SOTERIOLOGICAL THEMES AND MOTIFS IN ROMAN RELIGION. B. F. Curran

Transcription

1 SOTERIOLOGICAL THEMES AND MOTIFS IN ROMAN RELIGION B. F. Curran The title 'Son of a God, Saviour of the World' evokes a familiar theme for Christian theology. To the Roman aristocrat of the Augustan age, however, such a description would be part of the stock-in-trade propaganda of Roman politics and would evoke the Image of Augustus, filius divl luli, Mundl Salvator. This paper is in the nature of an introductory study on the image of the saviour and the idea of salvation in Roman Religions, particularly in the period of the early Empire when the Roman and Christian perspectives began to interact. My primary aim is to attempt to present in an ordered manner the rather scattered and fragmentary evidence In terms of certain soteriological themes and motifs. By way of definition let me say at the outset that 1 am taking salvation in its broadest sense, that is, as 'victory over death'; the particular nature of salvation involved will depend on the particular nature of the death. The soldier saved from physical death in battle by a comrade-in-arms has a different idea of a saviour from the Roman aristocrat who experiences his 'death' through denial of access to public life and his 'salvation' by means of a restored constitution. The Invalid cured of disease will define 'salvation' in a different way from the priest who restores life to an individual or his followers through the process of ritual. Soteriological themes and motifs reflecting these various forms of 'salvation' are to be found in the three major phases of Roman Religion the old primitive religion of the pastoral-agricultural community as preserved in the calendars and festivals; the established religion of the organised Roman community, and the Roman civil religion which developed during the second and first centuries B.C. The Mamurius Motif March 14 is recorded in the calendars as Mamuralia or as sacrum Mamurio. 1 Servius, the com mentator on Virgil's Aeneid indicates that a day was consecrated to the smith Mamurius on which the Salii 'pellem o virgis caedunt ad artis similitudinem while Minucius Felix says that the Salii carried around the shields and 'pelles caedunt'.3 j^ e most Intriguing

2 information, however, com es from Johannes Lydus writing in the sixth century A.D. Discussing the Ides of March (and not March 14 as in the calendars) Lydus says that a man clothed in skins was beau. wu. rods and driven out of the city with shouts of Mamurius.4 According to tradition Mamurius' full title was Mamurius Veturius, the smith who made the sacred shields (ancilla) which the Salli carried around the streets of Rome in March and October. The first shield was said to have been sent by Jupiter to Numa when Rome was facing a crisis; the shield was a sign of Jupiter's protection and a promise of empire (plgnus imperii). To protect this shield Numa had eleven identical ones made and gave them to the Salli. This ancient priesthood, whose name is derived from salire, to leap, were sacred to Mars. Needless to say the ritual of the Salii and the annual expulsion of Mamurius Veturius has produced more scholarly questions than answers. Much of the evidence for the expulsion ritual is late: why would so remarkable an event be not mentioned by Republican writers? Did the ritual die out in urban Rome and continue only in the villages? Much time has been spent on using the Salian ritual to prove whether the god Mars was originally an agricultural deity who only later became a god of war. Mannhardt, for example, related the ritual to the time of the year Mars' month was the first month in the old calendar and the beginning of spring and believed Mamurius to be the old spirit of vegetation 1 which was expelled to make way for the new. So too did Sir James Frazer: Thus on the fourteenth day of March every year Rome witnessed the curious spectacle of the human incarnation of a god chased by the god's own priests with blows from the city. The rite becom es at least Intelligible on the theory that the man so beaten and expelled stood for the outworn deity of vegetation who had to be replaced by a fresh and vigorous young divinity. For others Mamurius was a scapegoat, the representative of the collective sins of the community whose expulsion gave new life with the New Year. In this connection and in view of our concern with the idea of 'salvation' it is worth noting VV.B. Kristensen's description and explanation of the Thargella, the Greek festival of Apollo. After crop failure or during a famine someone was chosen to be the pharmakos, 'means of salvation, saviour' and fed for a period

