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Roman Culture
Religion and physical perfection
Nature of Roman Religion
Central: Pax Deorum - peace of the gods
 Welfare of the state depended on pleasing the gods
 Responsibility of communication with the gods lay with
political leaders, i.e. members of political elite who
held public offices also held priestly offices (not a
separate profession)
 In empire – chief priest (pontifex maximus) was the
emperor
 Communication with gods through prayer and sacrifice;
divination; initiation and purification rituals
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Communication with the gods
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Emphasis on religious activities: Cultus central to Roman
religion = the practices and rituals in worship
Enormous range of religious practices in Rome
Emphasis in cultus on the correct repetitions of
formulae.
Main forms:
 1. request for benefits from gods, (in prayers, sacrifices
and other offerings)
 2. Divinations or interpretation of messages from the
gods
 3. rituals – such as purifications and initiations which in
various ways transformed a person’s situation with
respect to the divine
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Range of offerings
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flowers, cakes, incense,
Libations = liquids – wine most common,
Milk, oil, honey, even water
Blood sacrifice – very common: the ritual slaughter of an
animal - domestic (sheep, pig, cow) = symbol of piety
Neither the emperor or any other magistrate/priest
carried out the actual slaughter of a victim which was
considered a pollution – that was done by the victiarius ,
normally a slave – an individual who stood
outside society.
A contract between gods and
community
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Idea of reciprocity:
Do ut des -” I grant you this, so that you will give me
that in exchange.”
Quid pro quo - idea - I offer you a benefit and ask for
one in return
Concept must be understood in the context of a culture
(Graeco-Roman) where social relationships are based on
reciprocal benefits, i.e. patron-client relationship central
in Roman society
Rome: when benefit given, the person who receives the
benefit owes - gratia - and can be called upon to return
the benefit – i.e. patron supports his clients with legal
advice, financial support, etc., client called upon to
support patron in elections, etc.,
Divination
Romans believed gods communicated with humans
 Divination = interpretation of divine communication
 Forms of Divination:
 Oracles – Romans went to Delphi, just like the Greeks
for interpretation of dreams;
 observation of the flight of birds;
 interpretation of prodigies (unusual events seen as
significant) and as messages from the gods that needed
to be interpreted – i.e. by haruspices or Sybilline books
 Christians and Muslims consider practice of divination as
mere fortune telling
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Divination and the Deformed in
Roman Religion
Monster – monstrum – etymologically related to Latin
monere = to warn
 Deformed births – omens (signs) from the gods –
represent a ‘warning’
 (different from Greeks )–
 Romans recorded such omens in annual priestly records
 Pliny the Elder (NH 7.34) hermaphrodites called
androgynoi = manwoman
 Haruspices carried out the ritual to appease the gods
again and to avert an evil omen by a sacrifice – since the
entire state was endangered – such sacrifice was usually
a valuable one, i.e. bull (a big bribe)
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Sexual deformity
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What does Garland suggest was the
reason that sexual deformities represented
a particularly apt symbol for disorder in
the state?
Family and Marriage
Importance of the family in the Roman
state
 The important role of marriage and
procreation
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questions
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Why were so many emperors obsessed
with individuals who had exceptionally
huge penises?
The god Priapus
God of gardens,
fertility, etc.
 Status often found in
Roman gardens of
private houses
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Laughing about the deformed
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Theories explaining why humans consider disabilities and
deformities humorously
Most wide accepted: theory of degradation – function of laughter is
to intimidate by humiliating.
“Humour at expense of disabled to large extent fuelled by sadistic,
sexual and scatological impulses” (Garland 74)
But also performs variety of social functions: bolster group cohesion
at times when unity of able-bodied is threatened and demoralized. 1
The disabled by drawing attention to their disabilities remind the
rest what they have in common. 2 the deformed and disabled
frighten and embarrass us – laughter is way of exorcising fear and
embarrassment (Garland 75).
In Greece and Rome – without scientific explanation deformity –
particularly frightening, and ordinary life was very harsh and
unpleasant for the majority - many would become disabled
themselves at some point in their lives
Garland Chapter 9
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Why were Roman physicians unable to
study human deformities to any extent,
especially deformed newborns?
Most birth at home in family assisted by
midwives - not physicians
 Religion required burial of deformed babies
immediately to fend of evil
 No human dissection practiced among Romans;
exception medical school in Alexandria
 Ancient Egyptians had better understanding of
human body – because of mummification
practices
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Roman Medicine and the
Hippocratic Corpus
A collection of medical writings from Greek and Roman
period
 named after Greek physician Hippocrates but most
written by his students and successors
 Hippocrates 4th century B.C.,from the island of Cos
 Herophilus 4th – 3rd centuries BC, from Alexandria
(dissected)
 Soranus 1st century A.D. Rome
 Galen 2nd century A.D., Pergamum
 Aretaeus, 2nd century A.D. Cappadocia
 All of these are famous male physicians – catering
primarily to the elite (those who can pay their fees) and
who left writings behind
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