Myth and Cult - East Vs West


Myth and Cult - East Vs West

In our lecture on Myth and Cult it got my wondering to what extent Augustus himself was a cultic figure. It didn't take much research on JSTOR and a read of the ancient sources such as Suetonius and Cassius Dio, to quickly realise that the imperial cult was a major religious institution in the Roman Empire. One thing that quickly came to my attention was the difference in attitude and appearance of the cults between the East and the West. I was tempted not to right this post but felt that I couldn't help but at least mention this phenomenon as it is important to the next post on The Ara Pacis (finally!) 

Therefore I am just going to outline the difference between the ruler cult present in the East Vs the West.

In the East

- They are used to worshiping their kings/leaders as gods
Eg/ Egyptian pharaohs and Persian kings 
- Therefor Augustus can and does establish a ruler cult of himself with little public backlash/outcry. Although Suetonius says that he does this only with connection to his own name (see below), most scholars seem to agree that Augustus did have independent temples. With Taylor (1920:116) summing up the idea nicely "according to his account [Dio Cassius] Roman citizens of the Orient were commanded, early in Augustus' reign, to worship at temples that were erected to the goddess Roma and the deified Julius, but natives of the East were allowed to establish precincts to Augustus." Laird in her review of Gradel's 2002 article reiterates some fo Taylor's points which I believe helps  reiterate the articles continued relevance today.    

In the West

- They will not accept divine honour of their leaders whilst alive 
Eg/ Alexander the Great was 'murdered' for trying to do this as was Julius Caesar. 
(There is a lot of debate about how Alexander the Great died. The 1971 article by Bosworth titled  The Death of Alexander the Great: Rumour and Propaganda explores the varying accounts around the circumstances of Alexander's death - although its quite old now I still think it gives a good summary of the different accounts and importantly gives an explanation into why they might differ.) The article also links in really nicely with Morales definition of myth as an act of doing rather than a static and fixed concept.

As Augustus can't establish a cult that out rightly worships him for fear of the public and senators  turning on him, he come up with several ways to get around the Western views on living gods.

- He set up temple to his 'Genius' - the idea/concept of Augustus. Burton says that this type of worship was traditionally reserved for the paterfamilias of the household. Burton goes onto say that "The constantly recurring worship of the Genius of the father by the whole household, including slaves, freedmen, and clients, could not fail to suggest the worship of the Genius of the emperor on the part of all his subjects"(Burton 1912:81). Not only are they not worshiping Augustus directly but it is an old republican practice which Augustus' can say he restored.
- He set up temples to a 'positive quality' and Augusta
Eg/ Pax Augusta or Fortuna Augusta
(see next post on the Ara Pacis)
- He set up temples of family and father
Eg/ temple of the Deified Julius
- He set up temples of City and Augusta
Eg/ Roma and Ostia
Suetonius, Augustus (52) says that "he would not accept one [temple] ...  save jointly in his own name and that of Rome. In the city itself he refused this honour most emphatically.

During his life time these cults stayed mostly outside of Rome but once he died and was defied by the Senate the cult of Augustus spread quickly becoming one of the most popular in the Empire. The Sodales Augustales priests were established by Tiberius.  This concept of cult at home and abroad is important when looking at the Ara Pacis as it can be viewed as a cult artefact.

Bibliography

Bosworth, A. (1971). The Death of Alexander the Great: Rumour and Propaganda. The Classical Quarterly, 21(1), 112-136

Burton (1912) says that  "At the close of the reign of Augustus the imperial cult had spread throughout the provinces and had even invaded Italy."

Taylor, L. (1920). The Worship of Augustus in Italy during His Lifetime. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 51, 116-133.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Augustales.html

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2003/2003-09-26.html 

Popular posts from this blog

Myth and Making a Difference - Augustus in Modern History

Image
Myth and Making a Difference - Augustus in  Modern History In today's lecture we talked about how myth could be used to benefit todays society. We looked at myth in relation to autism and how myth allows these children to relate to the world around them and get them asking questions. The lecture itself was so creative and interactive with Susan giving us some off the activities she gave the children, including colouring in the chimney piece panel that is present in the Adam Room in Grove house and using craft objets to bring aspects of this scene to life. It was truly a great lecture and we should defiantly do more colouring in our lectures as everyone really enjoyed it. As interesting as this was it got my wondering if myth was ever used in a negative way as a way to condone or justify atrocities. This idea original stems form my Myth of White post where I discuss the fact that far right groups and the red pill community use the ‘whiteness’ of classical statues to justify the...
Read more

The Ara Pacis Augustae

Image
The Ara Pacis Augustae  As promised here is my post on the Ara Pacis! Ever since visiting the Ara Pacis in 2017 I have been complete enamoured with the structure and it is by far my favourite Augustan building. Currently it is my intention to try and write my third year dissertation on the topic. https://youtu.be/8d6-ysEKgMQ I made this video whilst walking around the Ara Pacis in 2017 and thought I would share it here so you can get a sense of scale and just how impressive the building is.  Me outside the Ara Pacis in Rome during my 2017 visit to Italy I thought it would be a good idea to start this blog with quick overview of the monument before moving one the iconography present on the altar and most importantly the significance and message conveyed by the building.  Location - Campus Martius / field of Mars near Augustus Mausoleum in Rome.  Date - Consecrated on the 4th July 13 BCE (Livia's Birthday)         ...
Read more

Th Myth of White - Rome in Colour

Image
‘The Myth of White’ - Rome in Colour  During my lecture today we looked at the fact that the Prima Porta statue was originally highly coloured and having just written a blog post on the Prima Porta and not mentioned this fact I felt compelled to fix this oversight. However, after starting to research about colour in antiquity I became fascinated by why we picture Greek and Roman sculpture in this perfect white marble. My Photos from the Vatican Museum (2017)   You can see how all the statues are clean white marble,  this type of portrayal is what perpetuates the myth of white  So, why do we have this ‘myth of white’. A lot of this has to do with the fashions of the 17th and 18th centuries in the wake of the Renaissance. Influential scholars such as Johann Winckelmann (who is often called the father of art history) says that “white was the epitome of beauty and colour inits self wasn’t beautiful,” (Winckelmann, J. Irwin, D. 1972:1...
Read more

In conclusion ...

In conclusion  My initial plan for this blog was to look at Augustus and his use of myth in relation too: Community, Children, Deities, Reception, Gender, Cult and History.  However, although I covered most if not all of these topics I did not end up writing a dedicated post on all of them. When Dr Deacy said our assessment for this module was going to be a blog I honestly couldn't think of anything I wanted to do less, I think my exact words were "give me a good old fashioned essay or even an exam any day over that." However, this whole experience pleasantly surprised me. I found my self liberated about what I could wright about, with no word limit (always my biggest problem) and no set topic or question I could write on anything that interested me. Whilst writing my first post on the Prima Porta statue and forgetting to mention the importance of the fact it would have originally been highly coloured I got pulled into the fascinating world of colour in the ancient wo...
Read more

Augustus' Use of the Foundation Myths

Image
Augustus’ use of the mythical founders of Rome in the establishment of his principate.  Whilst researching and filming the Romulus and Remus video I made for my last posting I began to find a lot of research relating to Augustus' use of the foundation myths in his principate. Thanks to prior knowledge and the research I did on the Prima Porta statue for the first post I wrote, I knew that Augustus often linked himself to Aeneas. However, I didn't realise to what extent he also used the myth of Romulus and Remus. Throughout the lectures so far we have looked extensively at what myths mean/do with a particular focus on  Morales' definition that myth is something done rather than 'something'. This idea coupled with my curiosity about how Augustus used the founding myths of Rome led me to writing this post. The idea of Augustus linking himself to a founder of Rome is by no means a new one (not even for this blog), however I wanted to take a look at the ancient...
Read more

Myth and Children - Romulus and Remus (including video)

Image
Myth and children - Romulus and Remus https://youtu.be/0j1pnJTwL4I For this blog entry I originally wanted to look at Augustus’ use of the founding myth in the establishment of his principate. However after the lecture on Myth and children and how children see myth today I thought it would be fun as well as an educationally strong idea to try and create an animated version of the Romulus and Remus myth for children. This turned out to be much harder than I anticipated and hence why this blog post is a little later than I had originally planed. Eventually though I did manage to create a video I am quite happy with, having never done this kind of thing before and being no artist I tried to keep it as simple as possible, which I think also makes it accessible to children. Obviously, some of the themes are not appropriate for very young children, but I didn’t want to stray too far from the ancient versions of the myth so kept most of the myth as authentic 1  as possibl...
Read more

Introduction

ROME: The Mythological City   During the course of this blog my plan is to look at Emperor Augustus’ use of myth in the foundation of his principate and his ‘rule’ over the city. Augustus could never say he ruled Rome, kings were not tolerated in Rome since the assassination of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (the seventh and last king of Rome) and the establishment of the Roman Republic. Anyone who acted like a king was murdered. This meant Augustus need to rule without being seen as ruler. I am going to look at the use of mythology within Augustan 'propaganda' and to what extent this helped establish his power and dominion over not just Rome but the whole of the Empire. To me Augustus is the embodiment of Rome, he symbolises everything Rome stood for and everything it could be. Coming from fairly humble origins, he became the most powerful man in the known world; he was the original success story. I have been fascinated by Rome from a young age ever since seeing pict...
Read more

Myth and Community: Prima Porta Augusta

Image
Myth and Community: Prima Porta Augusta  What is myth?  After a discussion in our  lecture this  week we  came to the conclusion that defining myth was near impossible. However, the one  definition  I did like the sound of and will be using  throughout  this  blog  was by Helen Morales’ (2007:9). She defined myth as “ a complex game of production and reception”, in other words  I   believe  she is saying that myth is everything, it has no boundaries, and this  allows  it to transcend time and be just as important today as it was when it was first told.  What does community mean? To me community means a collection of people living together and/or having similar goals. Following on from our discussion in class about the Origins of Erichthonios and the use of this myth as a way to link the whole citizenry body of Athens together via a common origin, I believe that Augustus is deploying a sim...
Read more