3 of time at the cost of the state. Then he was put to death at the festival of Thargelia, after he had been beaten with fruit-bearing plants or branches. The details of this ceremony prove that he represented the spirit of vegetation and by means of his death he was consecrated or sacrificed to that spirit. Therefore not only were the branches sacrificed the absolute life of the plant god, his death and resurrection was actualised. The striking with and perhaps killing by the plants was the striking with the rod of life which possessed divine life, the absolute life containing resurrection from death. Death is caused by life; where both death and life work together, there we find absolute life. Thus the pharmakos became the saviour who by his sacrificial death actualised divine life for man. While this explanation reflects the fascination of Krlstensen and his contemporaries with vegetation spirits, It is his understanding of the religious symbolism which shows how far ahead he was in insights into the religious mentality. The main problem with previous attempts to explain the Mamurius episode was the failure to see the rite in its total context; the reduction of primitive Roman Religion to a narrow functionalism, the preoccupation with finding the specific area of each god's jurisdiction, these and other concerns emptied the religion of religiosity itself. Kristensen was the forerunner of Eliade whose works on the sacred have illuminated our understanding of the mentality of traditional man. His work on sacred time is particularly relevant here, because the simple fact is that Mamurius' rite is part of a whole month's activity all of which is directed towards the beginning of the year. Discussing this type of ceremony he says But the meaning of the whole ceremony, like that of each of its constituent elements, Is sufficiently clear; on the occasion of the division of time into units, 'years', we witness not only the effectual cessation of a certain temporal interval and the beginning of another, but also the abolition of the past year and past time. And this is the meaning of ritual purification: a combustion, an annulling of the sins and faults of the individual and of those of the community as a whole not a mere purifying. Regeneration, as its name indicates, is a new birth. New birth implies victory over death and this soteriological aspect is much wider than the mere physical guarantee of a new harvest. The fact that this periodic 'salvation' finds an immediate counterpart in the guarantee of food for the year to come (consecration of the new harvest) must not be allowed to hypnotize us to the point of seeing in this ceremonial only the traces of a primitive agrarian festival, indeed, on the one hand, alimentation had a ritual meaning in all archaic societies; what

4 we call 'vital values' was rather the expression of an ontology in biological terms; for archaic man, life is an absolute reality, and, as such, it is sacred. It is fascinating to imagine that the Romans of the historical period were familiar with an annual ceremony at which a man answering to Mamurius was beaten and driven out of the city. If that was the case, it is even more fascinating that the figure of Mamurius is so faintly drawn in the evidence. Nevertheless, whatever the truth of the matter, the idea of 'salvation' through regeneration and renewal is the fundamental principle underpinning all the ceremonies of March. Ihese are not primarily concerned with war, or the fertility of crops and flocks. These go beyond mere functionalism to a regeneration of the whole community of which Mars was originally the chief deity. However, while the idea of Mars a saviour god is an interesting prospect, let us turn to the established religion of Republican Rome where one finds clearer motifs of the 'saviour'. Salus, the Corona Civica and Soter The word 'salvation' is derived from the Latin salus which Lewis and Short compare with the Greek oxos (i-e., entire) and translate as 'a being safe and sound; a sound or whole condition, health, welfare, prosperity, preservation, safety, deliverance'. While these translations include the notion of physical health, i.e. freedom from disease, It is obvious that the word embraces a far wider notion of welfare and safety. The specific Latin word for good health is valetudo, which on occasion could be synonymous with salus. The personification of salus, the goddess Salus, who was worshipped throughout Italy, was granted a temple in 302 B.C. by dictator C. Iunius Bubulcus, as a result of the crises posed by the Samnite Wars.11 It was only after 180 B.C. that Salus became more specifically associated with the healing process because it was during that period that she was identified with Hygieia, the child of the Greek god of healing, Asclepios, who was brought to Rome and received a temple in B.C. Asclepios and Hygieia were assigned the Tiber island as their place of cult and in 180 B.C. Aesculapius, Salus and Apollo were given 1 gilded statues.

