 Just a little Roman mythology for you today So we're gonna just say a few words about Roman myths in Roman religion or these beginnings key concepts Roman myths of course has the heart and soul of today and discerning through all of it What is truly Roman and the scholarship has always wrestled with this Students of ancient Roman religion are wrestling with this. We're still wrestling with it today I am wrestling with it. What is truly Roman? So we will look at Greek influence outside influence, but ultimately we'll see that the stories that are transmitted to us of the artwork that is preserved It's gonna focus on specific locations. So why Roman topography matters is really what it's all about today there's a scene already in the first slide here with Cursious who is sacrificing himself by jumping into Gaping chasm That appears and what will be there Roman forum the time maybe as far back as Romulus and That self-sacrifice those the kinds of stories that are transmitted through these stories To the people of Rome to the school children from father to son from mother to daughter. It's all about Sacrificing yourself on behalf of the state. So let's get into it. Let's start in the beginning One second Hello, okay keep calm dog Nemi you can follow Nemi Nemi in Rome, of course you can follow me at Dari. Sorry digs you can follow the Institute at save Rome on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and we're having a great time sharing all this new material that we are Creating and we're happy then to bring you here. You have city foundation. We're talking about the earliest beginnings of Rome You see the bottom left fresco comes from plaza Massimo, which is part of Museo nationali Romano I just met last week with the new director who is wonderful and we know that we're going to be going back time and time again To the National Museums of Rome. There are four locations and they have amazing Materials, so there's the she-wolf with the twins from the capital line museum and We say that's another Romano We want to help it be as well known as the capital line museums because the collection is in no way inferior So Vatican museums Capital line museums we want to help put on the map as much as possible The incredible artifacts that are in the national collection in four locations including plaza Massimo Okay, so the myths Raw emulases origins. How do we tell this story? Let's look at the art So we have the bronze she-wolf from the capital line museums. We have a republican coin We have a wall painting in the center from Pompeii the man floating in the sky in his armor is Mars descending upon Rea Sylvia that he falls in love with and She then gives birth to twins. So they are sons of a mortal and an immortal but specifically Rea Sylvia or Sylvia is the descendant of Romulus and Remus so we're tying back to What we call the Trojan cycle which gets into Greek myths and that's how the Romans Saw themselves as tapping into those great stories those great achievements that great culture But not being Greek being something different They then in their stories associated themselves with the Trojans That escaped the destruction of Troy namely Aeneas who was the son of Aphrodite so he's a demigod as well So you have then flowing through the veins of Romulus and Remus both the blood of Aphrodite and the blood of Mars And that's gonna be another reason why Rome is gonna be so successful Is that you have Gods overseeing and being part of that lineage They're discovered they're discovered by shepherds when the twins are abandoned and that very rare fresco that comes from a tomb near, well, let's say the Porta Majority area the bottom left image shows the twins being abandoned kind of like putting Moses in a basket and floating down The Nile here Romulus and Remus put in the basket and floated down the Tiber who was represented as a Reclining male figure. That's a typical way to depict of river And the bottom right hand corner and alter from Plasmasimo as well is depicting the Shepherds that come across the abandoned twins who have washed ashore What will be Rome and they're being suckled by a she-wolf this miracle, right this goddess The the the she-wolf is of course going to be sacred to Mars Mars sends them so the kids don't die from exposure So I think we're familiar to a degree with this particular myth city foundation more myths in creating the walls of the city Romulus kills Remus and how does this Argument break out is that they're trying to get signs from the gods To get the okay for founding a city Romulus goes to the Palatine Hill Remus goes to the Aventine Hill and ultimately they can't agree upon how to interpret the signs from the gods Remus sees the birds in the sky first sent from Jupiter, but Romulus sees more So that's the kind of story that the rom the Romans are telling a fight breaks out and of course with identical twins It's survival of the fittest and the one that wins is Romulus So that's another way of the natural selection to say our founder is the better the stronger of the two Twins and you found a city you create a magical boundary around the city You build walls the ritual boundaries called a pomerium that kind of magical boundary We're basically you're Have a plow and you create a furrow around the outline of what your city will be and in the life of Romulus You have the rape of the Savine women You're stealing away the girls from the hill next door to the Palatine Hill It's the Quirinal Hill. This is depicted here on a coin in the Republican period and the punishment of