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Religious toleration in Republican Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

J.A. North
J.A. North
Affiliation:
University CollegeLondon
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Extract

It is a familiar fact that the religious tradition of Republican Rome did not depend on overt coercion of the citizen to maintain itself and its rituals. The censor did have powers to discipline those he found wanting in dutifulness towards the sacra; Cato once removed the public horse from one Veturius partly on religious grounds, though partly because he was too fat to ride it. In the courts, irreligion on the defendant's part was one of the most familiar themes of abuse; Cicero never underestimated the emotional impact of religious prejudice in his day. But the only formal charge of irreligion we hear of is that of incestum with a Vestal Virgin and, with that uncommon exception, there is nothing at Rome which corresponds even to the Greek asebeia proceedings, let alone to the persecutions or inquisitions of later Christian Europe. This does not prove that religious obligations were not felt or imposed through other forms of social pressure, but the apparatus of the State and the State's religious authorities seem not to have been directly concerned.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 25 , 1979 , pp. 85 - 103
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Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

NOTES

1. Cato, , ORP3 fr. 72Google Scholar; cf. Scullard, H.H., Roman Politics2 160, 261Google Scholar; Astin, A., Cato the Censor (1978) 81–2Google Scholar.

2. The accusation of irreligion is made against virtually all his enemies, e.g. Verres, (in Verrem 2.4.1-7Google Scholar and passim), Clodius, (de domo sua 104–9)Google Scholar, Vatinius, (in Vatinium 14)Google Scholar, Antonius, (Philippic 2.78-84)Google Scholar.

3. The only occasions in the late Republic are the trials of 114/3 B.C. (Asconius 45-6C; Cicero, , de Natura Deorum 3.74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Broughton, , MRR II.114)Google Scholar and that of 73 B.C. (Cicero, , in Toga Candida, and Asconius 91CGoogle Scholar; Plutarch, , Cato Minor 19.3Google Scholar; Crassus 1.2; MRR II.114).

4. For an analysis of the modern usage, see Crick, Bernard, Journal of Comparative Politics 6 (1971) 144–71Google Scholar; especially 156-7; for an overall discussion of tolerance and intolerance in the Ancient World, Momigliano, A.D., in Humphreys, S.C., Anthropology and the Greeks (1978) 179–92Google Scholar.

5. Pliny, , N.H. 30.12Google Scholar ‘…senatus consultum factum est ne homo immolaretur …’. Both the context in Pliny – the discussion of magic – and the use of the technical term immolare suggests that it was magical sacrifices which were forbidden rather than the State's official burial of pairs of Greeks and Gauls; this was not technically immolatio and had taken place in Rome less than twenty years before with full priestly approval (Plutarch, , Quaestiones Romanae 83Google Scholar). But cf. Cichorius, C., Römische Studien (1922) 6–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Schwenn, F., Die Menschopfer bei den Griechen und Römern (1915) 185–7Google Scholar (= RGVV XV, 3)Google Scholar.

7. Val. Max. 1.3.3; Livy, Ep. Oxy. 191Google Scholar; Servius, ad Aen. 8.187Google Scholar; cf. Latte, K., Römische Religionsgeschichte 275Google Scholar.

8. Latte (n. 7) 282-3; Cichorius (n. 5) 198.

9. Dion. Hal 2.19.5; cf. Latte (n.7) 260.

10. Val. Max. 7.7.6; Obsequens 44; cf. Mommsen, T., Römisches Strafrecht (1899) 637Google Scholar.

11. PBSR 44 (1976) 1–12Google Scholar.

12. ‘Graecus ignobilis … sacrificulus ac vates’, Livy 39.8.3. For the alternative version, which is different though not necessarily irreconcilable, cf. 39.13.8-10.

