CHAPTER VII

EARLY RELIGION AND SOCIETY

I. EARLY ROMAN RELIGION

*Animism.* The Roman religion of the historic republic was a composite of beliefs and ceremonies of various origins. The basic stratum of this system was the Roman element: religious ideas that the Romans probably held in common with the other Latin and Italian peoples. Although traces of a belief in magic; and of the worship of natural objects and animals, survived from earlier stages of religious development, it was “animism” that formed the basis of what we may call the characteristic Roman religious ideas. Animism is the belief that natural objects are the abode of spirits more powerful than man, and that all natural forces and processes are the expression of the activity of similar spirits. When such powers or _numina_ were conceived as personalities with definite names they became ‘gods,’ _dei_. And because the primitive Roman gods were the spirits of an earlier age, for a long time the Romans worshipped them without images or temples. But each divinity was regarded as residing in a certain locality and only there could his worship be conducted. The true Roman gods lacked human attributes: their power was admitted but they inspired no personal devotion. Consequently, Roman theology consisted in the knowledge of these deities and their powers and of the ceremonial acts necessary to influence them.

*The importance of ritual.* The Romans, while recognizing their dependence upon divine powers, considered that their relation to them was of the nature of a contract. If man observed all proper ritual in his worship, the god was bound to act propitiously: if the god granted man’s desire he must be rewarded with an offering. If man failed in his duty, the god punished him: if the god refused to hearken, man was not bound to continue his worship. Thus Roman religion consisted essentially in the performance of ritual, wherein the correctness of the performance was the chief factor.

But since the power of the gods could affect the community as well as the individual, it was necessary for the state to observe with the same scrupulous care as the latter its obligations towards them. The knowledge of these obligations and how they were to be performed constituted the sacred law of Rome, which became a very important part of the public law. This sacred law was guarded by the priesthood, and here we have the source of the power of the pontiffs in the Roman state. The pontiffs not only preserved the sacred traditions and customs but they also added to them by interpretation and the establishment of new precedents. The pontiffs themselves performed or supervised the performance of all public acts of a purely religious nature, and likewise prescribed the ritual to be observed by the magistrate in initiating public acts.

On the other hand the power of the augurs rested upon the belief that the gods issued their warnings to men through natural signs, and that it was possible to discover the attitude of the gods towards any contemplated human action by the observation of natural phenomena. For the augurs were the guardians of the science of the interpretation of such signs or auspices in so far as the state was concerned. The magistrate initiating any important public act had to take the auspices, and if the augurs declared any flaw therein or held that any unfavorable omen had occurred during the performance of the said act, they could suspend the magistrate’s action or render it invalid.

So we see that the Roman priests were not intermediaries between the individual Roman and his gods, but rather, as has been pointed out before, officers in charge of one branch of the public administration. They were responsible for the due observance of the public religious acts, just as the head of the household supervised the performance of the family cult.

*The cult of the household.* It is in the cult of the household that we can best see the true Roman religious ideas. The chief divinities of the household were: Janus, the spirit of the doorway; Vesta, the spirit of the fire on the hearth; the Penates, the guardian spirits of the store-chamber; the Lar Familiaris, which we may perhaps regard as the spirit of the cultivated land; and the Genius of the head of the house, originally, it is probable, the spirit of his generative powers, which became symbolic of the life of the family as a whole.

The Romans, strictly speaking, did not practice ancestor-worship. But they believed that the spirits of the departed were affected by the ministrations of the living, and, in case these were omitted, might exercise a baneful influence upon the fortunes of their descendants. Hence came the obligation to remember the dead with offerings at stated times in the year.

*The cult of the fields.* As early Rome was essentially an agricultural community, most of its divinities and festivals had to do with the various phases of agricultural life. Festivals of the sowing, the harvest, the vineyard and the like, were annually celebrated in common, at fixed seasons, by the households of the various _pagi_.

*The state cult.* The public or state cult of Rome consisted mainly in the performance of certain of the rites of the household and of the _pagi_ by or for the people as a whole. The state cult of Vesta and of the Penates, as well as the festival of the Ambarvalia, the annual solemn purification of the fields, are of this nature. But, in addition, the state religion included the worship of certain divinities whose personalities and powers were conceived with greater distinctness. At the beginning of the Republic the chief of these gods were the triad Juppiter, Juno, and Minerva. Juppiter Optimus Maximus, called also Capitolinus from his place of worship, was originally a god of the sky. But, adorned with various other attributes, he was finally worshipped as the chief protecting divinity of the Roman State. Juno was the female counterpart of Juppiter and was the great patron goddess of women. Another important deity was Mars, at one time an agricultural divinity, who in the state religion developed into the god of warlike, “martial,” activities.

