Introduction – What was Roman religion like?

Religion in the ancient Roman Empire was pretty different to religion in the west today. If you went back in time to ancient Rome and asked someone on the street what they believed, they probably wouldn’t give you much of an answer. That’s because “belief” as a concept wasn’t very important. Whether or not you really “believed” in the gods didn’t matter. What mattered was if you did the right sacrifices, observed the holidays and followed your ancestors’ traditions. Yes, some philosophers and Christian apologists wrote lengthy theses on whether or not the traditional gods were worthy of worship, but the vast majority of people just didn’t care.

They did care about their sacrifices and holidays though. It was widely believed (not that “believed” is the right word, but bear with me) that not following the traditions of your ancestors would bring doom upon your local area (plagues and natural disasters were often blamed on sacrilege). For major events and holidays, it was expected that a household should sacrifice an animal, such as a sheep or goat, while wealthy benefactors would donate larger animals to sacrifices at temples. But even on ordinary days, religion played an important part in people’s lives. Every household had a lares shrine which honoured the household gods (and sometimes dead relatives too), where people could pray and make offerings. Mealtimes were usually accompanied by a libation to the gods too.

Bronze figures of the lares

Holidays were also very important for ordinary people. If you look at the number of holidays in the Roman calendar, you might think the Romans were constantly on holiday, but bear in mind that the Romans didn’t have a “weekend” as we do. These holidays were occasions for ordinary people to have a rest from work and enjoy celebrations and entertainment put on by wealthy benefactors.

Putting it simply, religion gave structure and stability to people’s daily lives. It was everywhere; in their homes, in the bathhouses, in the city centre (the forum, where there was always at least one temple to the Capitoline Triad (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva) and usually one to the Imperial Cult too, see below). Before any important business venture, battle, or significant event, special priests called a haruspex and an augur consulted the omens (augurs watched the movements of birds, while haruspices consulted the appearance of the entrails of a sacrificed animal!) to see whether or not they had the gods’ support.

For women, religion meant even more. The chance to become a priestess of one of the major cults meant a chance to have power, respect and autonomy, a rare thing for a Roman woman. The most revered and privileged priestesses were the Vestal Virgins, a group of priestesses who, from early childhood, lived in the temple of the goddess Vesta in Rome and whose duty it was to tend the sacred hearth (a fire in the centre of the temple which was never allowed to go out). It was hard work, especially tending the fire in the heat of an Italian summer, but the Vestals were highly revered and were given various privileges, even getting front row seats at the Flavian Amphitheatre (otherwise known as the Coliseum).  

A statue of the Chief of the Vestals

Imperial Cults

But aside from the main state religion, there were other cults that had state approval, most significantly, the Imperial cult. The Imperial cult (or Imperial cults, since there were several) is a pretty strange concept to us: it revolves around worship of former emperors. It may sound wrong to us to worship a mere human being, but it’s not that unusual; in China, Japan, much of Africa, and Haiti, ancestor veneration is not uncommon, and it’s not unusual to do the same to leaders and kings, both current and past. Before the Roman Empire, in Hellenistic Greece, it was pretty much expected that the ruler be venerated as divine, kings like Alexander the Great were worshiped even in their own lifetime. In the Roman Empire, worship of the current emperor was not really considered acceptable, although it seems that in some provinces people did set up the odd shrine to the emperor of their own accord. What was expected was for people to make sacrifices and libations for the emperor, a bit like having a toast to your host’s health, at meals and festivals.

The Imperial cult might sound a bit like some cruel way to control the masses, but it was a two-way thing; both a way for the public to actively show their support for the empire, and a way for the Imperial administration to reward people with increased numbers of holidays, grand public buildings, and prestigious jobs within the cult itself. Strange as it may sound, people really wanted to be part of the Imperial cult. In the time of the emperor Augustus, when there were only a handful of temples to his predecessor the “Divine” Julius Caesar, Augustus received so many petitions asking permission to build a temple to him that in the end he gave his permission to build a temple to Julius just to stop the letters from coming.

After Augustus’ death, he too was made a god and respected as the Divine Augustus, with his own special priests, called the Augustales, to tend his temples. This set the precedent, and for the next few centuries, popular emperors were made gods as a matter of course. It was usual for an emperor to build a temple to his predecessor (just as Augustus had for Julius) as a sign of respect and a way to prove their right to rule.