13. The religious issues raised by the crisis have attracted a good deal of discussion in the last forty years, building on the more philological debate of the thirties (cf. below n.17). The most important contributions are: Méautis, G., REA 42 (1940) 476–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Béquignon, J., RA 17 (1941) 184–98Google Scholar; Bruhl, A., Liber Paler. Origine et expansion du culte dionysiaque à Rome et dans le monde romain (1953) 82–116Google Scholar; Nilsson, M.P., The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman age (1957) 14–21Google Scholar; Toynbee, A., Hannibal's legacy II (1965) 387–402Google Scholar; Gallini, Clara, Protesta e integrazione nella Roma antica (1970)Google Scholar; Turcan, R., RHR 181 (1972) 3–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Franciosi, G., Clan gentilizio e strutture monagamiche ed. 2 (1978) 37–68Google Scholar. For fuller bibliography, Gallini, , Protesta 46–7Google Scholar.

14. Livy's notices are neither clear nor consistent, but we know at least that there was trouble in Apulia under three successive praetors in the late 180's - L. Postumius (Livy 39.29.8-9; 41.6-7; MRR I.372; 376), L. Pupius (Livy 40.19.10; MRR I.379) and L. Duronius (Livy 40.19.9-10; MRR 1.384). Although Livy 39.29 does not mention the Bacchanalia, there is good reason to suppose that all these notices refer to continued Bacchic resistance in the area; it would, however, be risky to trust the theory of Wuilleumier, , Tarente 497–8Google Scholar, that pastores (39.29.8) refers to the grade of boukoloi rather than just shepherds. For discussion, Frank, Tenney, CQ 21 (1927) 130CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Toynbee (n.13) 321-2; Gallini (n.13) 40-2.

15. Though if the text of Valerius Maximus cited above n.7 implies, as it probably does, that the worshippers of Sabazius were amongst the groups expelled in 139 B.C., this closely related cult might be seen as affording continuity of Dionysiac worship in Italy. Some degree of continuity at least is indicated by the Bacchic temple or cult-house at S. Abbondio outside Pompeii, cf. A. Bruhl (n.13) 121-2; Collins-Clinton, J., A late antique shrine of Liber Pater at Cosa (1976) 22–3Google Scholar. The cult was allegedly re-introduced, or re-legalized, by Caesar: Servius, ad Ecl. 5.29Google Scholar, the problems of which are fully discussed by Bruhl (n.13) 124-32.

16. For a favourable evaluation of Livy's information on the cult at this date, cf. especially Festugière, R., MEFR 66 (1954) 79–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar (= Études de religion grecque et hellénistique (1972) 89–110Google Scholar; for new and impressive archaeological support, Pailler, J.-M., Mélanges Heurgon II (1977) 731–42Google Scholar, who reports (739, cf. MEFR 83 (1971) 384–92)Google Scholar ‘un sanctuaire bachique aménagé entre 220 et 200 av. J.-C, et detruit par le feu 30 à 60 ans plus tard’, discovered during the excavations at Bolsena. But there are still formidable difficulties in the way of knowing how far Livy is reflecting the cult of 186 and how far either later knowledge or literary influence. Worse, the destructive analysis by Gelzer, M. (Hermes 71 (1936) 272–87Google Scholar = Kleine Schriften III (1964) 256–69)Google Scholar of the relationship between the narrative of Livy and the text of the SC led to negative conclusions which have not yet been fully refuted.

17. The famous decree de Bacchanalibus (hereafter called SC) is ILS 18 = ILLRP 511, in Degrassi, , Imagines (1965) no. 392 (photograph)Google Scholar. The problems of the text and its status were discussed by Fraenkel, E., Hermes 67 (1932) 369–96Google Scholar = Kleine Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie II (1964) 447–75Google Scholar; Keil, G., Hermes 68 (1933) 306–12Google Scholar; Krause, W., Hermes 71 (1936) 214–20Google Scholar; but all three concentrated on the obscure and problematic last few lines, while only Tierney, J.J., PRIA 51Google Scholar sect. C no. 5 (1947) 89-95 gives a detailed consideration of the substantive regulations in 11.3-22.

18. The best survey is Bruhl (n.13) 11-45.

19. Postumius' speech is Livy 39.15-16, see especially 15.10; 16.3. Hispala's evidence to the consul ib. 13. 8-14, see especially 14: ‘…alterum iam populum esse’.

