The sphere of religion underscores this point. Roman religious consciousness from an early stage acknowledged ingredients that were ostensibly non-Roman. Legend dated the arrival in Rome of the Sibylline Books, a collection of Greek oracles in verse, to the time of Tarquinius Superbus. The Books, supervised by a Roman college of priests, were frequently consulted on matters of religion affecting state interest and were treated Graeco ritu, in Greek mode of ritual (Dion. Hal. 4.62; Aul. Gell. 1.19.1; Varro Ling. 7.8).11 The temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera received authorization from the Sibylline Books in the early fifth century, according to tradition, its rites eventually governed by Greek priestesses from southern Italy, another indication of official welcome to Hellenic elements in Roman practice (Dion. Hal. 6.17.2; Cic. Balb. 55). 2 In comparable fashion, Rome embraced Etruscan diviners, the haruspi-ces. They claimed (or were conceived as having) access to ancient Etruscan skill in interpreting prodigies. At least from the time of the early third century they were consulted frequently by Rome to disclose the meaning of bizarre prodigies and to examine the entrails of sacrificial animals. Haruspices eventually became an organized body of diviners fitted into the structure of Rome’s religious establishment, while retaining their character or image as Etruscans steeped in native lore (see also Chapter 10).13
State action could take more direct form. Romans reached out explicitly to the Greek world in 293, in the wake of an epidemic. On the recommendation of the Sibylline Books, an official delegation went to Epidaurus, there to summon the healing god Aesculapius for assistance. As the tale goes, the god, in the form of a snake, slithered voluntarily onto the Roman vessel and then slithered off again at the Tiber Island. That would mark the spot for a new temple to Aesculapius whose powers had terminated the plague (Livy 10.47.6-7; Val. Max. 1.8.2).14 Whatever the truth of the story, the shrine is a fact. And concoction of the tale itself demonstrates the readiness of Roman writers to ascribe religious institutions to Hellenic authority. In 217, during the dark days of the Hannibalic War, Rome turned again to foreign divinities. The goddess Venus Erycina moved from Sicily to a new shrine on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. The deity blended Hellenic and Punic elements, a combination evidently acceptable to Rome (Livy 22.9-10, 23.30-1).15 In the next decade a still more dramatic transfer took place. On the advice of the Sibylline Books Roman authorities had the Magna Mater shipped from Asia Minor to Rome in the form of a black stone that emblematized her cult. This Hellenized Anatolian divinity received a new temple on the Palatine Hill, with annual games to be celebrated in her honor. Magna Mater or Cybele had the great advantage not only of reinforcing Rome’s links with the Hellenistic kingdom of Pergamum but of symbolizing the nation’s roots in Troy (Livy 29.10.4-1.8; Ov. Fast. 4.247-348).16 The gyrating castrated priests who serviced the cult with wild dancing and clashing cymbals, to be sure, needed to be controlled. And regulations banned citizens from the cult’s priesthood, for Roman sensitivities found the behavior unbecoming (Dion. Hal. 2.19). But the temple occupied a prominent place on the Palatine, and the annual festivals continued to be central events on the Roman calendar (see also Chapter 4).17
A notorious episode seems, on the face ofit, to contradict Roman openness to alien cults. In 186 the Senate came down with thunderous fury against the rites of Bacchus, dissolving its associations, persecuting its leaders, hunting down its adherents, and firmly suppressing its worship (Livy 39.8-19; ILS 18 = ROL 4:255-9; see also Chapters 2, 10, and 28). The reasons for this explosion of state power targeting the Bacchic sect remain obscure. A concern for the highly organized structure of the cells that cut across conventional social groups, representing a powerful religious community outside the control of the state, may have played a role.18 Or else Roman leaders exaggerated the threat presented by the Bacchants and utilized the opportunity to make public demonstration of their own authority and the collective ascendancy of the Senate.19 Whatever the explanation, it needs to be stressed that this episode is quite extraordinary, lacked real precursors, and set no precedents. The Bacchic cult had long been familiar to Romans prior to this period. And it did not disappear thereafter. The actions of 186 in no way signaled a crackdown on alien cults generally.
Occasional demonstrations of state authority over alternative forms of religious expression did occur periodically. Jews were expelled from Rome in 139, together with astrologers. And the Senate took action against the shrines of Isis several times in the 50s and 40s (Val. Max. 1.3.3-4; Tert. Ad Nat. 1.10; Dio Cass. 40.47.3,42.26).20 The actions, however, had no lasting effects, and very likely intended none. Jews were back in Rome (if they ever left) in substantial numbers before the late Republic. And the continued existence of the Isis cult in the city holds greater significance than temporary state hostility. The exhibit of Roman authority had its uses from time to time, when ad hoc circumstances called for it. But there was no enduring repression of foreign rites.
How then to characterize a Roman outlook on external religions and national identity? ‘‘Tolerance’’ of other sects is a term often applied. But that misconceives the essential disposition. The very notion of tolerance (no Latin word exists for it in this sense) implies a central and uniform religious structure that indulged in lenience toward deviant sects or practices. The concept simply does not apply to the fundamentally pluralist and polytheist society of Rome. Romans were neither tolerant nor intolerant.21 The embrace of ostensibly alien cults was part and parcel of Roman identity, not a matter of broadmindedness or liberality. The Romans, as a celebrated tale has it, defeated their bitter foe, the Etruscan city of Veii, in 396 by calling out (evocatio) its patron deity Juno and installing her in a temple on the Aventine Hill (Livy 5.21.1-7; see also Chapters 4 and 10). The Etruscan divinity thus became a Roman one, not a defeat of the other’s god but an appropriation of it. The Sibylline Books may have been inscribed in Greek as a repository of Greek oracular wisdom but they were integrated seamlessly into a Roman system. And when senators summoned the Magna Mater from the Troad, the act signified that this purportedly foreign cult was, in fact, fundamentally Roman. The Great Mother had her home on Mount Ida, where Aeneas had repaired after the fall of Troy and from which he set forth to lay the foundations of Roman identity.
