Of Gods And Romans Essay -- essays research papers

Of Gods and RomansThe Romans during the time of their Republic relied on their advanced technology, social structure, leading and politics to achieve as much as they did. To these people, their gods affected on the whole of these factors and the relationships mankind had with them. The contractual relationship between mankind and the gods involved all(prenominal) party in giving, and in return receiving services. The Romans believed that spirits residing in instinctive and physical objects had the power to control the processes of nature, and that man could influence these processes by symbolical action. The first is a primitive form of religious creed the split second a type of magic.The services by which the Romans hoped to influence the forces that guided their lives were unwaveringly established in ritual - the ritual of prayer and the ritual of offering. In either case, the exact performance of the rite was essential. One slip, and you had to go pricker to the beginning a nd start again. The very multiplicity of deities caused problems, as did the g terminationer of both(prenominal) of them wether you be god or goddess was a common formula in Roman prayers.The motivations of the sacrifices are what of interest. Most of the time, sacrifices took place for purification, supplication, or celebration. The purification ritual was one that was performed before battle (285). Asking for a deed to be done was very popular as well. One usually beseeched for mastery and good fortune in battle (20). Celebration is the event that come outs to be the most spectacular of all. Whether it is in joy of an enemies death, such as Mithridates (201), the end of illness of a leader like Pompey (218), or simply the enjoyment that comes after large victory, we see this in Caesars winnings in Gaul (264). Some sacrificial events took place in order to ask forgiveness and appeasement for defeat of a religious enemy (90 91). any(prenominal) sacrificial routine was elaborat e and messy. The head of the victim was sprinkled with wine and bits of unutterable cake do from flour and salt. thus its throat was cut and it was disemboweled to experience there was nothing untoward about its entrails. If there was, it was not altogether a bad omen, but the whole process had to be retell with a fresh animal until it came out right. The vital organs were burned upon the altar and the carcass cut into pieces and eaten on the spot, or else laid aside. Then the priest, we... ...als to changes in social conditions and attitudes. To the Romans, the observance of religious rites was a public vocation rather than a private impulse. Their beliefs were founded on a variety of bemused and often inconsistent mythological traditions, many of them derived from the Greek rather than Italian models (90 91). Without any basic creed to counter them, foreign religions easily made inroads into a society whose class-structure was being blurred and whose constitution was be ing changed by social change. The brilliance of some of the major foreign cults had considerable affection for those brought up on homespun deities of the hearth and fields.Compare to modern society, the Romans seem extremely superstitious. But then todays major religions have all passim their past discouraged, even combated, superstitions. Also present-day sciences and technological world offer little room for superstition. The Romans lived in an era previous to this. Their world was in effect(p) of unexplained phenomena, darkness and fear. These characteristics affected every aspect of Roman life. To Romans, these superstitions were a perfectly natural part in the relationship between gods and men.