20. Livy 39.10.5; 12.6.

21. Livy 39.14.4.

22. Plaut., Mil. 1016Google Scholar; Bacch. 53; Amph. 703-4; Aul. 408; Cas. 979-83. For discussion, Bruhl (n.13) 111-13.

23. Weinstock, S., Glotta 33 (1954) 309 n.6Google Scholar; Heurgon, J., REL 35 (1957) 106–12Google Scholar; Pfiffig, A.J., Religio Etrusca (1975) 293–5Google Scholar; J.-M. Pailler (n.16) 740-1, and n.50.

24. Livy 39.13.8-10.

25. SC 19-22.

26. In Euripides, ' Bacchae 820Google Scholar, Pentheus is warned by Dionysus that the women will kill him if they recognize him as a man invading their orgy; cf. also 730; Nilsson (n.13) 8-10 gives the epigraphic evidence for the sexually segregated thiasoi of the Hellenistic East; an exception is OGIS 735, from Thera, where an official and his wife are admitted together to the same thiasos; cf. Anth. Pal. 7.485, referring to a male leader at a female orgy, and IG 12.2.499 (Lesbos) where a male official keeps order (reading γυναι] κονόμος with Nilsson, , Griechische Feste (1906) 282 n.4)Google Scholar. For the Torre Nova inscription, Vogliano, and Cumont, , AJA 37 (1933) 215–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar and below n.49.

27. Sophocles, , Antigone 1151Google Scholar; Euripides, , Bacchae 485Google Scholar.

28. Nilsson (n.13) 8-10.

29. Bruhl (n.13) 93-4 treats the whole of Hispala's account of the reforms of Paculla Annia with scepticism; doubt, of course, there must be, but the substantial objections do not stand.

30. ‘… tamquam deum monitu’, Livy 39.13.9

31. The evidence was collected by Nilsson (n.13) 78-88; 106-15; Matz, F., Dionysiake Telete (1963)Google Scholar (= Akad. Mainz, Abhandlungen d. geistes- u. sozialwiss. Kl. 1963 n.15), gives a detailed catalogue and analysis of the relevant representations: 8-9; 18-19. For other youthful initiates, Himerius, , Or. 23.7-8Google Scholar; IG 22.11674.9-12. Festugière (n.16) inferred from the fact of child initiation that the Bacchists believed in the afterlife, at risk if the child died uninitiated; other interpretations are likelier.

32. For examples, Nilsson (n.13) fig.8 (p.89); fig.19 (p.90); in the catalogue of Matz (n.31), these are no.4 and no.12 respectively.

33. Livy 39.10.6 and 13.14 - both times the point is made by Hispala.

34. Livy 39.12.1. (initiation of Hispala); 9.2 (of Aebutius, though it never actually happened).

35. Livy 39.15.13.

36. SC 28-30 by itself leaves little doubt that Bacanal in this document means a sacred building not a group or lodge: ‘… Bacanalia, sei qua sunt, exstrad quam sei quid ibei sacri est, … faciatis utei dismota sient.’ The best discussion of the problem is E. Fraenkel (n.17) 369 n.4 = 447 n.4.

37. For the interpretation of the phrase ‘Bacas … adiese’ (SC 7–9), cf. Fraenkel (n.17) 370-1 = 448-9.

38. This point is apparently missed by Livy's version (39.18.8-9), otherwise not too inaccurate, but here implying that any priesthood became illegal.

39. These regulations are difficult and full of ambiguities, which arise partly from our uncertainty as to the exact meaning of the various activities forbidden by the different clauses, but partly from imprecise and inexplicit wording in the actual text. The best discussion is still that of Tierney (n.17) 92-4.

40. For the oath, SC 13–14; for the presence of both sexes, which is not forbidden, SC 19-22Google Scholar.

41. This is a probable, though not necessary, inference from the decree: SC 7-9 forbids Roman citizens, Latins and allies to go to the rites, while 19-22 assumes that men of some status will continue to be members of the group.

