Religious Incorporation

[Guest Polaris]

Hey Guys, New Poster here. Been reading over past discussions and, for the most part, liked what I saw. As for this post, I

[Ursus]

Sounds like an exercise in postmodern cynicism. No offense, just not my cup of tea. ;-)

 

Uh, Romanization of foreign icons?

 

Two things come to mind:

 

In occupied Egypt, Roman Emperors were portrayed as Pharaohs using the traditional religious art that adorned the ubiquitous temples. The Romans weren't the first to do this mind you, the Ptolemies had been doing it for some 300 years prior. In the Greco-Roman era Egyptian art and architecture took on some Mediterranean flavors, but there was still a heavy native influence, of course, designed to appeal to the native subjects.

 

In the Celtic lands of the Western Empire, Celtic gods were often identified with Roman ones, and the images set up in the Romano-Celtic temples were thus Romanized. The native Celtic representations, to the extent they had any, were of a different style. I don't want to say they were primitive, but they were stylized and often animalistic. The temples themselves were of a unique architectural design that was not wholly Roman.

[Germanicus]

Ursus - can't remember what string it was in, but there was a discussion some time ago about how the Romans incorperated foriegn deities into their pantheon because, being superstitious, and considering their contractual relationship with their own gods, they simply did not want to run the risk of offending potentialy powerfull foreign gods, and hence payed them a certain amount of respect in many cases - like Mithras and Isis. It didn't mean they were only doing it to "Pacify" the natives, but that they had their own reasons ?

[Ursus]

Yes, the basic idea was that all gods were real, or at least that "foreign" gods were local flavors of "native" gods. In any event, gods supposedly had the power to harm you if offended, or benefit you if propitiated. Thus, to the pious Roman, the whole point of religion was to incur favor with the gods, or at least to avert disfavor, through the correct observance of rituals and sacrifices.

 

Thus gods of other people were often incorporated into the network of State cults to incur their favor. This especially happened during war. The Romans would offer sacrifices to the gods of their enemies, promising those gods that if they favored the Romans rather than the native people, the Romans would "move" the gods back to Rome and give them temples and honors. The Romans incorporated several gods of defeated enemies this way.

 

As for Isis and Mithras, those gods were just very popular with certain sects of society because they promised certain benefits. Since polytheism means you can honor many gods at once, people obviously honored whatever gods they thought could bring them honor and favor.

 

Now as to original poster, I can't deny this religious tolerance and religious plurality had a certain effect of smoothing relations among a multi-cultural empire, which was generally in the government's favor to promote. But to assert that this was the only or main driving force of Roman religious incorporation is not entirely accurate. Evidence suggests the majority of Romans were simply pious polytheists who honored the gods they thought could help them in their often trying lives.

 

 

 

[Guest Polaris]

Meaning that the religious common grounds acheived in this manner, while interesting, was just an unintended side affect? I'm not sure if I buy that.

[Zeke]

I find that concept of adopting forgien gods as extreamly fasinating lol (sorry if I spelled that wrong)

Zeke