The Religion of Ancient Rome

by Cyril Bailey

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: History, Religion, Philosophy, Nonfiction

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1907

About the author

Dr. Cyril Bailey (1871-1957) was a British classical scholar and author. He was a Fellow and Tutor at Balliol College, Oxford, and in 1939 became co-editor of the Oxford Latin Dictionary with James McLeod Wyllie (1907-1971).

Reviews

[Pia G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

roma dini hakkında bilgi sahibi olmak isteyenler için harika bir başlangıç!

kitap yalnızca ritüellerden ve tanrılardan söz etmiyor, roma’daki dini yapıların toplumun sosyal, siyasi ve gündelik hayatıyla nasıl iç içe geçtiğini de detaylı bir şekilde ele alıyor. önce okuduğum 'kadınların tarihi' kitabı sayesinde roma kültlerine biraz aşinayım, bu yüzden konuya yabancılık çekmedim ve okurken öğrendiklerimin üzerine yeni şeyler eklemek beni çok heyecanlandırdı. özellikle vesta bakirelerinin görevleri ve devletle olan bağları dikkatimi çeken bölümlerden biriydi. bailey’nin dili oldukça sade. akademik terimler yerine anlaşılır bir üslup tercih etmiş, bu da roma dininin katmanlı yapısını kavramayı kolaylaştırıyor. kitap öyle akıcı ki, bir günde okuyup bitirmek mümkün.

kitabın hoşuma giden diğer kısımlarından biri, hem tanınmış kültlere hem de daha yerel ve gündelik uygulamalara yer vermesiydi. jüpiter, mars, minerva gibi tanrıların devletle olan ilişkileri detaylıca anlatılırken, bereketle ilgili ritüeller ya da halk arasında yaygın olan inançlar da ihmal edilmemiş. bailey’nin ritüellere yaklaşımı çok hoşuma gitti, onları yalnızca dini uygulamalar olarak değil de toplumu bir arada tutan sosyal bağlar olarak ele almış. kadınların, dini hayattaki yerinin özellikle vurgulanması da etkileyici. vesta bakirelerinin toplumdaki konumu, taşıdıkları hukuki sorumluluklar ve ritüellerdeki rolleri oldukça iyi aktarılmış. bu bölümler roma toplumunun nasıl işlediğine dair daha geniş bir bakış açısı kazandırıyor. son olarak kitabı okurken roma dininin yunan kültüründen etkilendiği yerleri de fark etmek mümkün.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book how ever I do wish the author had done more to make it more interesting. I look forward to reading more of this author's work.

[Monty Milne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Roman religion was, as Bailey describes, “the religion of Numa”. In its dimly distant origins this was related to numen (= power, something imprecise, sexless and mysterious and which predates deus = God) but later Numa came to be seen as a lawgiver (like Moses). The consequence of basing a religion on a lawgiver rather than a prophet or a poet was to increase the legalistic importance of ceremony, but empty it of piety or devotion. Hence, we read that “Roman religion was a tiresome ritual formalism, almost wholly lacking in ethical value.”

This seems convincing to me – up to a point – although there is obviously a more mystical pre-legalistic substrate. The Roman festival of Parentalia sounds like the annual Founders and Benefactors service at my old school – an ostensibly religious ceremony which was in fact entirely a matter of civic commemoration. But I am surprised that Bailey claims the Romans had no cult of the dead – the Lemuria festival, which Ovid thought very ancient, seems to have been a kind of ghostbusting ritual; this surely argues for some kind of cult of the dead predating all the civic, legalistic stuff.

Similarly, I don’t think the cult of Vesta was just about tidy domesticity, as Bailey seems to suggest. The original Vestal Virgins were conceived of as consorts of the fire god: they weren’t so much virgins as only supposed to have sex with the god Vesta. One of them avoided being put to death for adultery (when she was found to pregnant) by successfully arguing that she had been impregnated by a spark from the sacred fire (so the god Vesta really was the father). This is all in Frazer’s Golden Bough, and though Bailey acknowledges his debt to Frazer he is really too slight and cursory in this rather slender study to develop his theme in any interesting directions.

Still, it’s a fascinating subject, and the notion of Roman religion as a kind of civil contract does at least explain its vulnerability to less legalistic foreign importations like Mithras and Jesus, and also its importance in being “the thing which binds” – this being of course the Latin meaning of “Re Ligio” – something which Bailey doesn’t tell us – perhaps because like the somewhat dry and dusty don he was, he feels we all knew that anyway. This is an interesting subject, but I feel this book is far too short and far too dry for me to get very excited by it – alas.

[Catamita]

I read it in the twilight of my life as reader, so I honestly couldn't give a detailed and staid description thereof, how sad.

[Mehmet Dönmez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yani tercümeye bok atacağım, çok anlamadım yazılanları (kitap müze mağazalarında satılıyor) ama dinler antropolojisine ezelden varım

[Mar Castello · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un tostón (per sort curt lol), però interessant

[Shaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very interesting especially the pre kingdom origins of Roman religion, a period I have not read much about yet. Its pretty dry reading but the book is short :) I tend to fall asleep when I read so this may take awhile

[ece · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5⭐️

There is too much terminology. The book would be much better if the author added their definitions.