Roman Religion in Antiquity: Polytheism vs. Monotheism

Introduction

There are few topics today as hotly debated — and as historically violent — as religion. In ancient times, the shift from polytheism to monotheism in the way the world worshipped gave rise to events such as the Inquisition and the Crusades, carried out in the name of converting the world to a single religion. In the name of monotheistic faiths, people have imposed upon themselves stoic deprivations of food, drink, and comfort. Great masses have been murdered and tortured in the name of religious ideals or a god. This is the nature of a world in which monotheism demands a kind of perpetual purity requiring adherence to a single god-form, precluding all others.

The general perception today is that polytheistic religions, like those practiced in Rome, were vastly different from the three major monotheistic world religions. And indeed, this is true. When considering the shape and form that gods took in early Rome, it is clear that there was a vastly different paradigm through which to view religion, gods, and the individual's personal relationship with the divine. The modern faithful might do well to learn from the general viewpoints the ancients used to worship their gods and to allow religion to inform life.

Early Roman Religion

According to Beard, North, and Price, early Roman religion was traditionally grounded in the history of Rome itself. Yet many scholars also recognize that this religion drew upon traditions that predated the foundation of the Roman city. King Evander, for example, established rites in honor of Hercules and other Greek forms of worship. This accounts for the relative integration of Greek culture into Roman religious life.

Virgil's epic the Aeneid offers an account of Aeneas, who visited the site that was to become Rome. The Roman race was to be founded from the Trojan race following their defeat by Greece. The Trojans brought with them their own gods but were also influenced by the cultures they encountered, contributing to the evolution of early Roman religion.

In the second volume of their work on Roman religion, Beard, North, and Price address the theory that anthropomorphic deities were a secondary development of religion, and that divinity initially took an animistic form. A further theory held that this animistic stage is the proper foundation upon which to build an understanding of original Roman religion — that Roman religion "atrophied," as it were, in an animistic form, with anthropomorphic god-forms largely adopted from Greek religion. The authors, however, reject this view on the basis of the ancient Latin language, which indicates that divinity was regarded in terms of the human form from early on.

When this information is considered alongside the material from the first volume, it is clear that the Roman concept of divinity was far more complex than mere animism from nearly its inception. While animistic elements may have been present, the evidence suggests that the divine took human form in Roman consciousness even as the young Empire's religious paradigms were being shaped by external cultures and forces.

What is furthermore notable about Roman religion is the extent to which its gods and goddesses were woven into human life. This created for the average Roman a kind of lived reality in which religion and daily existence were inseparable — a quality less evident in many forms of religion today. The Roman religion had a deity for almost every aspect of human life, as well as for areas of philosophy and abstract thought. Roman warfare was one such domain. Several gods and goddesses were associated with the vows, rituals, and sacrifices made during times of war. Many of these gods were depicted in works of art as standing beside their supplicants or offering them support. Although the divine was rarely credited with direct personal intervention in wars and human affairs, the gods were petitioned for support and praised when matters turned out successfully.

As Roman religion developed, the gods even came to figure in entertainment and humor — attributes that are distinctly human. The god Mercury offers one example. In the play Amphitryon by Plautus, the god is portrayed in a light, humorous way, suggesting that he would oversee the smooth and successful conduct of business and profit.

Another common perception of Roman deities is that they operated in a simple and structured fashion, each with a specific life history, an area of concern, and a well-defined personality. However, according to Beard, North, and Price, this was not the case. The lines between different deities and their divine concerns were much less clearly drawn than popular perception would suggest.

As a result, many deities with less clearly defined personalities remained outside the surviving legends and myths that have captured the imagination of the Western world for centuries. The Lares, for example, were the protecting spirits of place — presiding over important living or traveling spaces such as the home, the crossroads, and the city. They played an important part in the Roman conception of space, particularly the home as a microcosm of state and politics. The gods were therefore as central to Roman life as the daily rituals of education, politics, and warfare.

When compared to modern religion, it is true that many religious adherents today find the hand of God in all areas of life — from searching for work to the safety of their children, and in daily rituals around eating and education. Despite the many and significant differences between early Roman religion and contemporary faiths, this is an important commonality that may be drawn as a parallel between ancient and modern religious experience.

In terms of ensuring the well-being of the people, many Roman deities were associated with agricultural activities. Robigo, for example, was a destructive goddess who personified mildew on growing wheat. To appease her, a festival was held each April.

In today's religious practice, the monotheistic God contains both the benevolent and potentially destructive qualities embodied in the various Roman deities. To appease their God, the Israelites of the Old Testament, for example, were required to give a portion of their wealth on a regular basis while also offering sacrifices and observing rituals. Even today, Christians give tithes to the church under the assumption that this will ensure God's continued benevolence and concern for their well-being.

There is therefore a meaningful parallel between the Roman conception of gods who took a particular interest in human well-being — and who required ongoing interaction to maintain divine favor — and the way in which the monotheistic God is perceived by his devotees today.

Debates and Disregard

The rise of Christianity during the early centuries after Christ, in the late stages of the Roman Empire, resulted in a complete disregard for these parallels, even producing ridicule of the ancient religions by devotees of what was then regarded as the "true religion." Nevertheless, debate and argumentation had been part of the Roman religious mindset from much earlier times. During those earlier periods, however, such debate took a far friendlier and more open tone than later forms of religious controversy. Perhaps Beard, North, and Price had a point when they suggested that early Roman religion was so distant from what today's religious adherent considers appropriate worship that it is nearly useless to apply modern concepts to such investigations.