42. For the fund, SC 11 ‘pecuniam … comoinem’; for the cult-centre, above n.36.

43. SC 10; cf. 11-12.

44. Above n.37.

45. SC 11-12. Since the whole clause is not only distinct from that forbidding magistri and magistrae, but actually separated from it by the clause dealing with funds, these can only be some category of minor officials corresponding to the very familiar ministri in other collegia. Cf. Bömer, F., Untersuchungen über die Religion der Sklaven in Griechenland und Rom I (1957) 9–29Google Scholar.

46. If the order of the clauses can be trusted, it seems that the magistri were closely concerned with the common fund, as might be expected.

47. Euripides, , Bacchae 680–82Google Scholar.

48. Nilsson (n.13) 56-9.

49. Vogliano and Cumont (n.26) 237-63; Nilsson (n.13) 46-7; Geyer, A., Das Problem des Realitätsbezuges in der Dionysischen Bildkunst der Kaiserzeit (1977) 31–4Google Scholar.

50. The second century A.D. records of the Athenian Iobacchi (Sokolowski, , Lois sacrées des cités greques (1969) no.51Google Scholar = IG II2.1368)Google Scholar refer, apart from a range of priestly offices, to a εὔκοσμος (94-5; 136), a προστάτης (13) and a ταμίας (100; 123; 146; 150). The functions of the ταμίας and εὔκοσμος are obvious enough; for εὔκοσμος cf. Robert, L., Études anatoliennes (1937) 58–9Google Scholar. The προστάτης is presumably more senior and might correspond to a magister. On the office, Schaefer, , RE Supp. 9. (1962) 1298–9Google Scholar; 1303.

51. Waltzing, J.P., Étude historique sur les corporations professionelles chez les Romains I (1895) 161–515Google Scholar; Gallini (n.13) 81-6; F. Bömer (n.45) 32-56, cf. 98-109, gives the fullest account of the involvement of slaves and freedmen; de Robertis, F.M., Storia delle corporazione e del regime associativo nel mondo Romano (1971) 71–7Google Scholar; Flambard, J.-M., MEFR 89 (1977) 131–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52. For the notion of ‘specifically religious’ cf. Wach, J., Sociology of Religion (1944) 109–30Google Scholar; in general, Gallini (n.7) 86-90.

53. For the gods to whom the various known collegia normally devoted their offerings, see Flambard (n.51) 134 n.83; the Delian evidence is collected and briefly discussed by Degrassi, ILLRP 747–62Google Scholar; for full discussion, cf. Bruneau, P., Recherches sur les cultes de Délos à l'époque hellénistique el à l'époque impériale (= BEFAR 217) (1970) 585–620Google Scholar; Flambard (n.51) 134-40.

54. See especially Lintott, A., Violence in Republican Rome (1968) 78–83Google Scholar.

55. Very rarely a collegium has a priest as well as a magister. cf. Liebenam, W., Zur Geschichte und Organisation des römischen Vereinswesens (1890) 319 no.60Google Scholar; cf. 287.

56. Flambard (n.51) 131-3.

57. Livy 39.15.13 ‘hoc Sacramento initiatos iuvenes milites faciendos censetis, Quirites?’.

58. Livy never quite goes so far as to assert that the oath was a formal undertaking to commit crimes, but he implies so repeatedly (cf. 13.11; 16.5; 18.3). It seems more probable that the oath was, like other known mystery-oaths, primarily intended to secure the secrecy of the mystery; for the surviving evidence on these, Reitzenstein, R., Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen3 (1926) 192–7Google Scholar, who elaborates, and perhaps over-elaborates, the parallel between the soldier and the initiate. A modern analogy both to the importance attached to the oath and to the controversy over its significance is provided by the oath of the Mau Mau; cf. Wilson, Bryan, Magic and the Millennium (1973) 259–68Google Scholar.