*Foreign influences.* It was in connection with the state worship that foreign influences were first felt. Indeed, it is probable that the association of Juppiter with Juno and Minerva was due to contact with Etruria. It was from the Etruscans also that the Romans derived their knowledge of temple construction, the earliest example of which was probably the temple of Juppiter on the Capitoline said to have been dedicated in 508 B. C. The use of images was likewise due to Etruscan influences, although here as in other respects Greek ideas may have been at work. In general the Romans did not regard the gods of strange people with hostility, but rather admitted their power and sought to conciliate them. Thus they frequently transferred to Rome the gods of states that they had conquered or absorbed. Other foreign divinities, too, on various grounds were added to the circle of the divine protectors of the Roman state.

*Religion and morality.* From the foregoing sketch it will be seen that the Roman religion did not have profound moral and elevating influences. Its hold upon the Roman people was chiefly due to the fact that it symbolized the unity of the various groups whose members participated in the same worship; i. e. the unity of the family and the unity of the state. Nevertheless, the idea of obligation inherent in the Roman conception of the relation between gods and men and the stress laid upon the exact performance of ritual inevitably developed among the Romans a strong sense of duty, a moral factor of considerable value. Further, the power of precedent and tradition in their religion helped to develop and strengthen the conservatism so characteristic of the Roman people.

II. EARLY ROMAN SOCIETY

*The household.* The cornerstone of the Roman social structure was the household (_familia_). That is to say, the state was an association of households, and it was the individual’s position in a household that determined his status in the early community. The Roman household was a larger unit than our family. It comprised the father or head of the household (_pater familias_), his wife, his sons with their wives and children, if they had such, his unmarried daughters, and the household slaves.

*The patria potestas.* The _pater familias_ possessed authority over all other members of the household. His power over the free members was called _patria potestas_, “paternal authority”; over the slaves it was _dominium_, “lordship.” This paternal authority was in theory unrestricted and gave the father the right to inflict the death penalty upon those under his power. But, in practice, the exercise of the _patria potestas_ was limited by custom and by the habit of consulting the older male members of the household before any important action was taken.

The household estate (_res familiaris_) was administered by the head of the household. At the death of a _pater familias_ his sons in turn became the head of _familiae_, dividing the estate. The mother and unmarried daughters, if surviving, now passed into the power of a son or the next nearest male relative of the deceased. Although the Roman women were thus continually in the position of wards, they nevertheless took a prominent part in the life of the household and did not live the restricted and secluded lives of the women of Athens and the Greek cities of Asia.

Membership in the household was reckoned only through male descent, for daughters when they married passed out of the _manus_ or “power” of the head of their own household into that of the head of the household to which their husbands belonged.

*Education.* The training of the Roman youth at this time was mainly of a practical nature. There was as yet little interest in intellectual pursuits and no Roman literature had been developed. The art of writing, it is true, had long been known and was employed in the keeping of records and accounts. Such instruction as there was, was given by the father to his sons. It consisted probably of athletic exercises, of practical training in agricultural pursuits, in the traditions of the state and of the Roman heroes, and in the conduct of public business through attendance at places where this was transacted.

At the age of eighteen the young Roman entered upon a new footing in relation to the state. He was now liable to military service and qualified to attend the _comitia_. In these respects he was emancipated from the paternal authority. If he attained a magistracy, his father obeyed him like any other citizen.

The discipline and respect for authority which was acquired in the family life was carried with him by the Roman into his public relations, and this sense of duty was perhaps the strongest quality in the Roman character. It was supplemented by the characteristic Roman seriousness (_gravitas_), developed under the stress of the long struggles for existence waged by the early Roman state. In the Roman the highest virtue was piety (_pietas_), which meant the dutiful performance of all one’s obligations, to the gods, to one’s kinsmen, and to the state. The Romans were preëminently a practical people, and their practical virtues laid the foundation for their political greatness.

*The mos maiorum.* We have already referred to the conservatism of the Romans, and have seen how this characteristic was affected by their religious beliefs. It was further strengthened by the respect paid to parental authority and by the absence of intellectual training. In public affairs this conservatism was shown by the influence of ancestral custom—the _mos maiorum_. In the Roman government this became a very potent factor, since the Roman constitution was not a single comprehensive document but consisted of a number of separate enactments supplemented by custom and precedent and interpreted in the light thereof.