Mystery Cults and Added Extras

But the Imperial cult wasn’t the only state-approved cult outside of the state religion. There were a whole range of other, usually foreign, cults that were begrudgingly accepted. I like to think of them as “added extras”; not designed to replace the state religion but to augment it. Some were more respectable than others. The Eleusinian Mystery cult was one of the best established and most respected, a very ancient Greek cult based in Eleusis and sacred to the goddess of agriculture Demeter (or Ceres in Latin) and her daughter Persephone (or Proserpina in Latin). We don’t really know what the Mysteries involved (they’re called mystery cults for a good reason) but we do know that there was a festival which seemed to involve a procession and a re-enactment of the Persephone myth. The Eleusinian Mysteries is one of the better respected cults mainly because of its age, as the Romans really seemed to respect ancient traditions. Augustus himself had links to the cult, but then Augustus had links to the vast majority of cults!

Another very popular mystery cult was the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Temples of Isis appear all over the empire; there’s one particularly nice example at Pompeii. Again, we don’t know much about it. The temples were built with very high walls to keep out prying eyes and there seems to have been a basement in most of them.

Cybele or Magna-Mater was another “foreign” goddess to become popular in the empire but its mysterious and unusual practices made it a lot less popular. Priests of Cybele, known as galli, were said to castrate themselves with shards of pottery and wore extravagant, slightly feminine robes, and because of this they attracted a lot of suspicion from Roman writers. We don’t know an awful lot about worship of Cybele, except that it involved a public ritual called the taurobolium. A description of the taurobolium claims that the galli cut the throat of a bull while standing in a pit underneath it, so that the animal’s blood flowed over him, but honestly we don’t know how much truth there is in that. Strange though the cult was, it was patronised by some very respectable people who were unlikely to let their best clothes get covered in bull’s blood.

A gallus with typical ritual objects of Cybele.

One final important cult is that of Mithras, and this one’s particularly interesting if you’re interested in the Abrahamic religions because it’s surprisingly similar. Mithras was a Persian god, usually depicted slaying the sacred bull, who died and was reborn, and his mystery cult is a bit like the modern day Masons: initiates into the cult had a highly symbolic hierarchy to climb and were expected to take part in equally symbolic rituals. A temple to Mithras, called a Mithraeum, was designed to resemble a cave but could often be someone’s back room with the windows boarded up.

A double-faced relief from a Mithraem. Notice Mithras slaying the bull in the top picture, that iconography is everywhere.

We tend to think of paganism as a sort of tolerant free-for-all, where every cult and foreign deity is eagerly welcomed, but in the Roman empire that certainly wasn’t the case. Cults of Cybele, Dionysus and Isis were periodically banned and its followers were sometimes persecuted. In the newly-conquered Britain, the resident religion was all-but wiped out because the Druids held too much power over the local people. And that’s the thing really: cults and deities that could be aligned with Roman deities and cults in a way that allowed the empire to be in control were allowed. Cults and deities that moved for autonomy or priests with power outside of the control of the state were viewed with suspicion and eliminated.

Judaism and Christianity

Into this delicate mix of symbols and traditions comes Judaism and Christianity, which, I’m sure you’ll know, are very different religions to what ordinary Romans were used to. Judaism was, however, very ancient by the time of the Roman Empire and as we’ve already seen the Romans respected age. Because of it’s age and the way it’s passed through the generations, the Romans tolerated the Jews. They respected that these people were following the ways of their ancestors, no matter how strange. People who haven’t much studied Roman religions often assume that the Romans disliked the Jews because of the whole monotheistic “there is no God but me” sort of thing, but this isn’t the case. Alright, the Romans thought this monotheism was strange but there were other monotheistic cults in Rome at the time (worshippers of Mithras generally denied the existence of other gods, and the cult of Isis seems to have taught that Isis was all goddesses, much like the Christian Trinity is three in one). The strong hierarchy of the Jewish priests was also viewed with suspicion and closely monitored. The crucial thing in Roman tolerance of the Jews is the fact that the Jews still made sacrifices at their festivals and, if prompted, would sacrifice an animal to their God for the protection of the emperor (much like the sacrifices on behalf of the emperor we looked at earlier). As such they showed their support for the administration and all was well.

Christians, on the other hand, didn’t. Christianity taught against sacrifices altogether. Plus it was a new cult, only a few years old and spreading through conversion rather than being passed down through the generations. Add a touch of monotheism, some unusual and secretive practices, powerful priests and bishops with the power to order their followers to do pretty much anything, and philosophical teachings with more in common with Greek philosophy than Roman religion and you have the recipe for an unpopular movement.