Today, the monotheistic religions tend to have more in common with one another than their individual adherents typically acknowledge. These similarities are disregarded in the drive to assert that only one's own religion represents the "true" belief system.

This was not a paradigm that Roman religious adherents clung to. There was no sense of exclusivity when it came to the adoption and incorporation of foreign gods into Roman lore. This is perhaps the second most fundamental difference between the generally monotheistic concept of divinity prevalent in the world today and the polytheistic religion of Rome. According to Beard, North, and Price, the incorporation of foreign deities could even extend to enemy gods. Indeed, this was a "constant" occurrence, according to the authors. When an enemy was conquered, the gods of the new territory were generally incorporated into the Roman religion. Roman soldiers even went as far as attempting to monopolize the power of a local enemy god through sacrifice and prayer, seeking its protection and depriving the enemy of their divine support during battle. In the event of a successful conquest, the divinity in question was then accepted as Roman.

This concept is echoed in the work of Hijmans, who focuses on two different solar deities found in the Roman pantheon: Sol Indiges, a Roman god, and Sol Invictus, a Syrian god of late antiquity. What is notable here is that many scholars struggle to reach agreement among themselves, as well as to reconcile within their own research the idea that these two widely different deities could have coexisted — albeit at different times — within the same religious environment.

This disagreement is indicative of the broader debate that has been part of religion since its earliest presence in human communities. Beard, North, and Price describe just such a debate as ongoing even during ancient Roman times. Discussion of the nature of the gods — their character, activities, and very existence — was part and parcel of Roman religious life. This was a means by which the Roman community continually created and recreated its own religious experience. According to the authors, this type of debate had been ongoing at least since the first century BC, when Roman intellectuals and writers debated questions such as the form and appearance of Roman gods, the extent of their intervention in human affairs, their morality, and their existence.

To some extent, this debate also resulted from foreign influence, as Greek philosophy became increasingly well known in Rome and debate became an accepted form of both human interaction and engagement with the divine. The different types of deities found in Greek culture provided a basis for debate and speculation on the precise nature of the divine and the role of gods in human life.

In general, there appears to be a sense of near innocence in these ancient debates, in which intellectuals honestly attempted to arrive at ever clearer explanations for their views of divinity and its role in human life. Today, however, religious debate tends to take a much narrower stance. As Hijmans suggests, contemporary religious debate — beginning with the rise of monotheism in opposition to polytheism — concerns itself with finding a single correct philosophy to the exclusion of all others. This was the focus of Christian philosophy as it rose to become the official religion of Rome during the early centuries after Christ.

The same single-focused view characterizes the debates Hijmans refers to. Even within a single monotheistic religion such as Christianity, debates center on finding the one correct way to worship, to communicate with God, and to display one's religious morality and affiliation. There are literally thousands of denominations within Christianity alone, each with its own conception of what it means to be Christian. None agree with one another, though their common characteristic is the worship of Jesus as the Son of God.

From an external point of view, one might regard this simply as part of what it is to be human — with a drive to worship or at least recognize something beyond the physical. The debaters themselves, however, do not see it this way. The central aim of the disagreement is to arrive at a final, ultimate truth. This is not something Roman debaters sought to do. The main impression is that, for them, the focus of debate was upon reaching a mutual understanding of divinity by incorporating the views of others where these were deemed worthwhile. This reflects the same paradigm as the Roman religious viewpoint, in which foreign gods were incorporated to create a more complete religious experience.

Today's debates appear to operate within a more volatile paradigm, with an underlying current focused on the belief that there is a single correct view of religion and the role of divinity in human life. Beyond the question of how many gods one worships, this difference in the approach to debate represents the most fundamental distinction between monotheistic and polytheistic religions. The Romans were far more open to incorporating foreign elements into both their philosophies and their religions; today's religious adherents, by contrast, are not.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the main differences between ancient Roman religion and today's major faiths appear to be not only material — such as the number of gods or the areas of life divinity is assumed to govern — but also attitudinal. There was a more open sense of acceptance among the polytheistic religions of ancient times than exists today, even within single monotheistic religions. The Romans incorporated foreign gods and debated the nature of the divine with a spirit of inquiry rather than exclusion. Perhaps this offers some food for thought for future investigations into the relationship between human beings and the divine.

References

Assmann, J. (2007). Monotheism and Polytheism. In S. I. Johnston (Ed.), Ancient Religions. Retrieved from http://www.evolbiol.ru/large_files/ancient.pdf#page=146

Beard, M., North, J., & Price, S. (1998). Religions of Rome, Vol. 1.

Beard, M., North, J., & Price, S. (1998). Religions of Rome, Vol. 2.

Hijmans, S. (2009). Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome. Retrieved from http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/faculties/arts/2009/s.e.hijmans/vol1/

Thompson, S. W. (2010). "Daimon Drink": Ancient Greek and Roman explanations for drunkenness. Christian Spirituality and Science, 8(1), Article 2. Retrieved from http://research.avondale.edu.au/css/vol8/iss1/2