Customer Reviews

Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs (Roman Literature and its Contexts)

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Out of all the books I've read for my Roman seminar this semester, I strongly feel that this is the one of the best, ranking right up there with M.I. Finley's book on the ancient economy. Feeney dedicates his book to exploding myths about religion in the Roman era. He uses literature as a means of example in arguing that Rome was not dominated by adopted Greek ideas, culture and myth, but that Rome took these ideas and dynamically changed them. The idea that Rome was spiritually bankrupt...of Greek ideas comes from the 19th century movement of philhellenists such as Lord Byron who promoted Greek greatness in all avenues of thought. This philhellenism has had a lingering effect on scholars right up to modern times.

Feeney divides his book into four sections: Belief, Myth, Divinity and Ritual. A brief epilogue also looks at knowledge. Feeney believes that it is ritual that stands at the core of Roman religion, not belief. This seems alien to modern practitioners of Christianity, Judaism or Islam. Feeney is not saying that belief does not exist, but rather that it is a peripheral element in Roman religious practice. Belief in the Roman pantheon is summed up by "brain-balkanization," or a multiplicity of different beliefs in different contexts. These different beliefs are represented in literature and compete with each other. Therefore, belief as expressed by Cicero differed from that of the Augustan age.

With myth, Feeney argues that it is not merely the usurpation of Greek myth by the Romans, but a trans-cultural dialogue between the two entities. Greek myth itself is hardly original, as it arose as a response to other Near East cultures. If one is accusing the Romans of stealing Greek myth, the same charge must then be leveled against the Greeks. The real difference comes in how myth is assimilated. The Greeks, with their closed off Polis system and distrust of foreigners, took their myths to heart. The Romans recognized that the myths they subscribed to were foreign, but they took them in and changed them to fit their needs. This, according to Feeney, is an incredible development in history, as it was the first time that this had been done and it laid the groundwork for subsequent Western mythological development. Feeney notes that there were backlashes against this foreign intrusion of ideas in Rome, but these backlashes helped contour and define the ideas in a new way. Feeney also sees that the Romans, as outsiders to the ideas they took from the Greeks, were able to borrow and develop other ideas that the Greeks were incapable of attaining.

The section on divinity discusses such themes as the place of divinity in the structure of Rome, anthropomorphic representations of deity, and personifications (which are divinities attached to human conditions such as modesty, shame, etc.). The Romans deified these human conditions in order to make them divine so they can have power that can then be called upon by men. Feeney finishes by discussing the various encounters Romans had with divinity, such as epiphany.

Ritual, as stated above, is seen as the center of Roman religion. The problem that confronts scholars when studying Roman religion is the abundant amount of rituals. The Romans have rituals for everything, oftentimes multiple rituals for one activity. Even more problematic is the origins of these rituals. Even the Roman writers are reduced to stating multiple origins for certain rituals. These multiple origins fit into the dynamic of Roman religion: a contextual approach to religion where different ideas emerge and compete within one society. Feeney points out that Greek origins are static, with multiple origins for ritual rarely appearing.

This is an excellent book that I enjoyed immensely, as can probably be seen from my detailed description above. However, the argument that belief is not central to Roman religion is a tough nut to swallow. Certainly any interactions with a deity have to come from some type of belief on the part of man, otherwise how can the development of ritual be explained? That belief could certainly be forgotten over time and replaced by ritual is a real possibility, but that doesn't imply that belief never played a crucial, central role in the practice. Feeney addresses this in part in the epilogue on knowledge, emphasizing that Christianity has probably suffered the same fate. How many Christians can really explain the nuts and bolts of Sunday services? These are the kinds of things found in this book and they really provoke some interesting thoughts. Highly Recommended.

This is a wonderful exposition of the transitional development from Greek to Roman culture exhibited in extant Roman literature. Dense in information, approachable rhetorical style. All in all, an academic study that makes such information available for in and outside the classroom.