Roman religion (1)

The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill

Roman religion had many gods and their number was not fixed. There were no tenets of belief and no authoritative sacred texts.  The community’s adherence to its religion was demonstrated through action and ritual rather than words, and the chief ritual was animal sacrifice.  Romans did not doubt that the gods existed. They believed that all the important processes in the world were divinely activated, and that different gods had charge of particular functions and spheres of activity. As an intensely practical people, they thought of the gods in terms of what they did rather than what they were. For example, a 'jack of all trades' was 'a man of every Minerva' - Minerva was the goddess of trade and commerce.

The relationship of men and gods was one of reciprocity. If men carry out the proper rituals, the gods will protect and support them.

Rome under Augustus

A reconstruction of the Forum of Augustus,
showing the Temple of Mars the Avenger

One of Augustus's most remarkable achievements was to change the face of Rome. He faced a double challenge:

1. to bring the population under control
2. to turn the city into an architectural show place.

Administrative

Relief showing the Praetorian Guard
under Augustus

1. Rome was divided into 14 regiones and 265 vici- these were run by leading tradesmen, often freedmen, thus giving them a stake in government they had never had before. The regiones still survive in modern Rome as Rioni.
2. Seven separate local fire stations were set up under the command of seven aediles. But the command structure was inadequate and the fires continued to blaze.  In AD 6, a paramilitary force of freedmen, 7000 strong, the vigiles were founded, under the control of a Prefect. Fully equipped with axes and buckets and the legal right to enter households.
3. In AD 8 the provision and distribution of grain were organised under a military Prefect with staff.
4. A police force - the urban cohorts - was set up. This was controversial because it went against the ideology of the city-state. However by the end of his reign the 3000 Urban Cohorts were a permanent institution.
5. The Praetorian Guard were the only troops stationed in Italy. Initially, they were responsible for crowd control - then they became the personal guard of the Princeps. In 2 BC they became a separate command structure under the two Praetorian Prefects.

Augustus's reforms made Rome more efficient. They also introduced a new element of professionalism and specialisation- a move away from the previous self-help pattern of both Greece and Rome.

Augustus: from Republic to Empire

The Prima Porta statue
of Augustus

Augustus wrote in his Res Gestae Divi Augustus (Achievements of the Deified Augustus), 

‘After I had extinguished civil wars, by universal consent, I gained  control  over all affairs'.

The myth of Actium

Actium  (2 September, 31 BC) might not have been a decisive victory for Augustus, but it was a milestone in the history of Rome, its anniversary celebrated as a public holiday. The poets milked it for its propaganda, seeing it as a victory of senate and people (700 senators crossed over to Greece with Octavian in a show of solidarity) over the degenerate East. Antony was vilified as a general who had been unmanned by a woman. Cleopatra was portrayed as a crazed queen, attended by wrinkled eunuchs, the worshipper of a series of monster gods. By contrast, the promontory of Actium housed a temple dedicated to Phoebus Apollo, the god of prophecy, music and poetry, and the avenger of piety and purity, who was credited with routing the Egyptian gods.

Julius Caesar: epilepsy or strokes?

The historians Plutarch and Suetonius described Caesar as suffering from convulsions and sudden fainting fits, which Shakespeare interprets as the 'falling sickness'. It has been widely accepted that this was epilepsy. However, two doctors are now arguing that he might have been afflicted by cerebrovascular disease, a series of mini-strokes that would have impaired his judgement and might account for his reckless behaviour in his final years. See their arguments here.

Antony and Cleopatra

When Antony reached Tarsus in the autumn of 41, he summoned Cleopatra, now aged twenty-eight, to meet him. After Caesar’s death, she had gone back to Alexandria, where her younger brother and consort Ptolemy XIV had died in mysterious circumstances.  She then made the young Caesarian her co-ruler and he was proclaimed King of Egypt. Antony wanted to call her to account for her failure to supply an army to help him and Octavian. But Cleopatra staged a famous meeting with Antony on the river Cygnus, after which she became his mistress. His support enabled her to strengthen her rule in Egypt.  She returned there and was joined by Antony in the winter of 40-1. However, he was forced to leave, and did not see her for four years (nor the twins that she bore him).


