I think in the other thread I used some imprecise language so to focus what I’m trying to ask -
If you look at different systems of morality, they draw their legitimacy from different sources. Obviously there are a lot of competing systems of morality at any given time, and the Romans were around for ages, and changed both religions and social structures at different times, so let’s focus on pre Christian Republic era Rome.
I know there were a bunch of philosophers and orators who would have had different views at this time, but I’m trying to get at the dominant social mores of the Roman culture during this era.
My understanding is that while Christianity and Judaism both legitimize their moral code by saying it is God’s will (and they do it in very different ways that can serve as a whole other thread) this is not true of pre-Christian Romans.
In Judaism, you do what God’s law says, because your ancestors made a covenant with God that you must obey. Some parts of the Bible even imply that other tribes have their own deities who they must follow; as Judaism becomes more monotheistic this view fades.
Christianity on the other hand does claim to be applicable universally; Jesus’s message is meant for all. But ultimately what is moral and what is immoral still comes down to “do what God says”.
But the Romans seem different. The most important things to them (and this is where my understanding gets shaky so corrections are appreciated!) seems to be based on a patriarchal loyalty to family - and by extension to the Roman state.
This isn’t a point about WHAT is considered moral or immoral, but about the justification Romans used to decide whether something was moral or not. For example - and I tried to find the source of this half remembered claim, but had trouble doing so - my understanding is that while Rome’s allied Italian Cities were finally made fully Roman in the aftermath of the Social War, and that the “RealPolitik” reason to grant them citizenship was to prevent further war. But the justification used was that, like the Romans, their ancestors fought for Rome’s benefit.
This same argument would later be used to justify giving the Gauls their own Senators (although this would be Early Empire instead of Late Republic) - I seem to recall an orator shaming the senators by reminding them that their own ancestors were not Romans either, but Italian Allies who were granted citizenship - and that therefore they held no moral rights to deny these Gauls a place on the Senate.
Am I wrong about this? Where did Romans draw their legitimacy from?
Ps: in the other thread, I mentioned the myth of Rome’s founding, and my interpretation (guided by what reading I’d done) of what it says about moral legitimacy in the eyes of Romans. I certainly don’t mean to imply that the Romans viewed fratricide as justified; I don’t think we can look at the story to determine what us or is not moral. But I think it DOES tell us something about where Romans thought morality came from in the first place.
That’s an interesting question, and it deserves a proper answer. The ethical basis of the Roman Republic is certainly interesting and worth discussing.
I don’t know if I’m going to be able to write a good reply today, but I’ll try tomorrow.
In the meantime, here’s the speech you mentioned, by the Emperor Claudius in 48AD, about admitting Transalpine Gauls to the Roman Senate.
It’s a wonderful speech about the inclusivity of Rome, which wasn’t just words, but continued throughout its long history.
The Emperor addressed the Senate as follows:
"My own ancestors, the most ancient of whom was made at the same time a citizen and a senator of Rome, remind me to govern by a policy of transferring to Rome all conspicuous merit, wherever found. And indeed I know as a fact, that the Julii came from Alba, the Coruncanii from Camerium, the Porcii from Tusculum, and not to inquire too minutely into the past, that new members have been brought into the Senate from Etruria and Lucania and the whole of Italy, that Italy itself was at last extended to the Alps, so that not only single persons but entire countries and tribes might be united under our name.
"We had unshaken peace at home and prospered in all our foreign relations, in the days when Italy beyond the Po was admitted to share our citizenship, and when, enrolling in the ranks of our legions the most vigorous of the provincials, we rejuvenated our exhausted empire. Are we sorry that the Balbi came to us from Spain, and other men not less illustrious from Cisalpine Gaul? Their descendants are still among us, and they do not yield to us in patriotism.
"What was the ruin of Sparta and Athens? Only this, that mighty as they were in war, they disdained as foreigners those whom they had conquered. Our founder Romulus, on the other hand, was so wise that he fought cities as enemies and then hailed them as fellow-citizens on the very same day. Strangers have always reigned over us. That freedmen’s sons should be entrusted with public offices is not, as many wrongly think, a modern innovation. It was a common practice in the old Republic.
"But, it will be said, we have fought with the Senones. I suppose then that the Volsci and Aequi never stood in line of battle against us? Our city was captured by the Gauls. Well, we also gave hostages to the Etruscans, and passed under the yoke of the Samnites. In general, if you review all our wars, never has one been finished in a shorter time than that with the Gauls. From then on they have preserved an unbroken and loyal peace. United as they now are with us by manners, education, and intermarriage, let them bring in what they have of value rather than enjoy it in isolation.
“Everything, Senators, which we now hold to be of the highest antiquity, was once new. Plebeian magistrates came after patrician; Latin magistrates after plebeian; magistrates of other Italian peoples after Latins. This practice too will establish itself, and what we are this day justifying by precedents, will be itself a precedent.”
The Emperor’s speech was followed by a decree of the Senate, and the Aedui were the first to obtain the right of becoming senators at Rome. This compliment was paid to their ancient alliance, and to the fact that they alone of the Gauls held the title of Brothers of the Roman people.
The Romans still had Gods, but a whole pantheon worth that didn’t go around handing down morals to write down. My impression is that they, like most everyone else through history, considered morals to be something that objectively existed and only philosophers went to the trouble of worrying about the implications of differences in the moral code between peoples. Most morals are fairly universal in human culture after all.
Yep, that’s the speech I was thinking of. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but the justification given for why the Gauls deserve this right seems like it is telling us something about where Romans believed rights come from - especially because the fact that this particular speech, making these particular arguments, is the one that they would record and pass down.
