Roman History Books and More

IO SATVRNALIA!

Resurrecting an old post ...

Escultura "Saturnalia" en el Jardín Botánico de Buenos Aires, Ernesto Biondi

Here are some links to Rome's big December festival, some courtesy N.S. Gill:

• Saturnalia - Celebrate the Saturnalia
• Saturnalia (Roman Holidays)
• December (Fasti) 
• Saturnalia at Wikipedia => Macrobius: Saturnalia
• Image: Alma-Tadema's Ave, Caesar! Io, Saturnalia!

and a how to …

Pliny the Younger did not think much of the festivities:

"...especially during the Saturnalia when the rest of the house is noisy with the licence of the holiday and festive cries. This way I don't hamper the games of my people and they don't hinder my work or studies."  (Epistles 2.17.24)

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

IO, SATVRNALIA!

mythology: isis and osiris on matters arising

Robert of Matters Arising in his mythology series is blogging Isis and Osiris, with nice images.

The story of the Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris, their brother Set, their child Horus, and the sun god Ra is well known from a mixture of native Egyptian texts and from texts written by the 2nd century AD Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch, and the slightly later Roman novelist Apuleius.    read on

Roman fresco from the temple of Isis in Pompeii, Io is welcomed in Egypt by Isis.
Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Naples), courtesy Wikimedia Commons

myth of sacred prostitution

In or recent book chat about the novel Winter Quarters by Alfred Duggan, the question came up whether there was really a temple prostitution, as is so often implied.

Now, thanks to a comment elsewhere by Judith Weingarten, "… we may finally (finally!) be able to put the myth of sacred prostitution to bed: see the BMCR review of Stephanie Budin’s new book, The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity."

The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity
by Stephanie Budin
Hardcover, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

From the review by Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge:

peter stothart on druids and englishmen, and a new book

Love a Druid, Hate a Papist

[...] Whether any Roman writer had ever actually seen a Druid, let alone visited their hideous groves, is a matter of much doubt. But when seventeenth century opponents of an English Catholic kingdom wanted to link themselves to the most flamboyant freedom fighters in their past, the English Druids, as fearsomely described by Caesar, Tacitus and Lucan, were friends indeed.  read on

senatus consultum de bacchanalibus, 186 bce

The same Kaeso as the one in the post below is an adherent of Bacchus (Dionysus) and perishes in the persecution in Rome of 186 BCE.

Livy, History of Rome, Book XXXIX

Decree of the Senate Concerning the Rites of Bacchus
The original bronze tablet, found in Tiriolo, Italy, in 1640, is currently located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Dionysus at Smith's Dictionary
Dionysus (Greek mythology) at Britannica

Image at right courtesy Wikimedia Commons:  Seated Dionysos holding out a kantharos. Interior from an Attic black-figured plate, ca. 520-500 BC. From Vulci.

bingley blogged about mithraism (ref. eagle in the snow)

The protagonist in our current read, Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem, Paulinus Gaius Maximus, is still a Pagan in a by now largely Christian world.  Like many soldiers in an earlier Rome he worships the God Mithra. 

Our friend Bingley tells us all we wanted to know and more:  Mithraism.

To add to this, Britannica online has this to say: Mithraism.

The image on the right from Wikimedia Commons represents  Mithras as the Sun god banqueting with Selene (the Moon) and the twin divinities Cautes (Dawn) and Cautopates (Twilight), his attendants. Marble, side B of a two-faced Roman relief, 2nd or 3rd century AD. (The Louvre).  Bingley's post shows side A, Mithras killing a sacred bull (tauroctony).

roman boundary festivals

In Chapter Eight, The Power of Rome in the Sixth Century, of  The Beginnings of Rome: Italy From the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (Circa 1,000 to 264 B.C.), T.J. Cornell discusses the walls and boundaries of Rome, and mentions three related festivals:  Terminalia, Robigalia, and Ambarvalia.

Terminalia, named after the god Terminus who protected boundary markers. (Wikipedia, as usual handle with care)

LacusCurtius has Smith's Dictionary:

TERMINAʹLIA, a festival in honour of the god Terminus, who presided over boundaries. His statue was merely a stone or post stuck in the ground to distinguish between properties. On the festival the two owners of adjacent property crowned the statue with garlands and raised a rude altar, on which they offered up some corn, honeycombs, and wine, and sacrificed a lamb (Hor. Epod. II.59) or a sucking pig. They concluded with singing the praises of the god (Ovid. Fast. II.639, &c.). The public festival in honour of this god was celebrated at the sixth milestone on the road towards Laurentum (Id. 682), doubtless because this was originally the extent of the Roman territory in that direction.

The festival of the Terminalia was celebrated a. d. VII. Kal. Mart., or the 23d of February on the day before the Regifugium. The Terminalia was celebrated on the last day of the old Roman year, whence some derive its name.

more on monasticism

The figures Gibbon particularly draws our attention to in the early history of monasticism are St. Anthony in Egypt and St. Martin in Gaul.