5 The broader notion of safety and welfare, however, Is obvious from its frequent occurrence in Plautus where it is obviously meant to translate the Greek Soter J 4 In fact It was probably the first Roman word to be used in this sense, with words like custos and conservator coming later. The tradition of the Hellenistic Soter has been discussed elsewhere at this conference. For our purposes the significant fact is that when Rome began to extend her control into Greek territory, the Roman generals were granted the same honours and titles as had been granted to Hellenistic leaders.*5 While the title did not of itself confer divine status, the Hellenistic panegyrics certainly developed the motif of the saviour as a divinely favoured individual, or as a divinity descended from heaven. In this capacity the Soter was the protector, guardian and saviour of the particular community or people who offered him the title. Somewhat similar to the patron-client relationship the Soter was expected to show a special interest and benevolence towards this community while he in turn could expect from the community continued loyalty. It is not a big step towards the idea that the safety of the community depended on the safety of the Soter. In addition to Salus and the Soter of Greece, the idea of the saviour was to be found in the tradition of the corona civlca. This was a crown, made of oak, which was presented by a citizen to a citizen who had saved his life In battle. The oak crown was a testimony, as Gellius says, to the gift of life (vita) and welfare (salus).* The saviour was granted several honours, of which the most intriguing and the most significant (for our purposes) was the obligation for the 'saved' citizen to honour his 'saviour' as a pater. Salus and the Corona Civlca Redefined In the last century of the Roman republic these traditions are combined and reinterpreted to provide an image and ideology of a saviour which becomes a fundamental platform In the pretensions of politicians to supreme imperial power. The development which testifies most strikingly to a change Is the change In function of the corona civlca. In 80 B.C. Julius Caesar received this award and the honour according to established custom he had saved the propraetor M. Minucius Therinus in battle. 17

6 In 45 B.C. Caesar received the same reward but this time for saving the I Q whole Roman community, not just an individual10; the corona civica has become the symbol of the Soter who saves not simply on i.ie tic.d of battle but in all spheres. Thus developed the new title which Caesar obviously hoped would express the special relationship between himself and the Roman people pater patriae.*^ This remarkable transformation, this reapplication of the saviour-pater connection receives maximum development in the Augustan ideology. To understand this change we need to look at the wider context of Roman religious history during the period from the end of the second Punic War to the Augustan era. The main development is the emergence of a theology of a divinely-appointed leader. The strength of the Senate's control in religious matters was clearly demonstrated in 186 B.C. in its treatment of the Bacchanalia. This supremacy was gradually undermined throughout this period by individuals who attempted to justify and legitimise their autocratic aspirations through the proclaimed support of die gods. From Scipio Africanus, through Marius, Sulla, Caesar to Augustus there is abundant evidence of experimentation with all kinds of religious forms, symbols and traditions Roman, Greek and Oriental. For example: Felicitas, the quality whose possession shows that the individual is 'blessed' by the gods, is a remarkably late recipient of a temple, in 146 B.C. to be exact. Whatever the reason and whatever its precise meaning then, by the time of Pompey, however, the ideology of a leader who is blessed and sent by the gods to lead the Romans is central to Cicero's speech In support of Pompey's command in the East.2^ Marius appears to have experimented with Vlrtus, while Augustus later on explored the possibility of pietas, as Is evident from the shield presented in 27 B.C. and from the central role and meaning of pietas in Virgil's Aeneid.21 It is in this context that the ideology of the saviour should be viewed. Dedications from Greece and the East indicate that Augustus accepted the same honorific titles as his predecessors benefactor, 29 patron, and of course, saviour. One of the most famous is the decree of the League of Asian Cities which hails Augustus as a divinity and a saviour whom Divine Providence has given to mankind as a universal benefactor and bringer of peace. At Rome, however, Augustus turned to traditional motifs to explore this role to the corona civica and the

