A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity

by Douglas Boin

  The brazen way in which the Christian speaker Octavius mocks established, conservative Roman values – embodied in the Latin concepts of religio and pietas – suggests this “apologetic” text may not have been intended as a recruitment pamphlet at all. By turning Roman culture on its head, Octavius presents Christianity as if it were incompatible with Rome’s customs, values, and traditions. If the text really had been meant for outsiders, its strategy to grow the Christian church cannot have won the author many fans. In fact, it may have done the opposite: radicalize Christians who already identified with the group (Political Issues 5.1: Are All Christian References to Jews “Rhetorical”?).

  Political Issues 5.1 Are All Christian References to Jews “Rhetorical”?

  One of the most uncomfortable aspects in the history of Christianity is the religion’s rocky relationship to Jewish faith, scripture, customs, and traditions. Late Antique historians have to confront this difficult subject, too. John Chrysostom (c.354–407 CE) is one of several Christians whose writings take us into the dark caverns of this important topic.

  John Chrysostom began his public career as a deacon in Antioch and soon distinguished himself as a priest and bishop in the same city. By 398, he had accepted a post to the privileged position of bishop of the eastern imperial capital at Constantinople.

  From a Christian perspective, he is revered as a “Father of the Church.” Sadly, he also steered Jewish–Christian relations in an unfortunate direction. In several homilies that date from his time as bishop of Antioch, John Chrysostom fulminated against Jews, blaming them for killing the Christian Messiah.

  “Do you realize that those who are fasting [among us] have dealings with those who shouted ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ and with those who said ‘His blood be on us and on our children’? … Is it not folly for those who worship the crucified [Jesus] to celebrate festivals with those who crucified him? This is not only stupid – it is sheer madness” (Homily against the Jews [Ioudaioi] 1.5, trans. by R. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983], pp. 125–126). In another homily, John preached against the Jewish people this way: “You did slay Christ [the Messiah], you did lift violent hands against the Master, you did spill his precious blood. This is why you have no chance for atonement, excuse, or defense” (Homily against the Jews [Ioudaioi] 6.2, trans. by Wilken [1983], p. 126).

  John wrote and preached in Greek, but in the later fourth and early fifth centuries CE, Christians heard similar messages in Latin from church leaders, such as Ambrose and Augustine.

  One thorny problem in interpreting this oratory or writing is figuring out how best to translate the words being used. Were Greek and Latin writers who used the Greek noun Ioudaios (plural, Ioudaioi) and Latin noun Iudaeus (plural, Iudaei) referring to “Jews” or to Christians who were acting too suspiciously Jewish? If it is the latter, the “Jews” in John Chrysostom’s homilies would best be translated as “Judaizers.” That is, they were Christians who – disappointingly, to John Chrysostom – hadn’t adequately parted ways with Jesus’ Jewish heritage or with his movement’s Jewish roots.

  The stakes in this debate are high. At issue is the extent to which many Late Antique Christian intellectuals contributed to the rise of anti‐Semitism in medieval Europe and the Middle East. If John Chrysostom was referring to “Judaizers,” for example, and not to actual Jewish people, his role in stoking anti‐Jewish sentiment might be exonerated. Words like Ioudaioi or Iudaei would simply have “rhetorical” flair. That is, these references were being deployed in a way that was meant to frighten other Christians, not harm Jews.

  Advocates of this position must answer a serious objection. For it is undeniable that this kind of loose rhetoric gradually did shape Christian perceptions of their Jewish neighbors. John Chrysostom’s “Messiah‐killing” message, even if it was intended to be “rhetorical,” came at the same time as many documented instances of Christian violence against Jews.

  As a text that sheds light on how one Christian author conceived of his own faith, then, Minucius Felix’s Octavius is only marginally interesting. Among the most historically significant elements of the dialogue, however, is its setting: Rome’s harbor town. The wider landscape of Ostia is a good starting point for understanding the third‐century Mediterranean because its streets were packed with hordes of busy people who worked in long‐distance trade and shuffled their goods and ideas between the port and the capital. The city itself was considered to be Rome’s first colony, thought to have been founded by one of Rome’s kings, Ancus Marcius, in the sixth century BCE. Archaeology has shown that the city was actually developed more recently: in the third century BCE. That did not prevent the people of Ostia from believing that their city was older than it really was.

  By the time of Minucius Felix, Ostia’s residents lived among streets and neighborhoods that were nearly six centuries old. For us, the archaeological history of Ostia is also important because the city was filled with Roman temples, as any colony would be. And what makes the city so fascinating to study is that – unlike Pompeii, which was destroyed dramatically in the cataclysmic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE – neither Ostia’s residents nor their customs were wiped out by a natural disaster. People lived amid its ancient streets until the ninth century CE, when a new, smaller settlement with a new name was founded on the Tiber banks.

  Because of its long history of residential occupation, Ostia offers an excellent case study for exploring how daily life in the shadow of Rome stayed the same, gradually changed, or was radically transformed from the empire to Late Antiquity. Thus, even though Minucius Felix is a Christian writer with an evangelizing agenda – to explain why Christianity should be seen as superior to Rome’s own traditions – if we read his dialogue alongside Ostia’s excavated remains, we can begin to trace the outline of a larger story he left out. For Romans throughout the Mediterranean, life in the third‐century city was characterized by worship of the traditional gods, emperor worship, mystery cults, family and household gods, and magic.

  Traditional worship

  Third‐century Ostia was a pastiche of old and new temples, shrines, and sanctuaries, and many of the town’s gods had been mainstays of Roman life for centuries. Jupiter, Hercules, Juno, Vulcan, Diana: the Olympian gods and heroes had been important to the civic identity of Ostia since the Roman Republic. A Temple to Jupiter stood in the city’s Forum, just as it did in many civic centers throughout cities in Roman North Africa, the Roman East, and Roman Europe. These are the classical cults usually described as “pagan” although this book encourages students to avoid that term, in this context, since it was not used by Romans themselves to describe their own worship practices.

  At Ostia, as elsewhere, it’s crucial to note that there were local variations in the kinds of worship which people considered “traditional.” The cult of the god Vulcan was the most important one at the Roman harbor. Vulcan’s priests were responsible for overseeing all repairs to sacred buildings. Not all Roman cities shared Ostia’s devotion to the Olympian god of the foundry, metal‐working, and fire. Other cities built their civic identity around different gods. The mother‐goddess Artemis was worshipped at a temple which counted among the seven wonders of the ancient world at Ephesos. Aphrodite (Rome’s god, Venus) was the namesake of the important Late Antique city in Asia Minor called Aphrodisias.

  Despite these kinds of regional differences, the signs of “traditional” worship in a Roman town were such that Romans could recognize them wherever they went. Worship of the gods was led by local priests who were called, in Latin, pontifices (the singular form is pontifex, as seen in the two‐word name for the chief of all Rome’s priests, the emperor; he was called the pontifex maximus). Priests performed their roles at temples and oversaw animal and incense sacrifices at the city’s altars, located outside these sacred buildings. For in antiquity, people did not worship inside temples; these buildings housed
the cult statue and the donations to the gods. Sacrifices took place outside.

  Animal sacrifices themselves were enacted as part of a public meal. This grand feast, which gave both priests and city patrons an opportunity to show off their wealth, strengthened the bonds between the city’s residents because it brought many people – of elite and non‐elite status alike – together for a common meal. No one was required to recite a creed; no one announced the intricate beliefs of their faith. This strong, civic component of Roman sacrifice explains why Minucius Felix’s non‐Christian character, Caecilius, makes a passionate defense of traditional cult sites throughout Ostia. “Turn your gaze on the temples and shrines of gods,” he reminds his recalcitrant friends in his opening speech. These sacred buildings were the source “by which the commonwealth of Rome is protected and adorned” (Minucius Felix, Octavius 7.2, LCL trans. by T. Glover and G. Rendhall [1931]). Sacrifice had functioned this way for hundreds of years prior to the third century.

  What the streets of Ostia also show us, however, is that Roman “tradition” could and frequently did evolve and change. In fact, the worship of the gods on behalf of the city was not limited to Olympian deities or its famous heroes like Hercules or Vulcan. In the southern neighborhoods of the town was a large sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Cybele, also known as Magna Mater (“the Great Mother”). The large sanctuary had become an important site in town by the second century CE. The goddess had been brought to Rome four centuries earlier from western Asia Minor during Rome’s wars against the menacing general Hannibal of Carthage.

  By Minucius Felix’s time, the memory of Rome’s Hannibalic wars was five hundred years old, but the extent to which the “foreign god” Cybele had gradually been embraced as part of Ostia and Rome’s civic identity speaks to the flexible nature of Roman tradition (Minucius Felix, Octavius 7.1–3, where Cybele is called the “Idaean Mother” because of her cult’s origins at Mt. Ida in Asia Minor). Statues, altars, and other dedications would be erected at Ostia’s Sanctuary of Magna Mater from the early empire into the late fourth century CE (Working With Sources 5.1: Interpreting the Images on the Parabiago Plate; Figure 5.2). In this way, even though the sanctuary had originally been set aside for the worship of a non‐Roman god, the cult of Magna Mater at Ostia illustrates how “non‐traditional” worship could gradually become equated with the very nature of being Roman. That is, even in Rome, traditions could change. That process depended on who had the resources to pay for the cults and who had the money to make the worship of the gods visible for the people.

  Figure 5.2 A silver plate with the Roman goddess Cybele from the city of Parabiago, outside Milan, Italy. It has been dated to the end of the fourth century CE, the time when Nicene Christianity was established as the only legally acceptable faith throughout the Roman Empire. Cybele was a goddess who had been important to the protection of the Roman state for six hundred years, and the traditions associated with worshipping her remained a popular part of many city’s festival calendars throughout the fourth century CE. As a product of these highly contentious times, the daring display of non‐Christian imagery on this silver plate raises intriguing questions about the faith of its owner, who else would have seen it, and how often it would have been displayed or used. The plate is now in the Museo Archeologico, Milan, Italy. Measurement: diameter 40 cm (c.16 in.).

  Photo credit: Universal Images Group/Art Resource.

  Working With Sources 5.1 Interpreting the Images on the Parabiago Plate

  In 1907, workers in Parabiago, northwest of Milan, chanced on a stunning find: a large silver plate, measuring 14.5 inches, shaped like a classical patera, or offering dish. Created by pouring silver into a now‐lost wax mold, the expensive dish was made sometime during the second half of the fourth century CE and has fascinated historians.

  The imagery on the center of plate is relatively straightforward to interpret. The woman riding in the lion‐driven chariot is the goddess Cybele. She is seated next to the god Attis, a farm boy who, in myth, fell in love with her. Attis holds a set of pipes, associated with the goat god Pan, and a shepherd’s crook. His hat is the same style of floppy headgear Romans associated with the “exotic” east.

  Around these figures is a truly operatic scene. Three priests of Cybele, called corybants, accompany her chariot, one in the rear and two in front. Above the central figures is the personification of the Sun god, driving his own chariot and led by a representation of the morning star. To the top right is the Moon and the evening star. On the plate’s lower half, meanwhile, from left to right, are two water nymphs; a personification of the ocean waters; and a female representing the Earth. Four miniature figures are included to represent the four seasons. Finally, at the far right, Atlas holds up the goddess of Eternity, Aion, surrounded by a band of zodiac signs.

  Why was this plate made? Who was Cybele? And what is its significance for understanding how Romans worshipped their gods in the second half of the fourth century CE?

  The second question is the easiest to answer. Cybele was the god whom Romans called the Great Mother, Magna Mater. They had brought her cult from Phrygia in Asia Minor to Rome during the Second War with Hannibal. After setting up her temple on the Palatine Hill, Romans celebrated festivals to Cybele as one of their city’s protectors. These festivals became increasingly elaborate over the course of the late Republic and early Empire. And by the middle of the fourth century CE, according to a Roman calendar produced at the time, Cybele’s and Attis’ holidays occupied almost a week and a half in March. They lasted from March 15 to March 28. City parades, games, and rituals for those being initiated into Cybele’s mysteries were some of its popular aspects.

  As for who commissioned the plate, that is no longer known. Questions about how to interpret the plate’s social significance also remain open‐ended. Some scholars claim that, at the time the plate was made – that is, in the middle to late fourth century CE – the people of the Roman Empire had overwhelmingly begun to embrace Christianity. For researchers who ascribe to these views, the plate speaks to a revival of quaint beliefs that had long ago gone out of fashion.

  Given the abundant evidence for temple and statue dedication throughout the third and fourth centuries, however, this view now seems hard to sustain. It does not appear that Romans abandoned their worship of the traditional gods so quickly, and the Parabiago plate may be a sign of this ongoing cultural tradition. It could even have been owned by a fifth‐century Christian who used it to show off their fondness for some of the most recognizable aspects of traditional Roman culture.

  Mystery cults

  The widespread visibility of traditional worship also did not prevent Romans from worshipping other gods. “Mystery cults,” dedicated to gods like Demeter, Isis, or Mithras, were some of the most popular. Scholars of the early twentieth century like the historian of religions Franz Cumont once referred to these as “Oriental cults,” as if they could be grouped together because they came from the foreign, culturally different “East.” But that label is no longer appropriate or even accurate. Coded words like “Oriental” try to make specious distinctions between “Western” customs (rational, ordered) and allegedly irrational, overly spiritual, or exotic “Eastern” ones. As we saw in the last chapter, though, the rise of many cults like those of the “Persian” Mithras were highly influenced by Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman customs, making any claims about their “foreign” qualities rather difficult to substantiate. Similar problems arise when trying to apply the label to the mystery cult of Isis, which emerged under the Hellenistic rulers of Egypt, the Ptolemies; or to the mystery cult of Demeter. She was one of the twelve Olympian deities of Greece – hardly “Oriental.”

  So why did scholars like Franz Cumont try to make these cults seem different? There is one key reason. Contrary to the way that the traditional cults worked, mystery cults demanded that the individuals who participated in them undergo an initiation ceremony. No other traditional, civic cult asked worshippers to tak
e this important step. For that reason alone, initiates into the mysteries were often mocked by their peers for having joined organizations with unknown or “sketchy” morals. Salty rumors of what happened on the other side of these closed‐door meetings – like stories of sexual perversion – were consumed with voracious pleasure. If we peer in on one group, however, Mithras’ initiates, the realities appear a bit more mundane.

  Mithras was worshipped far and wide throughout the Roman Empire. Mithraea have been found along the Danube River and in Germany. One Mithraeum has been excavated at Hawarte, in Roman Syria. At Ostia alone, sixteen meeting spaces have been discovered, by far the largest number known from any one city outside Rome. (The latest was discovered in 2014 in excavations along the ancient seashore.) The archaeology of these spaces gives us an important insight into the worship of the god and the community that participated in the mystery cult.

  This archaeological evidence is particularly crucial for historians because textual sources for the worship of Mithras are extremely rare. Many of these meeting halls were built into the first floors of Ostia’s apartment complexes or in rooms associated with bath houses, suggesting that a local patron arranged for the donation of the space or the community itself was wealthy enough to purchase the property. It is sometimes claimed that Mithras was a god particularly embraced by soldiers and that, consequently, his cult was only accepted on the fringes of the empire. Unfortunately, these attempts to marginalize the Mithras cult, limiting its appeal among a specific social group, do not account for the widespread, well‐funded, urban evidence from Ostia and Rome. However the cult spread, however its membership grew, by the third century CE, Mithras had come to be embraced by many more people than those enlisted in the Roman army.