The Romans just did not understand Christianity. It was weird, it was new, and it seemed to be directly advocating rebellion since Christians actively refused to make sacrifices. Ordinary people began to suspect that Christians were to blame for local misfortunes, and sadly this suspicion was used against the Christians on several occasions, starting with the first persecution during the reign of the notorious emperor Nero.

That being said, as far as the Romans were concerned they were giving the Christians every chance to explain themselves and prove their loyalty. There’s one particularly sad but telling story in the Acts of the Christian Martyrs (a text distributed among Christians to confirm their faith during times of persecution) in which the baffled proconsul of Smyrna tries to make sense of Christianity as explained to him by Pionius. Pionius’ answers really don’t help, the proconsul seems utterly confused by the relation between Jesus and their God, and the connection between their God and the heavens (when Pionius explains that his God is god of the heavens, the proconsul asks if He is Zeus). Now, bearing in mind that Pionius, as a convert, would be familiar with both Christian and pagan traditions, and remembering how different the two were, his cryptic but knowing replies are more than a little unfair and probably didn’t do his cause any good (if, of course, the story is accurate).

Desperate to create a test that would prove loyalty to the empire even in fringe cults and suspected Christians, the letter-writer and governor Pliny the Younger concocted a test that would prove loyalty, preserved in his letter to the emperor Trajan. His test was simple; suspects had to make a supplicatio or libation of wine for the protection of the emperor. Unfortunately for the Christians, their strict religion denied even a sacrifice of wine, and unable to prove loyalty to the emperor, many were put to death. Later histories (written by Christians) recorded this as another sign of Roman hatred for monotheism, but I don’t think that’s how it was planned. Pliny and men like him were pious but not zealous. They were puzzled and frightened by this strange new cult but were willing to tolerate it if Christians could only prove they didn’t mean any harm. It’s quite possible that Pliny’s test picked up a whole range of different people, some who were genuinely rebellious and some attached to smaller fringe cults. Christians were just part of that list.

Of course, much later, Christianity became the main cult of Rome, following the sudden conversion of Constantine. Constantine’s father had been sympathetic towards monotheism, so when Constantine received an omen that seemed to point towards Christianity he was more inclined to accept it, and over the years paganism was phased out onto the sidelines.

Further Reading

If you’d like to know more about religion in ancient Rome, I strongly recommend both volumes of Religions of Rome by Beard, North and Price. One volume covers the history and the arguments, the other has a very useful collection of sources, including most of the sources I’ve mentioned here.

Other books worth looking at include:

Pagans and Christians by Robin Lane Fox

Roman Religion by Valerie M Warrior

I’d also strongly recommend looking up the Jewish Revolts, the Roman priestal system, and Augustus’ involvement in religion, if you’d like to study more.

Evergreen plants have held a special attraction for humans for times immemorial. Staying green through a bitter cold and snowy winter, they came to embody the hope for spring and warmth, when all plants would become green again and bear fruit. Accordingly, conifers and other evergreen plants were used as decorations and were decorated in turn.

When Pope Julius declared the first Christmas for December 25th in 350, the date was carefully chosen to coincide with the feast day for the birth of Mithras Sol Invictus. Emperor Aurelian had declared the same date as ‘Natalis Invictis Solis’ (Birth of the Unconquered Sun). As Christ had already inherited the halo from Mithras (plus some other bits and pieces), it was only fitting he should take over his birthday as well. The move was part politics, as most Roman troops were believers in Mithras, and part formal take-over where Mithras and Christ were effectively co-joined to ease conversion. And evergreens were ever present at the festivities for Mithras.

As the conversion to Christianity progressed to eventually include all of Europe, some pagan beliefs were integrated into the faith, mostly by making ancient gods and goddesses into imaginary saints or fusing them into existing ones. Other pagan beliefs were too typical to stomach and were discarded. The belief in Yggdrasil, the tree of life of the Germans, was repressed, and in 800, Charlemagne even forbade the illumination of trees to get rid of the last vestiges of ‘superstition’. But further north, the Tree of Light and the Wreath of Light both persisted in honour of St. Lucia, goddess demoted saint by the church.

If any of these pagan rituals may claim direct ancestry to the Christmas tree is doubtful, but they illustrate how old ideas may spark new ones at least. The first written proof for a spread of Christmas trees appears in 1570 in Bremen, Germany. The guilds there put up little trees decorated with dates, apples, and nuts, which were harvested by children on Christmas day. Around the turn of the century, the journeymen of the guilds of Basel, Switzerland, are reported to receive trees, apples and cheese as a gift from the guilds. The trees were paraded through town from the guild halls to their lodgings where they put up the trees and decorated them with apples and cheese.