7 goddess Salus. In 27 B.C. Augustus, following the example of Caesar, is awarded the corona clvica which was placed over his doorway.this was followed by the appearance on coins from 23 B.C. onwards, of the corona 9 R clvica with the words 'ob cives servatos' inscribed in the centre. The honour which accompanied this award, tne title of pater, was eventually formally accepted in 2 B.C.^ although it is obvious from other sources 27 that the title had been in use long before this date. In literature also the idea of saviour is propounded: in the poem of Propertius dealing with 28 victory at Actium, Octavlan is addressed by Apollo as Mundl Salvator ; in one of his Odes Horace describes Augustus as a saviour who has been sent down from heaven to fulfil the divine mission for Rome and,after the 9Q completion of this task, to return to the heavens. We are reminded again of the fundamental relationship between the safety of the soter and the safety of his people in Ovid's description of Augustus as the Jupiter Qf) on earth whose safely provides divine protection for the Ausonian race. This symbiotic relationship between saviour and community is further reflected on coinage. A denarius minted in 16 B.C. (in which year vows were fulfilled in response to Augustus' recovery from illness) specifically links the salus of the Imperator Caesar Augustus with the salvation of the res publica (rem publicam conservatam).**1 Ovid 09 specifically addresses him as the Salus of the country. Augustus himself in 11 B.C. was responsible for a statue to Salus publica, the goddess of OO the established republican religion. The complete identification of Salus and Augustus Is revealed in the appearance of the goddess, the Salus Augusta, who though she appears on coins after the death of Augustus, must have had her origins during his reign.'*'1 The translation of the Hellenistic tradition of the Soter to the Roman political scene and the reinterpretation of the corona civica and Salus to express that tradition was one of the most important steps made by Augustus to hide the political reality. The pater who had saved his country had the authority of tradition and was a far better solution to the problem of one-man power than rex. And yet as Weinstock has shown, the saviour-pater connection was not an Augustan creation; as in many other matters the model was Caesar.'*'* As mentioned earlier he was the first to be presented with the corona civlca for saving all the citizens. The architect, or should we call him the 'theologian1, who provided the

8 political and intellectual setting for the Roman theology of the saviour was in all probability Marcus Tullius Cicero. Influenced, no doubt, by the Hellenistic panegyrics and by the political realities of Roman politics where peace, security and 'salvation' were becoming increasingly dependent upon one man, Cicero developed this theory of the divinely appointed leader who would save and expand the Roman res publica. In his speech on behalf of Pompey's command against Mithridates we find the first mention of the idea that the safety 0? of the State depended on the safely of the leader. It is possible too that the reinterpretation of the corona civica may have been promoted by him or his friends for his work in 'saving' Rome from the Catiline conspiracy.^7 Weinstock suggests also that Cicero played a large part in OO the reinterpretation of the corona civica to Caesar in 45 A.D. It is in his philosophical treatise however, the De re publica, that he develops the 'theology' of the saviour. In the Somnium Scipionis, Cicero has the older Africanus explain to the younger that the saviour comes from heaven and to heaven he returns afier the performance of his divine mission. But, Africanus, be assured of this, so that you may be even more eager to defend the commonwealth; all those who have preserved, aided or enlarged their fatherland have a special place prepared for them in the heavens, where they may enjoy an eternal life of happiness. For nothing of all that is done on earth is more pleasing to the supreme god who rules the whole universe than the assemblies and gatherings of men associated in justice, which are called States. Their rulers and preservers (conservatores) come from that place, and to that place they return/*9 The Romans of the Republican and Augustan period were familiar then with the idea of a heaven-sent saviour who enjoyed the same relationship to his people as the pater to his famllia. The corona civica and the goddess Salus were the physical manifestations. And yet what was meant by salvation in this context? Was It the saving of Rome from the threat of foreign domination as in the case of Poinpey (from Mithridates) or Augustus (from Antony and Cleopatra) or was It the saving of Rome from internal destruction as in the case of Cicero (from Catiline) and Caesar (from Pompey and civil war)? There can be no doubt that these acts were embraced by the idea of salvation In the Roman ideology, but the peculiarly Roman concept of salvation is spelt out in the