The acquisition of the Magna Mater, not coincidentally, had the sanction of the Delphic oracle. Roman envoys visited that most sacred and venerable of Greek shrines and operated in part under its instructions (Livy 29.10.6, 29.11.5-7). Recognition of the power and prestige of Delphi may have had multiple motives in the Mediterranean world of the late third century. But it is vital to note that this was far from the first time that Rome had resort to Pythian Apollo. Various tales record consultations of the oracle that go back to the era of the Roman kings. Tarquin the Proud purportedly sent to Delphi for interpretation of an ominous portent - and got a fuller response than he had bargained for (Livy 1.56.4-13; Ov. Fast. 2.711-20). At the siege of Veii a miraculous rise in the waters of the Alban lake prompted another embassy to Apollo to solicit a rendering of its meaning (Livy 5.15-17; Val. Max. 1.6.3). And after the fall of Veii, Rome redeemed the vow of its victorious commander to Apollo by purchasing gold for a splendid offering to Delphi (Livy 5.21.12, 5.23.8-11, 5.25.4-10, 5.28.1-5). The Samnite War provided a further occasion: Delphi advised Rome to erect statues of the most valorous Greek and the wisest. The Roman Senate duly complied (Pliny HN34.26; Plut. Num. 8.10). The historicity of these visits is questionable.22 But no matter. They held a firm place in the tradition. More reliable is the notice that Rome’s great victory over the Gauls at Clastidium in 222, a turning point in the contest for northern Italy, prompted the dispatch of a golden bowl to Delphi to commemorate the triumph (Plut. Marc. 8.6). That gesture implies an open acknowledgment of the Hellenic shrine’s authority and of Roman deference to it.
A still more pointed declaration of this relationship came a few years later. The Hannibalic War threatened to bring Rome to its knees, and frightful omens followed the calamity at Cannae in 216. The Romans forthwith sent an embassy to the Delphic oracle, headed by the formidable statesman and historian Q. Fabius Pictor. Whatever he may have heard at Delphi, Fabius returned with a list of prescriptions detailing the proper means to propitiate the gods and the specific deities to whom entreaties should be made. Promises of success accompanied the advice, and a request that gifts be sent to Apollo from the spoils that were to come. Fabius returned home, conspicuously displaying the laurel crown that he had worn to Delphi, which he deposited on Apollo’s altar in Rome (Livy 22.57.4-5, 23.11.1-6). The act emblematized an identification of Pythian Apollo with the divinity worshiped in Rome. All fell out as predicted. Rome emerged victorious against Hannibal, and a new embassy returned to Delphi with a handsome gift fashioned out of the spoils of war. A reciprocal gesture from the oracle forecast still greater successes for the future (Livy 28.45.12, 29.10.6). 3 The interchanges carried notable significance. Rome had proclaimed, through one of its most distinguished representatives, a close and fruitful association with Greece’s holiest shrine - from which the western power had been a signal beneficiary.
Rome benefited too, as a famous story recounts, from Greek stimulus in the fashioning of the Twelve Tables, the very foundation of Roman law (see also Chapters 6 and 11). According to the narrative, internal strife in the mid-fifth century led to the appointment of a commission to draw up a legal code. The Senate therefore assigned three men as envoys to Athens, there to transcribe the laws of Solon and employ them as models for Rome’s legislation. The task was appropriately discharged. The envoys returned with a copy of the Solonian measures in hand, and employed it in framing the Roman counterpart (Livy 3.31.8, 3.32.6, 3.33.3-5; Dion. Hal. 10.51.5, 10.52.4, 10.55.5). Rome thus owed the origin of its law code to Athenian inspiration. An alternative tradition had it that the Greek philosopher Hermodorus of Ephesus conveniently happened to be in Rome, in exile from his native city, and acted as adviser to the Romans in drafting the Twelve Tables, for which service he received a statue set up in the comitium at public expense (Pliny HN, 34.21; cf. Strabo 14.1.25; Dig. 1.2.2.4).
The tales have no claim on historicity. Indeed, they are hardly compatible with one another. The similarity of at least parts of the Twelve Tables to certain Solonian laws was recognized by Cicero who saw even a near-verbatim translation in one instance - though he knows nothing of a mission to Athens (Cic. Leg. 2.59, 2.64). That legend may have been made up in the late Republic when writers embellished on the parallels to invent an actual trip resulting in an Athenian pattern for Roman legislators.24 The similarities more likely came from interaction with the Greeks of southern Italy. But creation of the tales carries the real significance. The idea that Rome’s most venerable laws, the basis for its whole legal system, derived inspiration, influence, or intellectual input from Greeks offers important insight. Roman mythmakers constructed or enhanced the narratives without embarrassment, even had their leaders actively seek and take advice from Hellenic sources. The debt was more than acknowledged here; it was fantasized.
World History