Monasticism seems to have started in Egypt, and we have accounts of some of the monks by  Rufinus and Palladius. Perhaps the most famous of the monks was St. Anthony, a life of whom was written by his contemporary admirer, Athanasius. The Catholic Encylopaedia has a more modern account.

Anthony has been a popular subject for painters: Hieronymus Bosch painted a lurid picture of Anthony's temptation by demons. Another picture on the same subject was painted by Matthias Grünewald as part of the Isenheim Altarpiece, which also contains a more restful picture of Anthony's visit to St. Paul the Hermit.

lupercal found?

As a follow up from our read earlier this year of Scullard's "History of The Roman World: 753-146 BC" and in anticipation of next year's read of T J Cornell's "The Beginnings of Rome", our regular readers may be interested to know of a report from the BBC that a cavity has been found near the remains of Augustus' palace in Rome.

The archaeologists who discovered it speculate that it may be the Lupercal, the cave the Romans thought was the place where the famous she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus. In his note to the entry on the Lupercal in Platner's Topographical Dictionary, Bill Thayer of LacusCurtius seems to be sceptical, as does Mary Beard.

monasticism

One doesn't have to read very far in Gibbon's account of early monasticism to realise that he takes a very negative view of the subject.

Indeed, in the introduction of her translation, The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, Benedicta Ward says: "Some of the  monastic extremes of physical discipline, such as going to the limits of existence with as little sleep, food, drink and companionship as possible, were a cause for wonder, then and later, not always of a complimentary kind." (page xi). In her footnote to this comment she particularly singles out Gibbon as an example. The translation (but not the introduction) can also be viewed at Google Books. Since the book is a compilation of sayings with the occasional background story, the fact that some pages have been skipped don't make so much of a difference as it usually does.

pope damasus I

Gibbon quotes Ammianus Marcellinus on the rioting that ensued after the death of Pope Liberius. At the time bishops were chosen by popular election, and two more or less simultaneous elections for bishop of Rome were held by different factions, one supporting Liberius' deacon Ursinus, and the other supporting Damasus. As a pagan, Ammianus is naturally uninterested in any theological differences that may have been at stake, and criticises the two candidates for ambition to enjoy the luxurious lifestyle of the bishop of Rome, in contrast to the frugal lifestyles of provincial bishops.

neoplatonism and julian the apostate

The religion that Julian was trying to promote as a rival to Christianity was more than the rituals of the traditional Greek and Roman worship of the gods, it was highly influenced by the Neoplatonic philosophies proposed by Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblichus. Neoplatonism is a modern name for the schools of thought based on Plotinus' interpretation of Plato's writings and his attempt to synthesise them with other, later, philosophical schools.

Very basically, the idea was that the Divine was so caught up contemplating its creation that some parts got trapped inside the creation and now have to find their way back through the study of philosophy. How exactly this was to be done differed from writer to writer. Iamblichus invoked the aid of the gods, who were supposed to be parts of the Divine who were less trapped than humans, using a technique called theurgy.

historical figures in “the dream of scipio” – II : the cathars

In the 14th century part of our current read, The Dream of Scipio, Olivier de Noyen encounters two “heretics” and learns of their beliefs, one of which is reincarnation.  In the novel, this is traced back to the 5th century protagonist Manlius, his philosophical treatise on The Dream of Scipio, and his philosopher friend Sophia.

As in so much in the novel, there is a grain of truth to it, and we were reminded of the Cathars, which were quite familiar to some in our reading group.  Wikipedia (handle with care as usual) has an extensive article on Catharism, with a number of external links, one of which is Cathars and Cathar Beliefs in the Languedoc  (Cathars and the Cathar Crusade: history, cathar theology, crusade leaders, explanations, maps and source documents).

the flamen dialis

In The Legatus Mystery by Rosemary Rowe, the chief priest of Jupiter in the Roman colonia of Glevum, an elderly eccentric, aspires to the post of flamen dialis, chief priest of Jupiter of Rome, the most distinguished of the priesthoods after the pontifex maximus.  In fact, he practices already at being so by observing all the rituals and restrictions of that position and requires his young wife to do the same as flaminica dialis.