9 inscription which combines the Salus Augusta with the Libertas of the Roman people.'1* The conjunction of these two deities is reminiscent of the formula which combines the preservation of the res publica with the salus of Augustus. Salvation then is the preservation of the res publica, that is the preservation of libertas. Libertas meant freedom from political oppression of any kind; the rule of law, the free operation of the Republican system of the Senate, the Assembly and the Consuls with its checks and balances. Above all it meant the right to participate in the political process, to preserve one's dignitas to the maximum, and thereby to achieve gloria through which one established one's record to posterity and enhanced the gloria of the maiores. Libertas meant life in its highest and most meaningful sense because it was only in the public life of the res publica that one really 'lived'; and it meant life after death, victory over death in the survival of one's nomen in the memoria of successive generations. To be denied this was tantamount to death, to servitium, the state of non-being (servus habet nullum caput). Victory over death in this period of the Late Republic and in the era of Augustus was the preservation of this way of life summed up in the words res publica restituta, the main claim of Augustus, the vindex libertatis. The Roman theology of salvation was essentially a theology of liberation, embodied in the res publica populi Romani. Notes 1. The evidence for March 14 is collected in H.H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (London 1981), p ad Aen Octavius, de Mensibus, Plutarch, Numa, 13.6; Varro, de lingua Latina, 6.59; Scullard, op. cit., p.85.

10 6. This, and other suggestions, are usefully summarised in Scullard, op. cit., p Fasti. 3, 65ff. 8. VV.B. Kristensen, The Meaning of Religion (The Hague, I960), p M. Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York 1954), p ibid., pp Livy ; ; for a full discussion on Salus see J. Weinstock, Divus lulius (Oxford, 1971), pp Ovid, Fasti, 1.289ff. 13. Livy, 10.47; Epitome XI; Ovid, Metamorphoses, , Livy, Weinstock, op. cit., p ibid.. p.164. For valuable discussion on the Hellenistic idea of the saviour and its influence in the Roman sphere see J.R. Fears, Princeps a Diis Electus (Rome 1977), pp Gellius, ; Paulus 42 Μ (37 L); Servius, ad Aen ; Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae Suetonius, Caesar, For discussion on this change of function see Weinstock, op. cit., pp , who suggests the first sign of a change can be found in a coin of Q. Lutatius Cerco, a quaestor in c. 110 B.C. 19. Appian, Bellum Civile ; ; Dio Cassius For discussion on the concept of pater see Weinstock, op. cit., pp De lege Man For more discussion on this aspect see - A. Passerini, Philologus Leipzig 1935), pp.93-97; H. Erkell, Augustus (Goteborg, Elander, 1952), pp For the inscription on the shield see Res Gestae 34.2; Dio Cassius

11 This is not the place to discuss in detail the meaning of pietas in the Aeneid. Suffice to say that the fundamental idea is that of 'fated1. Pius Aeneas is the 'Aeneas of Fate' who gradually learns what Fate has planned and at the same time grows in his understanding of what is required of him. 22. For a list of dedications to Augustus see L.R. Taylor, The Divinity of the Roman Emperor (Middletown, Conn. 1931), pp.270ff; cf. K. Latte, Romische Religiongeschichte (Munich 1960), pp.312ff. 23. SEG IV Res Gestae, H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire (London ), 1.2; 7; 27 f f. 26. Res Gestae, 35, 1; Suetonius, Augustus, 58. If. 27. e.g. Horace, Odes, ; IHS, Odes, Tristia, H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire, 1.17; pi Ovid, Tristia, Dio Cassius, ; Ovid, Fasti, LS 157: Saluti perpetuae Augustae libertati publicae populi Romani Divus lulius, pp De lege Man., Weinstock, op. cit., p. 165.

12 jbid., p De re publica, See note 34.