What do you think?
Rate this book
On Roman Religion: Lived Religion and the Individual in Ancient Rome
Was religious practice in ancient Rome cultic and hostile to individual expression? Or was there, rather, considerable latitude for individual initiative and creativity? J�rg R�pke, one of the world's leading authorities on Roman religion, demonstrates in his new book that it was a lived religion with individual appropriations evident at the heart of such rituals as praying, dedicating, making vows, and reading. On Roman Religion definitively dismantles previous approaches that depicted religious practice as uniform and static. Juxtaposing very different, strategic, and even subversive forms of individuality with traditions, their normative claims, and their institutional protections, R�pke highlights the dynamic character of Rome's religious institutions and traditions.
In R�pke's view, lived ancient religion is as much about variations or even outright deviance as it is about attempts and failures to establish or change rules and roles and to communicate them via priesthoods, practices related to images or classified as magic, and literary practices. R�pke analyzes observations of religious experience by contemporary authors including Propertius, Ovid, and the author of the Shepherd of Hermas. These authors, in very different ways, reflect on individual appropriation of religion among their contemporaries, and they offer these reflections to their readership or audiences. R�pke also concentrates on the ways in which literary texts and inscriptions informed the practice of rituals.
In R�pke's view, lived ancient religion is as much about variations or even outright deviance as it is about attempts and failures to establish or change rules and roles and to communicate them via priesthoods, practices related to images or classified as magic, and literary practices. R�pke analyzes observations of religious experience by contemporary authors including Propertius, Ovid, and the author of the Shepherd of Hermas. These authors, in very different ways, reflect on individual appropriation of religion among their contemporaries, and they offer these reflections to their readership or audiences. R�pke also concentrates on the ways in which literary texts and inscriptions informed the practice of rituals.
210 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2019
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 15, 2019
On German philologists and their abstractions-
I picked this one off the shelf of an academic bookstore in hope of understanding more about Roman religion before it was Christianized. I left feeling I knew more about German philologists and their propensity to abstraction.
The author Rupke is a German philologist and this book is very much within that highly academic Graeco-Germanic tradition i.e. not for a generalist reader. At times it makes the work of the notoriously obscure late Heidegger seem clear as crystal. At the root of this problem is that Rupke is not just content with answering what Roman religion was, but also religion in the general sense and the result is something of an interesting mess.
One of the odd things I found about this book was a desire to get away from the religion of the highly educated and literate members of the polis and instead into the practical experiences of the lived experience of the religion for the majority of people in the Republic and Empire (hence the subtitle). Unfortunately, it engages in this purportedly inclusive pursuit in a highly academic manner and without a hint of irony.
Most of the traditional Roman gods; Jupiter, Mars and Venus are barely mentioned. The first chapter instead focuses on the orders of priests in Rome. We have the High Priest of Rome which was later fused with the office of Emperor (Pontifex Maximus), the King of the Sacred Matters (Rex Sacrorum), the Flamines (Priests for the main 15 gods), the Vestal Virgins (tenders of the City’s sacred flame) and the Salii, or the priests of Mars, who danced a lot. We are given detailed description as to how the roles were divided between the patricians (aristocrats) and the plebeians (commoners). It seems the plebs got a decent share of the priestly roles, as did women with the Vestal Virgins being made up nearly entirely made up of plebeians- this probably helped prevent major social unrest. Of course, none of the names are explained to you in great detail and instead, you are left to google as you go, greatly reducing the book's readability. Overall, one is left with the impression that being a priest was not a bad job in life. One got invited to banquets (we are regaled with descriptions of the exotic fare), but there were also travel restrictions (at least during the Republic) which would prevent fighting battles and forging a contemporaneous military career. As such, many of the roles were filled by either elderly nobles, or less brilliant sons, much like English parsons. So far so good.
