1 Earliest Rome

13 Perspectives
This final chapter concentrates on a series of specifically self-conscious critiques
of Roman religion, They cover more than six hundred years, from the
second century B.C. to the fifth century A.D. and are written both by Romans
and by outside observers. The piety of the Romans, claimed by the Romans
and denied by a Greek contemporary (13.1), became the subject of philosophical
debate in the first century B.C. (13.2 and 3), while some religious
practices could also be the victim of Roman satire (13.4). The issue of the relationship
between religion and philosophy recurs when the emperor Marcus
Aurelius expressed his personal views of the role of the gods in relation to his
Stoic philosophy (13.5). Christianity added a new element to the debates.
Terttillian (writing at the very end of the second century A.D.) denied that the
Roman empire was due to Roman piety (13.6). From the fourth century we
quote a traditionalist writer describing Rome as a pagan city, with no mention
of Christianity and its monuments (13.7), followed (13.8) by a Christian poet,
Prudentius, arguing that Christianity had already in the late fourth century
A.D. supplanted the traditional cults. Augustine, writing a generation later, also
rejected the old gods of Rome, but asserted the profound theological difference
between the earthly city and the heavenly city of god (13.9).
For other passages of commentary and critique on Roman religion, see especially:
2.4c, 2.7e and 9.6a (Lucretius' philosophical critique); 1.1a, 12.6a
(Varro's treatise on Human and Divine Antiquities); 9.5d (Seneca's treatise on
'superstition'); 2.1d, 2.10c, 8.10a (Minucius Felix's Christian critique of
Roman religion).
See further: Wardman (1982) 52-62* (a review of late republican perspectives').
13.1 Roman piety?
Roman success (particularly in foreign conquest) was commonly ascribed -
not only by the Romans themselves, but also by some of those they conquered
— to their scrupulous piety towards the gods. Though there was room for
debate on how 'sincere' that piety was.
See further: Vol. 1, 73-4; Brunt (1978); Harris (1979) 118-25, 166-75.
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