59. Hannibal's legacy II (1965) 387–400Google Scholar.

60. Bömer (n.45) III (1961) 132-4.

61. Gallini (n.13) 30-44.

62. Above n.14.

63. Above n.23.

64. The ringleaders, according to Livy's account, are Atinii and Cerrinii, from Rome and Campania respectively. For the origins of the Cerrinii cf. Schulze, , Zur Geschichte lateinischer Eigennamen (1904) 467–8Google Scholar (= Abhandlungen der Kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 5 no.5); RE 3.2.1985-6 (Münzer). They are best known from Pompeii. The Atinii de plebe Romana came to Rome from Aricia (Cic., Phil. 3.16)Google Scholar, though they also are connected with Pompeii and indeed one of their number (Maras Atiniis) is named on an inscription from the Bacchic chapel near Pompeii (Bruhl (n.13) 86). The family has a remarkable political history in Rome (cf. RE 2.2105-6 (Klebs)): first heard of in 211 (MRR 1.270), they attain three praetorships between 195 and 189 (Labeo, C. Atinius, MRR 1.340Google Scholar; C. Atinius Labeo - 190, MRR 1.356; and C. Atinius - 188-6, MRR 1.369; 371); but after the death of the third in the course of 186 (Livy 39.21.4), no office-holding Atinius is known until 131. No doubt the guilty Atinii were from less distinguished parts of the gens, but at least the suggestion is strong that their activities were a severe electoral handicap in the years which followed.

65. Discussed best by Gallini (n.13) 32-6; cf. Merlin, A., L'Aventin dans d'antiquité (1906)Google Scholar.

66. Gallini (n.13) 86-90.

67. See on this 127-31.

68. Indeed, Livy's narrative itself shows some awareness of these possibilities, since the whole plot turns on the need to make the young Aebutius vulnerable to pressure, or rather blackmail, from his step-father.

69. For this social pattern in possession cults outside the control of the central institutions of the society, cf. Lewis, I.M., Ecstatic religion (1971) 100–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70. Below 17 and n.78.

71. Polybius 6.56.8; Dion., Hal. 2.63Google Scholar, Cic., de div. 1.28Google Scholar ‘nihil fere quondam maioris rei, nisi auspicato, ne privatim quidem, gerebatur.’

72. Varro, , Ant. Rer. div. 1Google Scholar. fr. 2a Ag.; Cic., de div. 1.27-8Google Scholar; 2.73-4; de leg. 2.33; de N.D. 2.9-10.

73. Latte (n.7) 264-5.

74. For Varro's reaction to the cult of Isis, cf. Cichorius (n.5) 198.

75. The issue is of course central to much of the religious sociology of the modern world; for recent discussion cf. Martin, David, Archives européennes de sociologie 10 (1969) 192–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berger, Peter, The Social reality of religion (1969) 111–30Google Scholar; Hill, Michael, A Sociology of Religion (1973) 228–66Google Scholar.

76. Shiner, Larry, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 6 (1967) 207–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar, distinguishes six different usages of the word.

77. For the application of the conception to the late Republican period, Hopkins, Keith, Conquerors and slaves (1978) 74–96Google Scholar; he discusses the army, education and the development of law and the profession, the third being much the most difficult to argue. Differentiation in the religious sphere in fact corresponds to the third of Shiner's (n.76) definitions of secularization. For the use of the concept to provide an evolutionary framework for religious history, cf. Bellah, R., American Sociological Review 29 (1964) 358–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar = Robertson, R. (ed.), Sociology of Religion 1969) 262–92Google Scholar; the situation we are discussing would correspond to the transition from archaic religion to historic religion in his scheme, though he is not, of course, describing a historical process so much as analysing a sequence of ideal types.

78. Gallini (n.13) 97-120.

79. For such evidence as there is, above n.15. An additional, perhaps suggestive fact, is that the head of Bacchus appears on the coinage of the Italian confederates during the Social War (Sydenham, , The Roman Republican coinage nos.628; 641)Google Scholar. If this means anything, it suggests that Bacchus became, at least after 186, associated with the resistance to Roman power and that this association was remembered; but it cannot in any way prove cultic continuity.

80. Thomas, Keith, Religion and the decline of magic (1971) 540–51Google Scholar.

81. Cf. Berger (n.75) 141-52.