Here is Cicero outlining these rules:

A great many ceremonies are imposed upon the Flamen Dialis [the priest of Jupiter], and also many restraints, about which we read in the books On The Public Priesthoods and also in Book I of Fabius Pictor's work.  Among them I recall the following:  1) It is forbidden the Flamen Dialis to ride a horse;  2) It is likewise forbidden him to view the classes arrayed outside the pomerium [the sacred boundary of Rome], i.e., armed and in battle order---hence only rarely is the Flamen Dialis made a Consul, since the conduct of wars is entrusted to the Consuls;  3) It is likewise forbidden for him ever to take an oath by Jupiter;  4) It is likewise forbidden for him to wear a ring, unless it is cut through and empty;  5) It is also forbidden to carry out fire from the flaminia, i.e., the Flamen Dialis’ house, except for a sacral purpose;  6) if a prisoner in chains enters the house he must be released and the chains must be carried up through the opening in the roof above the atrium or living room onto the roof tiles and dropped down from there into the street;

timeline for apostle paul

Thanks to vcl, here is a clearly laid out timeline for the journeys of the Apostle Paul, with a nice map too, which will help readers of our current book, The Kingdom of the Wicked.

Still, this should be taken with a grain of salt, and I take no responsibility for the rest of the website which this informations comes from!  ;-)

There is also St. Paul at The Catholic Encyclopedia, and my earlier post, as well as Saul of Tarsus from the Jewish Encyclopedia.

ananias and psalm 24

The Zealots guffawed, but the visitors from Antioch did not understand. If they had thought about the writing of the name they would have seen that Hananiah spelt backwards gave Yochanan. The twenty-fourth psalm of David had the line: 'The temple court cried out "Lift up your heads, O ye gates and let Yochanan the son of Narbai and the disciple of Pinqai enter and fill his belly with the divine sacrifices."' Ananias was noted for his greed. Pinqai suggested pinka, a dish of stewed meat with onions to which the high priest was partial. In some ways the Jews were a subtle people.

I found this passage from pages 250-251 of my copy of The Kingdom of the Wicked rather puzzling…

pontius pilate

The Council of Nicea, which was covered in our Gibbon reading earlier this month, produced the Nicene Creed, one line of which reads in English "For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate". Pontius Pilate appears in the early part of our current reading, The Kingdom of the Wicked.

He is not only mentioned in the Gospels, but also by Josephus and Philo. For texts and discussion, see livius.org and The Ecole Initiative (texts at the bottom of the page). An inscription by Pilate was found in Caesarea in 1961. Some coins issued by Pontius Pilate can be seen here.

pontifex, pontifex maximus

In The First Man in Rome, there are squabbles about who should become a pontifex, as well as pontifex maximus, after either post has become vacant, and families are jealously trying to preserve their prerogatives.

The pontifex maximus was the highest priestly position in Rome, head of the college of the pontifices.

Smith's Dictionary at Lacus Curtius has this:

a jewish temple in egypt

While reading Colleen McCullough's The October Horse,  I came across this passage (page 116):

In the southeast of the Delta lay the Land of Onias, an autonomous enclave of Jews descended from the High Priest Onias and his followers, who had been exiled from Judea for refusing to prostrate themselves flat on the ground before the King of Syria; that, Onias had said, they did only to their God. King Ptolemy VI Philometor gave the Onians a large tract of land as their own in return for an annual tribute and soldiers for the Egyptian army. The news of Cleopatra's generosity had spread to the Land of Onias, which declared for her in this civil war and made it possible for Mithridates of Pergamum to occupy Pelusium without a struggle; Pelusium was full of Jews and had strong ties to the Land of Onias, which was vital to all Egyptian Jews because it held the Great Temple. This was a smaller replica of King Solomon's temple, even to a tower eighty feet tall and artificial gulches to simulate the Vales of Kedron and Gehenna.

Intrigued by the idea of there having been another temple besides the one in Jerusalem, I did a bit of googling and came to the Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906) entry for Leontopolis,  which gives Josephus as the source of our information about this temple.

elcesaites, elchasaites, helkesaites

In Zenobia, the Warrior Queen, the narrator Simon and his friend Taimsa, who study at Apamea, encounter one Alcibiades, who preaches the doctrine of the Elchasaites.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Elcesaites were a sect of Gnostic Ebionites, whose religion was a wild medley of heathen superstitions and Christian doctrines with Judaism. Hippolytus (Philosophumena, IX, 13-17) tells us that under Callistus* (217-222) a cunning individual called Alcibiades, a native of Apamea in Syria, came to Rome, bringing a book which he said had been received from Parthia by a just man named Elchasai (’Elchasaí; but Epiphanius has ’Elksaí and ’Elkessaîoi; Methodius, ’Elkesaîos, and Origen, ’Elkesaïtaí). The contents of the book had been revealed by an angel ninety-six miles high, sixteen miles broad, and twenty-four across the shoulders, whose footprints were fourteen miles long and four miles wide by two miles deep. Read on.

*Callistus was the Bishop of Rome.

Related is Catholic Encyclopedia: Apocrypha, A long article with a comments on each Apocryphal book. Classified according to origin, and the e-text Apocryphal Acts of The Apostles, Edited From Syriac Manuscripts in The British Museum and Other Libraries by W. Wright, LL.D., Ph. D., 1871.

JSTOR has an article The Acts of the Apostles by A.F.J. Klijn.