tarpaia who betrays the state She is buried alive by the shields of the Sabines that she was aligning herself with so the Sabines upset about the stealing away of their daughters go to war against the Romans and at a certain point they're besieging the Romans on the Capitoline Hill and and Tarpaia betrays the state and lets them sneak in through the back door and even they the Sabines themselves are disappointed with this treachery and kill her by bearing her alive in their own shields and weaponry So these are the kinds of stories that the Romans are Telling the way in which you go out and find a girl the way in which you have to be Aware of women because they can be treacherous in tarpaia as the quintessential Benedict Arnold for the Romans. So they're finding not just stories in the oral tradition to Say this is where we came from. We were a bunch of ragtag people Joining together with other villages stealing away girls from our neighbors, but also we had values Okay, and one of them is the state comes first and never Betray the state and so these the kind of stories that you tell your kid at bedtime Of course, you're building your walls. It's very labor-intensive. All the citizens are participating This is another rare example of that quite Probably in this case here, not the city walls room itself, but something pretty early It's from that painted tomb also found today in Palazzo Massimo Okay, some key concepts is with all of these stories Religio is the proper way to venerate the gods Superstitio sounds like superstition. It's the fearful way of Venerating and worshiping to the gods. It's wrong But of course we are going to be superstitious ourselves today and antiquity as well Sometimes people behave and worship in the wrong way So they always want to define that do it right venerate the gods in a proper way follow the traditions of your ancestors the most myora keep that sacred bond and Association with the gods in a proper way keep the pox deoram to keep the peace of the gods with you Be venerable, you know show your respect to the gods the pietas the piety and in particular in warfare What you do is authorize how many times is so many even today we look at our society declaring war somewhere Of course, you're always saying I didn't say I warned you because it's the right thing It's adjusting God bless the United States and so on and so forth. So think about the ways in which States today countries say what we're doing is justify what we're doing is right and You know, we have God on our side the Romans took that same kind of attitude and had hundreds and hundreds of years through oral tradition before they're writing it down to essentially Certify that their way was the right way because they were winning in their encounters by and large So it means of course the gods were on their side And then ultimately I give to the gods they give to me don't would dace so we know that we can't oblige the gods To do our bidding, but we're gonna make a good pact a good contract. We're gonna make the proper sacrifices We're gonna adhere to tradition of our ancestors and therefore the gods will be on our side So we have some really awesome images from various sources Pompeii they are a pocus from an altar in a Carthage, but it's showing and Nias So and Nias is ultimately the quintessential pious man for the Romans He escapes the destruction of Troy bottom left bottom right Caring is old father who's carrying a box with the household gods Caring both taking the hand of his son and Kaisie. So three generations a quintessential Kind of image if you read Virgil's a Nias, you'll see very quickly He loses his wife as he is escaping the destruction of Troy He has to find another wife and so on and so forth But you know, the Romans have their own priorities in these stories. They wouldn't go down very well in today's society but for For this discussion, it's just good to look at a Nias in the context of these big terms Religio superstitio Piatas piece of the gods the tradition of our ancestors and ultimately it's contractual I give something to you. I make a sacrifice as Nias is doing here on the our pockets in the large image So that you give something to me Okay, some specific Roman myths as we do a little review then The Romans as we're reading about them really the text go back to the second century BC heavily influenced by Greek text Greek comedies Greek historians, I mean they're really setting a template for them. They tap into the Greek cycle and Ultimately, there are lots of people writing about the Romans before the Romans before the Romans are writing their histories themselves Mostly in Greek and some people say the Romans are descended from Hercules Some people say they're descended from Odysseus the Romans themselves ultimately chose to canonize the version that they were descended from the Trojans that In the Trojan war cycle There were a number of people that escaped the destruction including a Nias and that was the ultimate kind of ancestor The primordial Roman then that gets immortalized in Virgil's in need. That's what that's all about. So it's essentially half Iliad and half Odyssey So that's what Virgil constructed took those two big famous works epic poems by Homer and made them into one large epic Roman poem and and then of course even the a lot of the Noble families the older families the wealthier families said they themselves were also descended from the gods even Julius Caesar said we're descended from Aphrodite and Nias and so forth and that ultimately Worked out beautifully because there were a lot of different ideas all the way through until the late Republic who were the Romans ascended from and Coincidentally then the story that wins out and Is canonized and promoted is going to be that of the Julian games the Julian family but it wasn't a guarantee because when Mark Antony went against Octavian Mark Antony's was his family was descended from Hercules, so just think of Mark Antony had defeated Octavian at the battle of Actium Maybe the whole Canon would have changed would have shifted would have been different to include then how the Romans were Actually descended from Hercules because of the victory of Mark Antony But that was not to be so just give you an idea of how these things can work out here We have some colored images From the panels on the are apocas hypothetical and So we don't know the exact coloration But definitely these panels as were Roman and Greek statues once painted Okay, so what about the Roman gods? Okay, so they're not just copying what the Greeks have they do things in their own way they have their own traditions and then of course they find a Synergy with they find an overlap with they find a One-on-one correspondence with sometimes with other gods, not just the Greeks, but the Etruscans the motions of the Liskins Samnites and so forth So some famous Roman gods the Capitaline triad there you have that image on the right of Marcus Aurelius Making a sacrifice in front of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus last beautifully built by the Emperor Domitian At the end of the first century AD We think about the Pantheon temple which includes statues of all the gods or a lot of the gods including Divus Julius divine Julius Caesar becomes a God in a In a strange way he's assassinated, but then he's deified by his Successors and when that deification process is going forward how his comet passes by which is interpreted as his soul ascending into heaven There are agricultural deities Like Palais that we associate with the Palatine hill and the birthday of Rome is her festival April 21st That's a deity That doesn't exist in the Greek world for example Robigo is the god that wards off the must that will spoil your brain That you have in storage. So you pray to Robigo You pray to Palais to help when you clean out the stalls in the spring So lots of different concepts with not much mythology But ultimately with the Augustan age and with a greater interest in that material Poems are created Stories are made up and there are lots of different interpretations that are floating through the the pages of the poets Like perpersious and obit Romans also worship a lot of ideas in concepts peace piety excellence Concord the mind Okay, so there are many many ideas floating around in the Greek world That don't have a correspondence in the roman world and a lot of these figures don't even have their own mythology So so we have a lot of complex ideas floating around here in roman religion And roman mythology is a part really for the romans in the creation the the creation myth of their people of the foundation of the city And values that are given to the romans through different episodes But a lot of the other deities like we're looking at agricultural deities and concept deities don't have a mythology at all So what's truly roman? Well, it really comes down to the end of the first century bc There's a real great interest and to query an interest on the part of a lot of famous authors varro Cicero And then a lot of poets virgil avid avid's got this great poem We only have half of it, but it covers six of the 12 months before he's exiled And uh, he'll run through his ideas his interpretations Records of interpretations of these myths. So he he's a critical critical Source that we have and of course we also have rights recorded in calendars Here's the marble calendar that we find in palasso massimo. It's the best preserved calendar from the ancient roman world Look at all that detail vin refers to venalia the wine festival Rob refers to the rubble gallia the festival When you're venerating the god that wards off the musts that will Mold your your grain. So a lot of the agricultural Um interest of primordial Rome Let's say before it becomes an urban center are still recall and still part of tradition Probably for most people that are no longer farmers, you know, because they're living in the city that become preachers of the city The first great city Uh of that scale of a million people that the Mediterranean had ever seen Okay, so obviously there are lots of outside influence outside gods So you come across them in the colonies in southern Italy The Etruscans just north of you and through conquest Bringing slaves bringing spoils of war bringing in ideas So a lot of that mythology is then incorporated into the roman mythology. So at a certain point Who was apollo? He's already in Rome in the fifth century warding off a plague So, you know, you have different ways in which a deity from another culture another part of the world is helping you And it's then becoming one of your gods So ultimately the Romans will both they have more gods in their city more temples more shrines than any other city hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of different cults and shrines in the city of Rome Okay, finally why roman topography actually matters So they ritualize the space that they lived in here are some famous examples in the roman forum The lack of curses is a spring bottom left hand corner Is the man sacrificing himself into a gaping hole and when he closes it up by sacrificing his life Is a spring that's that's left behind So self-sacrifice on half of the state gives you something that benefits the state A spring of water a natural spring in the roman forum Same thing goes to the lack of shitorna. It's another spring And who comes there? caster and pollux greek gods announced in the victory of the romans in the fifth century bc And as a result, what do you do you build them a temple? So there's a trojanic version of the spring with water still in it top right corner And some republican versions statues of horses and the two gods that visited On the top left image So there are many many ways then in which the places of the epiphany Where magical events happen supernatural events happen gods appeared They get immortalized and they become part of the mythology and the stories of rome Okay, the temple of jupiter optimus maximus on the capitoline hill Talked a little bit about tarpaia the sabans are attacking the Well, there were temples back in the day, but on the hill of the capitoline hill Which has here in this image the temple of jupiter optimus maximus tarpaia betrays the state She's put to death by the sabans themselves And as a result the whole hill is oftentimes referred to as the tarpaian rock and it's from one corner Overlooking the prison in the roman form that a lot of people were executed. They literally threw them off The side of the hill about 40 meters high to their death So that's again just to remind you about do not betray the state betray the state capital punishment Terminus when you're digging the foundations of the first version of the temple of jupiter optimus maximus One little shrine in particular that was supposed to be moved away when the air is being bulldozed over Refused to move so that shrine was kept and incorporated into the temple so that's been a place of Making treaties and you know, basically ultimately the idea is the romans don't bud, right? They will not give an inch and referring then to this cult of terminus that didn't even make way for jupiter optimus maximus manlius and the geese A soldier woken up by geese that are honking in the temple of juno on the capitoline hill during the gallic siege of 390 essentially saved rome from total obliteration and annihilation. So you have time and time again These stories that are told the myths for the romans have a lesson have a moral and and ultimately it's For the protection of the states the interests of the state the state comes first and so and of course there are standout people like manlius as a hero but he's a hero through the fact that the gods intervened and Activated the geese the geese honk honk honk made a lot of noise when the galls were trying to scale the walls and ultimately saved rome saved the citadel And as a result when you remember that infamous day You crucified dogs because the dogs did not bark The geese operated around The dogs are crucified because they did not do their jobs. Okay. That's the kind of story that we're We read about they're told by the romans and they they sound pretty awful But you can understand what the tradition is coming from This was a day that lived on an infamy for the romans for 800 years Circus maximus that's where the rape of the savine women took place Uh, there were also religious events alter of consciousness there. So you're actually having a um an agricultural veneration of a deity associated with the harvest and in that moment of celebration That's when you steal away the savine women It ultimately comes a place of chariot racing that we all know And um and ultimately the gods are brought in their statues their idols were brought in for the ludi romani the roman games But it's also issued around the fact that it was here a real physical location that romulus started The general population of rome there were a bunch of guys There were no women. This is where the family got its start the campus marshes Is a place of epiphany as well It's one of the two places besides the forum where romulus reportedly ascends into heaven and becomes a god Somewhere near the altar of mars Which is shown on this map in the bottom right hand corner in a very crowded imperial city But ultimately we don't know where the altar of mars was located Some people want to put it near the pantheon itself So throughout the city you went and you say oh that god appeared here. Oh this miracle happened here Lightning struck here and so forth. So these are the stories that you're telling giving values to your kids Uh and and trying to bring them up is uh proper romans that are focused on the importance of the state Form boarium hercules himself pops by and And and as a result a lot of temples are built to him This cult statue was found in one temple of hercules And the bottom one is another temple of hercules still standing because it becomes a church But the reason why there's concentration Of hercules in that area It's the cattle market. He came by with his cattle and one of his labors on his way back to greece from spain So you're tying in real physical place real commercial activities With a god who's associated with that commerce and a god is associated with cattle Opportunity is the godhood port. It's next door But essentially it is again having real physical space with real appearance of a deity and as a result Uh hercules gets temples and he gets the auto maxima the greatest altar a large mega altar For sacrificing multiple heads of cattle simultaneously right there along the river banks right there by the circus maximus