Roman Gods And Godesses With Relation To Roman People Essay Example

gods entered Roman pantheon.

Due to many foreign loans, it is quite hard to gain some knowledge about original Roman gods, because available texts of classical authors, such as Ovid, Vergil or Varro, have been strongly influenced by Greek mythology. For example, they tell a popular story of Hercules (a Latinized variant of the Greek Heracles), who once stopped near Rome for the night and killed a horrifying beast. Titus Livy (Livius in Latin) is one of the most famous Roman authors, whose texts provide a broad view on Roman religious beliefs in the late republic and early empire.

Being a historian, a philosopher and a moralist, Livy could not have avoided topics of religion. He associated al the major events of Roman history with divine interference. For him gods were not remote and inconceivable forces, but some sort of superhumans, with their own desires and passions. Their participation in the Roman history was not abstract, but took a form of concrete actions. As Jason P. Davies noticed, “Livy’s gods are not those of Homer, but instead visible in the behaviour of the people concerned” The most well-known Roman myth of Romulus and Remus gas been described by Livy in his book on Roman history.

As Livy explains, the twins were sons of Mars – a god of war – and a wordly woman named Rhea Silvia, thusly he philosophically relates the whole Roman history to the cult of war. For Livy since the moment of foundation of Rome the whole Roman military fortune depended on the will of gods and how they are worshiped. In Book 22 he tells how Gaius Flaminius accepted command without necessary rituals,

and launched a campaign against Hanibal’s army. The disgruntled senators proclaimed it "not a war against the enemy, but a war against the gods". For Livy, dramatic defeat of Romans at the Trasimene lake was a natural result of disrespect to gods.

However, Livy, same as almost any Roman, was not a fanatic believer. Roman’s idea of gods was quite rational and never required non-critical faith. Along with recording myths Livy tried to find reasonable explanation for legendary events. As he wrote, a vestal could simply invent a story of her relations with Mars to protect her reputation and the she-wolf could be a nick-name of a prostitute, who really brought the twins up. This approach is similar to Plutarch, who wrote down: “May I therefore succeed in purifying the mythic, while making it submit to reason and take on the look of history.

Livy used three interrelated terms to explain divine phenomena – fors, fortuna and fatum. Fors is seen as a divine power to deliberately change things, fortuna as god’s grace, which helps humans in changing things and fatum is an impersonal blind stream, which neither humans nor gods can resist. Fors and fortuna provide freedom of choice, whole fatum takes such freedom away. Fors and fortuna are seen as positive and optimistic phenomena, and fatum is a fatal force, destroying human hopes. In this respect fatum can be compared with Greek Kronos.

Fortuna has been embodied in a goddess, and fatum can have no embodiement, because it symbolizes destructive chaotic forces . As Rome developed from rural community towards a global empire, it’s religion appeared to be in decline. Mythology, which was good for farmers

and shepherds was not good for rulers of half of the known world. Worshiping of foreign gods became so popular in the times of the empire, that Roman authorities officially included Egyptian, Phrygian and Greek gods to their pantheon.

Already in 203 BC a symbol of Cybele, a Phrygian deity, was moved and welcomed in Rome . Initially being foreign, Diana, Minerva, Hercules and Venus, have established themselves so firmly, that now they are often regarded as truly Roman gods . However, such half-measures were not enough to satisfy religious needs and overcome spiritual emptiness, resulting in spread of cynicism and atheism in the society. Dissatisfaction of Romans with their old gods and necessity to find a new absolute deity contributed greatly to the upcoming triumph of Christianity.