8 - Reactions to Greek religions

Summary

Reactions from outside came from the Romans, as well as from other groups with their own religious systems, namely Jews and Christians. Greek philosophers and other intellectuals engaged in debates about Greek religions, but from within Greek culture. Outsiders on the other hand were naturally convinced of the superiority of their own religious systems. Indeed in the fourth and fifth centuries the combination of Roman power and Christian belief was responsible for the official suppression of Greek cults. The responses of outsiders often focused on the issue of the antiquity of cults and religious practices, both Greek and other. This was a crucial issue because antiquity tends to be the principal guarantee of authority in institutionalised religious systems. Even in the case of Christianity, whose merits we often see as novelty, the antiquity of the Christian revelation was a pressing issue.

ROMANS

From the earliest times Rome was in contact with her neighbours, both the Etruscans and, more remotely, the Greeks. The early phase of Roman interaction with Greek religion is attested most neatly in excavations of what is probably the sanctuary of Vulcan in the Roman Forum. A sixth-century votive deposit from here includes an Attic vase representing the return of Hephaistos to Olympos (Fig. 8.1). It is likely that the Greek Hephaistos already at this time is identified with the Roman Vulcan. By the first century BG it was normal for Romans to assume correspondences between Greek and Roman gods: Zeus–Jupiter, Hera–Juno, Athena–Minerva, Artemis–Diana, Aphrodite–Venus, Demeter–Ceres, Ares–Mars.