The earliest mention of a single Christmas tree dates from 1539, when one was put up in the Cathedral of Strasbourg, Alsace. Martin Luther promoted the Christmas tree to distinguish Protestants’ Christmas from Catholics’ who put up the nativity scene as a decoration. The Catholic Church was even moved to outlaw the Christmas tree for being a ‘heathen superstition’. It did this not as one might expect for reason of faith but because it owned vast tracts of woods, and it strongly disapproved of losing money to a frivolity.

Duchess Dorothea of Brieg is credited as the first to introduce candles to the Christmas tree in 1611. The Christmas tree continued its small revolution, a revolution from the top, one has to admit. It was the rich aristocrats and the equally rich guilds which were able to provide the trees. Rich merchants and other citizens followed. During the war between Germany and France in 1870 and 1871, Christmas trees were put in hospitals and field hospitals to cheer up the wounded and found their way into every home afterwards. The White House puts up a Christmas tree for public display since 1891 and is probably responsible for that particular tradition to come back to Europe where the first public tree ‘for the poor’ was put up in Weimar in 1924.

Until late in the 19th century, trees in northern Germany were decorated with apples, the figures of Adam and Eve as well as the snake, to represent the tree of forbidden fruit in Paradise. Traditionally, Christmas Eve was a day to remember Adam and Eve and a play about Paradise would be put up in church. Putting up ornaments instead of fruit and sweet cakes started in 1830 when the first ornaments were produced in Germany.

The Catholic Church lifted its ban on trees only after the Second World War, and the putting up of the tree on St. Peter’s Square only became an event under Pope John-Paul II. The Vatican tree is a gift from a country where Catholics live. Other cities receive trees as gift as well; London puts up the Oslo tree on Trafalgar Square since 1947, and Hamburg puts up a tree from one of Germany’s northern neighbours in front of its city hall.

Related articles

Growing Hyacinths for Your Christmas Decorations

The Star of Bethlehem and the Three

The Roman god Mithras was a well known god in both Rome and Persia. Mithras’ counterpart was the Persian god Mithra. Mithras is known as the god of light. He also was thought to give life to plants and other wildlife.  It was said that he sacrificed the sacred bull to bring light and life back to the world.   Mithras was born on December 25th, and also has many other things in common with the Christian religion.

There are several myths about the Roman god Mithras. One of these myths is about how he sacrificed the sacred bull. It is said that Mithras found a sacred bull out in the wild and brought it back to a cave and sacrificed it. When he sacrificed the bull, life was released from it, which benefited all of humanity. In doing this he was aided by some animals, one being a scorpion that helped him kill the bull. Therefore, in many paintings or sculptures of Mithras slaying the bull there are animals surrounding him. Another myth about Mithras was that he shared many characteristics with Jesus. They both were born on December 25th, they each performed many miracles, and both of them were resurrected after they died.

   Mithras is not really the most well-known Roman god, but he and the myths about him are still found in some things today. There are some lighting installation companies that are called Mithras Lighting or just Mithras. Also it is said that the tradition of people putting lights on their houses and trees during Christmas stems back to the myth of Mithras and how he gave light to the world. There are also many pieces of art that exist today that show him slaying the sacred bull. Although there are not a lot of things in today’s society that are connected to Mithras, these are evidence that show his myths still remain alive today.

 Mithras is the god that returned the light to the world by slaying the sacred bull, and in today’s society he is still remembered in several things related to light and life.

Image via Wikipedia

Works Cited

“Temple of Mithras.” Museum of Antiquities. 6 Jan 2009 .

Holding, J. P. “Did The Mithraic Mysteries Influence Christianity?” Tektonics. 3 Jan 2009 .

“Mithraism.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 8 Jan 2009 .

To start let us first accept that in the old Julian Calender, the Winter Solstice, the 24 hour period with the least day light in the Northern hemisphere, was December 25, in our current calender it falls on or around December 21. Most cultures had some sort of celebration on this day, sometimes the festivities started a week earlier and ended on this day.

The Christmas Tree

Probably one of the most recognized symbols of Christmas, right? Wrong. Decorated trees were around long before Christmas. Because winter is typically a time of death, the evergreen was thought by ancient Druids to be magical, and brought protection if a part of it were brought inside during this time of year. Often it was just branches brought indoors, but trees outside were decorated with apples, additional pine cones, and lit candles. Roman pagans also noted that it was a special plant and would cut one down and offer it to Saturn, the God of agriculture, frequently adorning it first.

