient times (lares), then it died out. A kind of justification for the wars of Rome, which cost many victims, was the established myth about Rome as a city founded according to the destiny of the gods, who destined it for power over the world, about the Roman people as chosen by the gods(one of the components of the myth of Rome is the myth of Aeneas).
The borrowing of Greek gods began no later than the end of the 6th - beginning of the 5th century. BC. with the introduction of the cult of Apollo, then the Romans began to get acquainted with Greek myths and mysteries dedicated to Dionysus, with Greek religious and philosophical movements. By interpreting myths, statesmen began to lay claim to divine origin(the first was Scipio Africanus), for the special protection of the deity (Sulla and Caesar - for the patronage of Venus, Anthony - for Hercules and Dionysus), for the immortality prepared for their souls and a special place in the stellar spheres or fields of the blessed. The cult of generals spread in the provinces. Thus was prepared the imperial cult, which began with the deification of Caesar and Augustus, and then of his successors. Emperors identified themselves with gods, their wives with goddesses. With the establishment of the empire, the “Roman myth”, due to the exclusion of the people from participation in state affairs and Rome’s loss of its character as a civil community, began to lose its popularity.
The undoubted merit of Ancient Rome, which had its own mythology, was in the perception, popularization and preservation of Greek mythology, in turning it into Greco-Roman: most of the brilliant works of Greek sculptors can only be seen by humanity thanks to their Roman copies; the poetic creations of the Greek people were preserved for us by Roman poets; many mythological subjects became known thanks to Ovid's poem "Metamorphoses".
Food