Back in Italy Octavian was forced to evict many farmers in order to provide for his veterans. His army became bogged down in the siege of Perusia (Perugia), held by Antony’s wife, Fulvia. Plutarch describes Fulvia as a headstrong woman, given to meddling in politics. He states that she began the war with Octavian in order to lure Antony back to Italy. In 40 Antony tried to land in Brundisium, but he was refused entry into Italy. 

Antony and Octavia
The threat of war was averted by negotiation, and the Treaty of Brundisium in October reinforced their fragile alliance. As Fulvia had died, Antony was able to marry Octavian’s sister, Octavia. This is probably the time the poet Virgil wrote his Fourth Eclogue; perhaps the divine child of the poem is the son that he believed would be born to Antony and Octavia. (In the Middle Ages it was believed that Virgil had foretold the birth of Christ.)

Now comes the crowning age foretold in the Sibyl’s songs, A great new cycle, bred of time, begins again. Now virginal Justice and the golden age returns, Now its first-born is sent down from high heaven.With the birth of this boy, the generation of iron will pass, And a generation of gold will inherit all the world.

The next few years saw Octavian increase his power in the west, and Antony in the east. In effect, they split Rome into an eastern and a western Empire.

The end of the Republicans (43-41 BC)

Octavian: Caesar's heir.
Would he be his successor?

The proscriptions
One of the first acts of the triumvirate was to follow the example of Sulla. The amnesty previously granted to Caesar’s assassins was repealed and a series of proscriptions eliminated their enemies and also gave them the funds to keep the army and the populace happy. They signed the death warrants for some three hundred senators and two thousand knights. The most famous victim was Cicero, whose death was quite unlike the peaceful ending he had envisaged in his writings. After his death his head and hands were cut off and brought to Antony, then nailed up above the rostra in the Forum. This was to gratify Antony’s personal lust for revenge but Octavian cannot escape responsibility for the prescriptions.  The historian Plutarch notes that he deliberately sacrificed Cicero to Antony and that Antony in turn abandoned his uncle: 

‘I can conceive of nothing more savage and vindictive than this trafficking in blood.’

Julius Caesar was deified, and Octavian began to style himself ‘son of the divine’ (‘divi filius’).

The battle of Philippi
A military campaign was then organised to avenge Caesar’s murder and to dispose of the conspirators. At the two-stage battle of Philippi in Greece in October 42 BC the conspirators were defeated. Plutarch states that Octavian proved himself an indifferent general (he was nearly defeated by Brutus) and that most of the credit for the battle went to Antony. The story of the visitation from Caesar’s ghost comes from Plutarch. Both Cassius and Brutus committed suicide. Antony and Octavian found themselves in control of sixty legions and more than a quarter of a million men.

The division of the spoils
After Philippi the provinces were divided among the triumvirs. Octavian took Spain, Sardinia, and Lepidus Africa. He also received Italy, which gave him the advantage of being at the heart of the empire. However, Italy was disrupted by civil war and harassed by the piratical activities of Pompey’s son, Sextus Pompeius. On the face of it, Antony was the chief beneficiary in that he took control of the east, which had always been regarded as a great reservoir of resources. He went first to Athens and then in the spring of 41 he crossed into Asia and found himself, like other powerful Romans, welcomed as a god; at Ephesus he was greeted as a ‘new Dionysus’. This is the type of thing that can go to a man's head!

After the assassination

Mark Antony: Caesar's co-consul.
 Would he also be his heir?

Antony: the heir of Caesar?

The Liberators, as they called themselves, believed they had restored the Republic; later, they had coins struck with daggers and the cap of liberty. But they made a fundamental mistake, naively assuming that once Caesar was removed the Republican government would automatically regain full vigour. As Cicero was to point out, they left ‘a fine banquet’ unfinished.

The immediate reaction to the assassination was panic. The Senators fled from the scene. One of those who escaped was Mark Antony, Caesar’s co-consul and his trusted friend. Cassius had wanted him to be assassinated along with Caesar, but Brutus had successfully argued that his life should be spared. However, Antony did not know this. In the general alarm following the murder, he put off his senator’s toga, disguised himself in plebeian dress and escaped.

Following the assassination, the conspirators went up to the Capitoline Hill, and with their hands smeared with blood and brandishing their naked daggers, they called on the citizens to assert their liberty. But their speech met with a mixed reception, and when they did not receive popular support, they retreated in confusion into the Capitol where they were joined by Cicero.