The second chapter deals with the “appropriation” of a god. Here we start to get into problems. On the one hand the book is trying to get to lived experience of religion beyond the usual mythical stories. On the other it is actually trying to describe Roman religion. We are presented with perhaps one of the most ambiguous Roman poems by Propertius about the god of change, Vertumnus. Rather than take the obvious view that Vertumnus is the god of change and therefore he is justified in shifting within the poem from a comely girl to a charioteer as is his wont, the author goes on an extended ramble about how the poem illustrates the different means of appropriating a god through various roles i.e. as a farmer, in the red light district etc. which individuates the worshipper. Focus is given at the end to his cult statue, but we are not told about how these statues were typically made, were they expensive, were they communal property or more personal etc. etc. It feels as if the statue had just got deconstructed by Derrida and we are left with a lot of questions, many probably not relevant.
This problem already was apparent in the introduction. Here there was a discussion about individuation under religions (the other part of the title). Mention was made that the general view of Western religions is that they are more individualist and Eastern religions are more collectivist, however Western religion is individualist in the sense of an abstract individual rather than specific individuals. This observation is so quickly hedged around as to become meaningless. It would be interesting if the contemporary cross-cultural comparison was explored more fully- for example, how did Roman religion compare to the Celtic religions it displaced, or Germanic polytheism? Was it more or less individualistic?
Where contrast is explored in the third essay of the book, it is between religion and folk magic. Folk magic is used to put spells on lovers and call down curses on others, but is generally frowned on. There is no clear evidence for a formal priesthood or organized group of practitioners like Egyptian magicians for magic. Instead it appears to be confined to poets, poisoners and apothecaries. I felt this was one of the weakest essays in the book and could have been excised, with contrast instead being used in the fourth essay on calendars, the "Fasti". As these were set up by Augustus throughout Italy and immortalised in poetry by Ovid to enable ordinary people to become familiar with Roman feast days, it would be fascinating to evaluate how far social control of time and religion was central to the imperialistic project in eroding individuation. A contrast could be drawn with the more fluid concepts of time in the Germanic world.
After perservering for so long, I gave up before finishing the last essay on the Shepherd of Hermas. The book focused very much on the mechanics of religious priesthood and practise, but not on the Roman religion itself i.e. the stories of the gods and their ethical/philosophical views, or on lived religion outside of ritual i.e. banking (the Temple of Mars was a well known treasury), or hospitals (the Sanctuary of Asclepius). It doesn't even have speculation on details on the rituals themselves, for example the cult practices of Mithras, or of the Eleusinian Mysteries. I think there is a very interesting book to be written about religion impacting the life of everyday Romans, but this isn't it.
I picked this one off the shelf of an academic bookstore in hope of understanding more about Roman religion before it was Christianized. I left feeling I knew more about German philologists and their propensity to abstraction.
The author Rupke is a German philologist and this book is very much within that highly academic Graeco-Germanic tradition i.e. not for a generalist reader. At times it makes the work of the notoriously obscure late Heidegger seem clear as crystal. At the root of this problem is that Rupke is not just content with answering what Roman religion was, but also religion in the general sense and the result is something of an interesting mess.
One of the odd things I found about this book was a desire to get away from the religion of the highly educated and literate members of the polis and instead into the practical experiences of the lived experience of the religion for the majority of people in the Republic and Empire (hence the subtitle). Unfortunately, it engages in this purportedly inclusive pursuit in a highly academic manner and without a hint of irony.
Most of the traditional Roman gods; Jupiter, Mars and Venus are barely mentioned. The first chapter instead focuses on the orders of priests in Rome. We have the High Priest of Rome which was later fused with the office of Emperor (Pontifex Maximus), the King of the Sacred Matters (Rex Sacrorum), the Flamines (Priests for the main 15 gods), the Vestal Virgins (tenders of the City’s sacred flame) and the Salii, or the priests of Mars, who danced a lot. We are given detailed description as to how the roles were divided between the patricians (aristocrats) and the plebeians (commoners). It seems the plebs got a decent share of the priestly roles, as did women with the Vestal Virgins being made up nearly entirely made up of plebeians- this probably helped prevent major social unrest. Of course, none of the names are explained to you in great detail and instead, you are left to google as you go, greatly reducing the book's readability. Overall, one is left with the impression that being a priest was not a bad job in life. One got invited to banquets (we are regaled with descriptions of the exotic fare), but there were also travel restrictions (at least during the Republic) which would prevent fighting battles and forging a contemporaneous military career. As such, many of the roles were filled by either elderly nobles, or less brilliant sons, much like English parsons. So far so good.
