Paganism in the Roman Empire

by Ramsay MacMullen

“MacMullen…has published several books in recent years which establish him, rightfully, as a leading social historian of the Roman Empire. The current volume exhibits many of the characteristics of its predecessors: the presentation of novel, revisionist points of view; discrete set pieces of trenchant argument which do not necessarily conform to the boundaries of traditional history; & an impressive, authoritative, & up-to-date documentation, especially rich in primary sources. A stimulating & provocative discourse on Roman paganism as a phenomenon worthy of synthetic investigation in its own right * as the fundamental context for the rise of Christianity.”—-Richard Brilliant, History
“MacMullen’s latest work represents many features of paganism in its social context more vividly & clearly than ever before.”-—Fergus Millar, American Historical Review
“The major cults…are examined from a social & cultural perspective & with the aid of many recently published specialized studies. Students of the Roman Empire…should read this book.”—Robert J, Penella, Classical World
“A distinguished book with much exact observation. An indispensable mine of erudition on a grand theme.”--Henry Chadwick, Times Literary Supplement
Illustrations
Preface
1 Perceptible
Finding order in chaos
Attracting crowds
Displays & accommodations at temples
Routine staff & administration
2 Debatable
Needs & answers
The vitality of paganism
How the divine world was envisioned
Conversion
The dynamic cults
Epilogue: The Manner of Death of Paganism
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography of Secondary Works Cited
Index
Ramsay MacMullen is Dunham Professor of History & Classics at Yale Univ. & the author of Roman Government’s Response to Crisis, AD 235-337 & Roman Social Relations, 50 BC to AD 284

Genres: History, Religion, Paganism, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Classics

259 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

A specialist in Roman social history and the rise of Christianity in the Roman world, Ramsay MacMullen was Dunham Professor of History and Classics at Yale University, where he taught from 1967 until his retirement in 1993. Educated at Phillips Exeter and Harvard, from which he held all three of his degrees, MacMullen taught at the University of Oregon and Brandeis before moving to Yale.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best book I've read so far about the concrete reality of pagan religion in antiquity. Yet, of course, it does not go deeply enough--perhaps because the evidence isn't sufficient to allow it--to provide a full appreciation of what it was like to believe in these, the old gods. Perhaps it is because I, infected with the idea that religion should be intellectually coherant and metaphysically totalizing, am looking for what isn't there. In any case, the parts that did make a good deal of existential sense were the descriptions of sacrifice followed by table fellowship.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A large and not entirely coherent subject, with very patchy evidence. So this contains much discussion of the incoherency and the difficulty in reconstruction.

The practice of worshipping the gods according to the customs of your forefathers and not troubling your head about the customs of your neighbors if you, or they, are immigrants and consequently differ. The importance of antiquity -- Christians argued that Moses predated the Iliad because that was a strong debating point. The spill-over to the practices of others -- magistrates and emperors would pay courtesy calls on the local gods. Though immigration does seem to be the overwhelming cause of the worship of foreign gods -- and the evidence may be underplaying it, because an Italian father and an Egyptian mother could result in a child with an Italian name raising an inscription to Isis as an ancestral religion though you could not tell.

The habit of stringing together names of gods as one. Gods were actually saluted as polyonymous -- many named -- and you can work out what some inscriptions were about by the titles applied. Many gods were addressed as Healer about the cure of diseases and injuries.

How mysterious the mysteries weren't. Not only do the account tell of the initiations happening in public at temples open to the general population, we have an account where a man is derided as being the only person in Athens not initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries.

Dreams were a common way to discover the will of the gods, and oracles after them. Many inscriptions recount that "I was commanded" before recounting a sacrifice, so many that it was abbreviated. We not only have inscriptions raised to one god by people who described themselves as the priest of another, but some where the person said that he did this sacrifice, made this dedication, etc. to one god at the command of another.

Feasts were a big deal. Shrines had kitchens and dining rooms that were larger than anyone but the extremely rich could afford, and people would have their banquets there, with invitations saying it would be "at the couch of Serapis."

Considerations of the afterlife were -- not large, actually. Initiations were thrown in as things that religions gave you, but not that they promised great wonders for the afterlife. Putting that you had been annihilated and did not care on your tombstone was so prevalent that they abbreviated it.

There were philosophers who criticized elements. For instance, one scornfully declared that everything the Christians said about the falsity of idols was repeating what a philosopher had said before them.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good survey of the pagan religions as they existed between about 100 B.C. and 400 A.D. in the Roman Empire, with an emphasis on the first two centuries of the Christian era. MacMullen notes many of the seeming contradictions that exist when we look at paganism as a whole in the empire and how it is quite impossible to talk of its rise and demise on any kind of decade-long cycle. But mostly MacMullen looks at how Roman society functioned with its wide array of gods pulled in from its various conquered domains.

Pagan religions were part of daily life. They were the means by which social functions happened. The poor, without recourse to large homes in which to host parties, hosted them in temple dining rooms. Festivals, put on by supporters of a particular god, invited people to come celebrate with them--there were parades and other fun activities.

Particular gods became popular, it appears, largely through sponsorship of rich patrons or government officials. They could change with the change of the local legate. People's personal gods--the local gods, the ones of each conquered nation--had more sticking power in the local area. And it, was more than trade or military service, largely slavery that accounted for the spread of a god in new locales, as slave families adhered to the ancient customs.

The rich and educated may have paid for and advocated a particular god. Philosophy may have leaned more and more on the idea of one god--or more properly, the superiority of one god, of which all the gods were manifestations. But the common people remained largely unmoved by such ideas.

As such, there wasn't a lot of missionizing in the sense that we would account for in religious conversion today. The most dominant argument for a deity was generally based around miracles--healings and the like. This was likely the appeal of Christianity, along with the martyrdoms to Christians endured, which were a kind of wonder in themselves.

Gods gained and lost popularity. At the time that Constantine came to power, the Sun was in the ascendant. But had he not converted to Christianity, the process of various other pagan gods gaining popularity for a time would have continued.

If this summary seems somewhat disjointed, that is probably partly because MacMullen's text at times seems this way. There is a clear organization underneath that flows along easily as one reads, but when one goes back to outline the thoughts included, it is a bit difficult, so fluid is the discussion.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

MacMullen has fascinating insights into the nature of paganism in the second and third centuries CE. I particularly enjoyed his dissection of the commonly accepted notion of "state cults" and his description of the Empire's tolerance towards other polytheists (if not to Christians, who were viewed in some quarters as atheist because of their monotheism). The sensitive use of inscriptions to describe both what we know of religious practice as well as what we cannot know because of the motives/class origins/geographic distribution was notable. MacMullen's style is almost conversational at some points and always evenhanded.

[Miroslav · Rating 3 out of 5]

Veľmi strohá a nezáživne napísaná kniha, ktorá sa na 130-tich stranách snaží uchopiť tisícročie pohanských kultov rímskeho impéria. Škoda, lebo kniha mala potenciál a keby sa toho zhostil Bart Ehrman, alebo Robin Lane Fox, výsledok by bol asi úplne iný

[Dane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Paganism" as in not sanctioned by the holy smart guy up there in the Vatican Palace.