I’m not quibbling with the fact THAT they explained, but how you understand “explained.” The discussion often implies that myths were “why” stories believed by the simple people of the past, without allowing those people to have a more nuanced view of reality.
In other words, people can say and believe that Cyclopes make thunderbolts for Zeus to throw, and believe that, but metaphorically rather than literally.
Yup just as people can believe God made the earth in seven days 4000 years ago. There is a spectrum of belief from literally believing that literally happened through believing it was was metaphor, to not believing a word of it.
I don’t see any evidence that spectrum was significantly different in 200CE Roman society for the origins of the Greek pantheon than it was for 1500 years later for the Genesis creation story.
I’m not sure what point you’re making. Certainly I agree that many, probably most, did take the myths literally.
They may well have believed in said gods, but the myths themselves were not “canon”. So for example, what we know about Greek creation myths is largely taken from two “literary” works by Hesiod, the poems “Theogony” (the genesis of the gods) and “Works and Days”. These were certainly influential, but they are Hesiod’s take on how the world, the gods, and humans, came about. There were various local myths; go on Wikipedia and type in the name of any Ancient Greek mythical character, and look at the variants in myth that were recorded (I.E., taken from various literary works. For example: was King Laertes the true father of Odysseus? Or was Odysseus’ actual father the sinful king Sisyphus?
From what I gather from my classical education (High school Latin, Ancient Greek, and Classical Civilizations, followed by a Classics major), it was not so important in Ancient Greece to believe a set canon of myths about the gods. It was to be seen worshipping the gods that were the patrons of the city you lived in. So do you live in Athens? Better love Athene. Do you live in Rhodes? Better worship Helios (the Sun). The Romans, who were culturally similar / aped Greek culture, had the same basic idea. You could worship whoever you wanted, as long as you paid respect to the Roman gods when occasion called for libations and sacrifices. That was one reason why Christians were persecuted - they insisted on worshipping only one god.
Once Christianity became the state religion, it is my understanding that the prior gods were officially negated. As far as I know, the Roman Emperor Theodosius banned the classical Greek theater, which featured plays based on mythology and which was considered a religious rite by the ancients. There my knowledge of this question ends. I don’t know how common paganism was in the Roman Empire during the later part of the Christian period. I would imagine it depended on the region.
Remember, even when Christianity came to various parts, many people wanted to hold on to their earlier customs and beliefs as well. Case in pont, a much more recent example: among the Southern Slavs, women who were officially Eastern Orthodox would pray for rain by doing a ritual where they would become “dodole” - worshippers connected to the Pagan Slavic god Perun. My grandfather would have witnessed this in Vranje (small town in Southern Serbia) somewhere between World War I and World War II, and here is a picture of Bulgarian “dodole” as recently as the 1950s.
I perceive that there was a sharp increase in fan wank following the invention of the printing press.
Yeah and this is actually a big difference between Greco-Roman polytheism and the abrahamic traditions. But it doesn’t make it any less an actual literal belief, whoever you thought Odysseus’ father was you still believe in an actual literal Odysseus who had a fateful voyage across the Mediterranean after the Trojan war, aided by Athena
Xenophanes of Colophon doubted these myths. He believed that the workings of the world around us could be explained by natural forces than by the acts of gods. Where there is one, there is likely another.
Yup, I pointed out up thread, that there are plenty examples (in the writings of the rich literate.urban elites which are all we have) of writers expressing skepticism of the polytheistic myths of the day, but that doesn’t make it the typical of your average Greek or Roman.
And, bringing it back to the OP, there is no evidence that skepticism was more wide spread in late antiquity Rome than on earlier eras
It was a gradual process, of course, but by 453, when Attila the Hun invaded Rome, Emperor Marcian was in no real shape to get rid of him. The Pope, by contrast, was. When Pope Leo I had him killed, the Pope replaced the Emperor as the most powerful individual in western Europe and if people weren’t overwhelmingly monotheistic by then, they sure were soon afterwards.
I don’t know much about this period of history, but the links you cite don’t support this interpretation. They say that Marcius was eastern Emperor, successfully pushed back the Huns the east, and left the eastern Empire stronger than when he took the throne. Leo I was involved in getting Attila to leave Italy, but he didn’t have him killed. Attila died soon after, but probably due to alcoholism; rumors of assassination are generally dismissed. Again, this is just what your wiki links say; I have no scholarship in this area.
Note this is not what the OP was about. I wasn’t questioning how long it took the majority of Romans to abandon paganism and adopt Christian monotheism after it became the official religion of the empire, that’s a whole different debate.
I was asking about prior to that, when Christianity was still a tiny sect. A lot of modern histories claim that the Eastern mystery cults that dominated Roman religion in the later years of the empire, were basically monotheistic, and no one really worshipped that traditional polytheistic pantheon any more. I have serious doubts.
Your doubts are correct. There were two major mystery cult factions- Mitra- all men, and mostly soldiers, and several for women-Dionysus, Cybele, Hecate, and Isis. At no time was any one cult a majority of the population. Until Christianity came along much later.
None of those cults were female-exclusive and all had male participation - some quite high.
Also, Hecate worship wasn’t a mystery like the other 3.
Sure, but they werent male exclusive like Mitra, Nor did they even dominate Roman culture to the point where you could call it monotheistic.
Hecate cults existed both as popular and mystery.
Mystery cults (see mysteries) of Hecate also existed, as on Aegina ," Basically as a goddess of witchcraft, that had to be a hidden mystery cult in Rome, as witchcraft was a crime.
That’s not what’s being claimed, it’s that combined.the followers of all “Eastern mystery cults” were a majority, not that any one was a majority. Though personally I suspect that means “a majority of the rich urban male elite who the written sources talk about”
Though again that’s not a point of the OP, I was arguing against the idea that those cults were so radically different to traditional Roman polytheism that they count as monotheism.
Aegina wasn’t in Rome. Show me a cite for a Roman Hecate-centred mystery cult (not one that merely has her in the pantheon, as below)
Hecate was openly part of the Eleusinian Mysteries, undoubtedly the biggest mystery cult in Rome.She was also part of the popular Samothracian Mysteries. Worshipping her in a mystery cult context wasn’t any sort of secret. She wasn’t a goddess of just witchcraft, she was primarily goddess of boundaries and crossroads, and also a night/moon goddess and many other things.
Or are you making some sort of argument from absence fallacy?
That would not be MONOtheistic, now would it?
mystery cult
It definitely would be (if those cults were in fact monotheistic, of which I am very doubtful). If you believe there is only one god, who is of course Dionysus, and your neighbors believe in the one true God Isis, you are both monotheistic, and your street is still majority monotheistic. Even if the total number or one true gods believed in on your street is greater than one.
You are correct in that -other than Mitra- the cults were not monotheistic. And even the Mithra Cult, there MAY possibly been allowed a female goddess for the women. Altho there is little evidence for that.
Is that supposed to be some sort of meaningful rejoinder?