The second chapter deals with the “appropriation” of a god. Here we start to get into problems. On the one hand the book is trying to get to lived experience of religion beyond the usual mythical stories. On the other it is actually trying to describe Roman religion. We are presented with perhaps one of the most ambiguous Roman poems by Propertius about the god of change, Vertumnus. Rather than take the obvious view that Vertumnus is the god of change and therefore he is justified in shifting within the poem from a comely girl to a charioteer as is his wont, the author goes on an extended ramble about how the poem illustrates the different means of appropriating a god through various roles i.e. as a farmer, in the red light district etc. which individuates the worshipper. Focus is given at the end to his cult statue, but we are not told about how these statues were typically made, were they expensive, were they communal property or more personal etc. etc. It feels as if the statue had just got deconstructed by Derrida and we are left with a lot of questions, many probably not relevant.
This problem already was apparent in the introduction. Here there was a discussion about individuation under religions (the other part of the title). Mention was made that the general view of Western religions is that they are more individualist and Eastern religions are more collectivist, however Western religion is individualist in the sense of an abstract individual rather than specific individuals. This observation is so quickly hedged around as to become meaningless. It would be interesting if the contemporary cross-cultural comparison was explored more fully- for example, how did Roman religion compare to the Celtic religions it displaced, or Germanic polytheism? Was it more or less individualistic?
Where contrast is explored in the third essay of the book, it is between religion and folk magic. Folk magic is used to put spells on lovers and call down curses on others, but is generally frowned on. There is no clear evidence for a formal priesthood or organized group of practitioners like Egyptian magicians for magic. Instead it appears to be confined to poets, poisoners and apothecaries. I felt this was one of the weakest essays in the book and could have been excised, with contrast instead being used in the fourth essay on calendars, the "Fasti". As these were set up by Augustus throughout Italy and immortalised in poetry by Ovid to enable ordinary people to become familiar with Roman feast days, it would be fascinating to evaluate how far social control of time and religion was central to the imperialistic project in eroding individuation. A contrast could be drawn with the more fluid concepts of time in the Germanic world.
After perservering for so long, I gave up before finishing the last essay on the Shepherd of Hermas. The book focused very much on the mechanics of religious priesthood and practise, but not on the Roman religion itself i.e. the stories of the gods and their ethical/philosophical views, or on lived religion outside of ritual i.e. banking (the Temple of Mars was a well known treasury), or hospitals (the Sanctuary of Asclepius). It doesn't even have speculation on details on the rituals themselves, for example the cult practices of Mithras, or of the Eleusinian Mysteries. I think there is a very interesting book to be written about religion impacting the life of everyday Romans, but this isn't it.
April 28, 2018
Academic research reading, but I read almost the whole thing in one day and want some credit. :-) A challenging and theoretical read. Interesting use of literary sources on "mainstream" Roman religion (Propertius, Ovid, Livy) as evidence for individuality in lived religion.
In the conclusion: "I hope I have demonstrated that lived religion and its individual appropriations need not be sought at the margins of orthodox religious practices, in the niches of civic religion. These phenomena are identifiable at the heart of rituals like praying, vowing, dedicating, and reading."
In the conclusion: "I hope I have demonstrated that lived religion and its individual appropriations need not be sought at the margins of orthodox religious practices, in the niches of civic religion. These phenomena are identifiable at the heart of rituals like praying, vowing, dedicating, and reading."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews