Daily Life in Ancient Rome
Jerome Carcopino
Number of quotes: 15
Book ID: 72 Page: 109
Section: 4A
Vespasian had banished the philosophers from Rome and excluded them everywhere from the privileges reserved for grammarians and rhetoricians; {34} and the study of philosophy in Rome had never recovered from the ancient interdict pronounced against it by the Senate in 161 B.C., when in defiance of the diplomatic immunity which they enjoyed, it expelled from the city the academician Carneades, the Stoic Diogenes, and the peripatetic Critolaus. {35} Philosophy had never ceased to excite suspicion and sarcasm at Rome.
Quote ID: 2004
Time Periods: 01
Book ID: 72 Page: 110
Section: 4B
The Christian Church did not adopt Latin until the great shock which, toward the middle of the third century, rent the empire asunder and shook the very foundations of ancient civilisation. {41}
Quote ID: 2005
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 72 Page: 122
Section: 2B1
A “conservative” like Juvenal, who professedly execrates all foreign superstitions, might at first sight appear to be devoted in every fibre to the national religion; and reading the delightful opening of satire XII, one might well imagine that he still loved it profoundly. He paints with charming freshness the preparations for one of the sacrifices to the Triad of the Capitol: {83} . . . .PJ: Three in one.
Quote ID: 2006
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 72 Page: 124
Section: 2B
Tacitus was compelled to officiate at the public ceremonies of polytheism; and his aversion for the Jews was at least equal to Juvenal’s. So much for proof of his orthodoxy. But there are things that make us doubtful of it; much as he abhors the Jews, he is not afraid indirectly to praise their belief in one eternal and supreme God, whose image must not be counterfeited and who cannot pass away. {87}
Quote ID: 2007
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 72 Page: 125
Section: 3B2
There is still more convincing evidence, however, of the fundamental indifference Pliny felt toward the rites while he dutifully fulfilled the outward obligations. Let us look up the letter in which he announces his recent co-option into the College of Augurs. {91} His pleasure at the honour is wholly worldly. He barely alludes to the sacred power which this dignity confers (sacerdotium plane sacrum); he does not dwell on the incomparable privilege which is to be his of interpreting the signs of the Divine Will, of instructing the magistrates and the emperor himself in the value of their auspices. On the contrary, where a pious man would have welcomed the supernatural responsibilities with jubilation, what seems to him the most enviable feature of his new post is first that it is a life appointment (insigne est quod non adimitur viventi); secondly, that it has been bestowed on him on the recommendation of Trajan; thirdly, that he has succeeded “so eminent a man as Julius Frontinus”; finally and above all, that the prince of orators, Marcus Tullius Cicero, had held the same preferment. There is no shadow of religious emotion in Pliny’s self-gratulation. It is the pleasure of a courtier, a man of the world, a scholar – not of a believer. Pliny the Younger rejoiced to have been made an augur in much the same way that a modern author feels proud to be made a member of the French Academy; if we understand him aright the official priesthoods of the Romans had become for their dignitaries varying types of “Academy.”
Quote ID: 2008
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 72 Page: 126/127
Section: 3B2
By the time of the Antonines, emperor worship had become no more than a pretext for revelry, a symbol of loyalty, a constitutional, stylistic phrase.. . . .
In spite of a deliberate return to enlightened despotism, neither the jesting familiarity of Hadrian nor the self-effacement of Antoninus Pius nor the stoic resignation of Marcus Aurelius to the designs of Providence had power to rekindle in men’s hearts the emotion which the cult of the emperor had ceased to evoke.
Quote ID: 2009
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 72 Page: 129
Section: 2B2
Hence, above all, the ease with which the Romans were converted to the gods of the East, not only because the Orient was rich and populous but because the Hellenistic civilisation in which Rome was steeped had moulded to one pattern cults derived from every quarter of the East – moulded them as it were in its own image and under the pressure of its own spiritual instincts.. . . .
The numerous colleges devoted to these heterogeneous gods at Rome not only co-existed without friction but collaborated in their recruiting campaigns. There was in fact more affinity and mutual understanding between these diverse religions than rivalry.
Quote ID: 2010
Time Periods: 01
Book ID: 72 Page: 132
Section: 3B2
The best minds of the second century, indifferent or hostile to foreign religions, had recourse to divination without embarrassment or scepticism, and the public authorities attached so much importance to it that they prosecuted unauthorised diviners.
Quote ID: 2012
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 72 Page: 135
Section: 2D2
. . . and before Commodus had entered the congregation of Mithra, Antoninus Pius bore witness by the transparent language of the reverse of his coins that Faustina the Elder, the wife he had lost at the beginning of his reign and whose temple still rears its symbolic form above the Forum, had been able to mount to heaven only in the chariot of Cybele, by the favour of the Mother of the Gods, the Lady of Salvation (Mater deum salutaris).{129}Thus, thanks to the collaboration of oriental mysticism and of Roman wisdom, new and fruitful faiths were born and flourished on the ruins of the traditional pantheon. In the bosom of outworn paganism a creed arose, or rather the sketch of a creed, which represented a genuine redemption of men by the double payment of their merit and of divine assistance.
Quote ID: 2013
Time Periods: 012
Book ID: 72 Page: 136
Section: 3B,4B
. . .– it is nevertheless beyond all doubt that “Christianity” in Rome goes back to the reign of Claudius (41-54), and that under Nero it had become so widespread that the emperor was able to throw the blame for the great fire of 64 onto the Christians.From the beginning of the empire members of the Jewish colony had proved so troublesome that in 19 A.D. Tiberius thought it necessary to take severe measures against them, and so numerous that he was able to ship off 4,000 Jews at one swoop to Sardinia. {134}
Quote ID: 2014
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 72 Page: 137
Section: 3B
Dio Cassius and Suetonius both record that Domitian successively accused of the crime of atheism M’ Acilius Glabrio, consul in 91, who was put to death; {139} then a pair of his own cousins-german, Flavius Clemens, consul in 95, who was condemned to death, and Flavia Domitilla who was banished to the island of Pandataria. {140} Finally, Tacitus notes in his Histories that Vespasian’s own brother, Flavius Sabinus, who was prefect of the Urbs when Nero turned the Christians into living torches to light his gardens, appeared toward the end of his life to be obsessed by the horror of the blood shed then. {141}It is true that none of these texts formally names as Christians the illustrious personages of whom their authors speak, but it is permissible to wonder, with M. Emile Male, whether Flavius Sabinus in his humanity and his obsession may not have been won over to the new religion by the courage of the early Roman martyrs; {142} and it is still more probable that we may detect an allusion to Christianity both in the forbidden “alien superstition” with which Pomponia Graecina was reproached and in the accusation of atheism brought against believers whose faith was bound to deter them from performing their duties toward the false gods of the official polytheism. In the case of Flavius Clemens and of Flavia Domitilla in particular, this probability is increased by the fact that their niece, called Flavia Domitilla after her aunt, was, according to testimony of Eusebius, interned in the island of Pontia for the crime of being a Christian. {143}
Quote ID: 2015
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 72 Page: 138
Section: 4A
What contributed henceforth to increase their progress was not so much the series of their Apologiae, inaugurated by Quadratus in the reign of Hadrian, nor yet the heroism of their martyrs, as the power of their Credo and the Christian gentleness in which their life was steeped.
Quote ID: 2016
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 72 Page: 204
Section: 4B
All in all, then, we find 59 days devoted to these traditional games of the Roman Republic before the time of Sulla. {6}
Quote ID: 2018
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 72 Page: 205
Section: 4B
In other words, at the time of Claudius, the Roman calendar contained 159 days expressly marked as holidays, of which 93 were devoted to games given at public expense. The list does not include the many ceremonies for which the State took no responsibility and supplied no funds, but which were much in favour among the people and took place around the sanctuaries of the quarters in the chapels of foreign deities whose worship was officially sanctioned, and in the scholae or meeting places of the guilds and colleges. Even less does it take account of the feriae privatae of individuals or family groups.. . . but the additions seem to have outnumbered the subtractions, for we know that Claudius {11}, Vespasian {12}, and Marcus Aurelius {13} all found it necessary to cut down the number of holidays.
Quote ID: 2019
Time Periods: 01
Book ID: 72 Page: 206
Section: 4B
For the manuscript Calendar of Phiocalus, written in 354 A.D. and reflecting conditions of the third century, records 175 days of games out of about 200 public holidays, as against 93 out of 159 for the early empire . . .{14}The reality, therefore, far exceeded our statistics; and in attempting to analyse it, we are driven to conclude that in the epoch we are studying Rome enjoyed at least one day of holiday for every working day.
Religion presided at the birth of every one of these Roman “holidays,” and was more or less inseparably bound up with each.
Quote ID: 2020
Time Periods: 04
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