Photo from Wikimedia

Ball Ornaments

These round orbs, are representational of the Sun, and were symbols of worship to the Roman Sun God, Mithras, of course they were not made of plastic back then.

Gifts

Gifts have been exchanged at this time of year for many centuries, even predating the time of Christ.

The Nativity Scene

There have been numerous deities assigned the birth date of December 25 (which if you recall was the shortest time of light according to the older Julian Calendar). From Sol, to Apollo, to Mithras, and in Roman times nativity scenes were made to honor each.

Photo from Wikimedia

Stars

In ancient times the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a day to honor the God Saturn, the god of Agriculture, seeds and planting. They did not know Saturn was a planet not a star. They also represented Saturn with yellow discs, we now refer to these as halos.

Wreaths

Wreaths, to the ancient Romans, were a symbol of eternal life, as winters were a time of hardships and death (yes, even in Rome), wreaths of evergreens were passed around as gifts at this time of the year.

Mistletoe

Mistletoe was known as a sacred plant, it lived in trees with no roots to the ground, quite unlike any other plant. Due to its’ special nature it was also considered a fertility symbol, hence the tradition of kissing under the Mistletoe. On the other hand, though it is poisonous and possibly used to poison a sacrificial victim. Early Christians tried to not include Mistletoe in any celebrations (mostly because of it being a fertility symbol), but it is still very common in people’s houses today at this time of year.

Red and Green

Red and Green are the colors of Holly, a plant that also comes into play in what people consider Christmas Traditions, however Holly was brought into decorate homes long before Christmas was celebrated as such. As another of those plants who mysteriously lived and retained its beauty into the winter it was considered magical. Green, of course was also associated with evergreens (life), and red with apples (food), both of which were important at this time of year.

Candles and Lights

Of course in ancient times lights did not exist, but candles did! In different regions the use of candles represented different functions the strongest being to honor, or welcome back, the Roman sun God, Mithras. It must be remembered that in the northern hemisphere December 21 is now the day with the least sunlight of all, but that in the Julian Calender, the date of the solstice was December 25.

Bells

In the dark times surrounding this time of year evil spirits were held to blame for death, so in Northern areas, bells were used to frighten the spirits away. The meaning of bells were later said to be happy rather than for protection.

Gingerbread Men

Back to ancient Rome again, the week long festivities often involved eating of cookies made in human form.

Santa Claus

The jolly fat man comes from a more recent time, and a man named Sinter Klaas, or Saint Nicholas. He became known later as the Patron Saint of Children because he reportedly saved many from lives of crime or prostitution. He frequently fed poor children and kept them from death. His death, December 6, was later marked by the giving of gifts in honor of him. This later was moved to December 25. Saint Nicholas was not fat, nor dressed in red and white, this image was created by the Coca Cola company for an advertising campaign, as a skinny Santa just didn’t have the same appeal as a jolly fat one.

Caroling

This is an ancient tradition that started it Rome, a group of people called “mummers” would dress up, or be totally naked, and stroll from house to house singing and dancing to entertain their neighbours. Over time only singing became the tradition, the name as changed to “Caroling”,and clothing was not optional.

The Feast and Parties

Different ancient groups feasted on this day, as a way to celebrate the return of the sun, the coming back of more daylight, and to welcome in good fortune for the future, it was also a way of demonstrating ones wealth, having more than enough food to eat. The feast often was of gluttonous levels. In Rome especially this carried onto ridiculous levels as the feasting and partying started one week earlier, and included orgies. It was a time when laws could be broken with no fear of prosecution, and drunkenness was common.

Kindness to the Poor

Again in ancient Rome, and the holiday celebrated as Saturnalia, Romans exhibited a bit of a role reversal, a time where slaves were treated well and included in the feast, occasionally even being fed by their masters.

Garland

Romans use to keep the statue of Saturn tied up, wrapped, in ropes, these ropes could very well be represented by garlands of today. The statue was only “untied” for the Saturnalia celebrations.

You might have been shocked to learn that so many of the Christmas traditions you thought were “Christian” were in fact around long Christ, and that many of these are indeed Pagan traditions. In fact in Massachusetts from 1659 to 1681, it was illegal to celebrate “Christmas”, due to its’ Pagan origins. As our openness to learn the truth about the past increases we will grow as people.