And in this case the justifications seem to be:
they earned the right because their forefathers fought for Rome
while a counterargument might be that they aren’t like Romans, this line of argument is headed off by pointing out that the current Roman elites descend from people who weren’t Romans in their time either.
there is also a pragmatic argument - look at all these wonderfully talented non-Romans from Spain and Gaul; should we fail to use their talent because of their ancestry?
finally, part of what Rome likes about Rome are its Greek influenced heritage, so an argument evoking ancient Greece as well as pragmatism is made: Athens and Sparta were badass, but they collapsed because they weren’t inclusive.
Yes, a very interesting question indeed. I will offer an answer that is not one I have directly received from a specific authority, but what amounts to my impression as one with a BA in Classics.
I agree with your impressions, OP. In my opinion, you hit the nail on the head.
This is an important point. the Greeks and Romans did not have a “Bible” (read a holy book that they followed dogmatically). While there was a general pantheon of gods that people believed in and a body of myths that accompanied them, those myths varied from telling to telling and from place to place. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that morality and religion were completely divorced; nonetheless, it doesn’t seem like there was a body of moral rules derived from religion that everyone dogmatically followed. As long as you gave a god whose cult you worshipped ritual offerings and paid other lip service to him or her, there wasn’t generally a strict law code you had to follow to be satisfying to the gods. There were certainly some things that were considered highly “sinful” to use “Christian” terminology, which could get you hounded by the furies or sent to Tartarus, a place of punishment in the underworld, but these were typically things like killing a spouse or a close blood relative. Moreover, the gods are portrayed as really fickle in their moralities. In the Iliad, homer shows the gods as squabbling while taking sides in the Trojan War, and while Zeus, the king of the gods, keeps them in check by threatening them with flexing his supposedly far superior strength on them, he too is the subject of their lobbying to favor one side or the other. (Some Greeks considered this portrayal of gods to be immoral, as supposedly the gods should be paragons of virtue. But this shows that the question was open to debate). So far I’ve spoken a lot about the Greeks, but there was a lot of contact between them and the Romans, resulting in a lot of shared elements in their cultures. Before we leave religion, an ancient prayer tablet has been found, I don’t remember where, maybe in the wishing pool at Bath (Aquae Sulis to the Romans), containing ill wishes aimed at the god should the supplicant’s prayer not be answered!
Knowing what I do of the Roman Republic, I would definitely say that their values came largely from a tradition arising from a patriarchal, family-centered social order and respect for ancestors, which would have had the ultimate goal of producing virtuous citizens able to serve the public good, a man by fighting in war and engaging in public life, a woman by bearing children, raising them into future citizens, and taking care of the home. Republican Rome was a democracy, but a very limited one, with heads of households holding full citizenship rights. The paterfamilias or head of a family could theoretically kill his children or sell them. Supposedly, few if any exercised this authority to the extreme of killing family members, but ancestors and elders were definitely held up as paragons. Surviving orations give examples of invectives where the critic calls to mind bearded statues of old Romans and what they would say to chide a young woman under scrutiny, or of a father scolding his prodigal son.
Especially women were held to very high standards of virtue. One need only look at the story of Lucretia in Livy’s history of Rome from its founding, whose rape and subsequent suicide caused the fall of the kings of Rome and the founding of the republic. Lucretia was described as being so virtuous, that even when her father and husband told her that they didn’t hold her responsible for her being raped, she pierced herself through with a knife saying that even if she were absolved of guilt, she did not excuse herself from punishment for “no unchaste woman shall live by the example of Lucretia”. Hard to say if this was meant as a morality tale (with the real Lucretia perhaps having killed herself more as a result of trauma than of virtue) or if Lucretia actually said that, but you see how some people might have thought back then. There was definitely a hierarchy in society and it was extremely patriarchal. Husbands could divorce their wives at will (one early case supposedly divorced his wife for not having her head covered, saying her beauty was for his eyes only) and had guardian-like powers over her.
In addition, the early republic prided itself on behavior that today would be considered prudish. At least that is how ancient authors describe it. A “censor” was appointed who would censure individual citizens for not living up to public standards of decency; on one occasion even one who kissed his wife in public. Even the first emperor, Augustus, who wanted to re-establish standards of decency in Rome, exiled Ovid from the city for writing poetry with erotic overtones.
All of this morality seems not to have any concrete source but to simply be part of the patriarchal ethos of the culture, specific to the time and place. The moral compass of the Roman Republic, at least the one they manifested in public (for people often do one thing in public and another in private) seems to have been the example of supposedly virtuous citizens of old, and not that of any philosopher or holy book. Philosophers, by the way, had different ideas, and no one seems to have been as rigidly followed in Greece or Rome as Confucius was in China (and still is in Asia to this day).
Perhaps someone else will be able to give more insight into this question, of which I fear I’ve only touched the surface. But before I end here’s an interesting quote from “A Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet”, the 1562 narrative poem by Arthur Brooke that served as the main source for Shakespeare’s play. In the scene where Juliet incurs her father’s wrath by not wanting to marry County Paris, the father’s angry reaction begins as follows:
“Listen,” quoth he, "unthankful and thou disobedient child,
Hast thou so soon let slip out of thy mind the word
That thou so oftentimes hast heard rehearséd at my board?
How much the Roman youth of parents stood in awe,
And eke what power upon their seed the fathers had by law?
Whom they not only might pledge, alienate, and sell,
Whenso they stood in need, but more, if children did rebel,
The parents had the power of life and sudden death.
What if those goodmen should again receive the living breath,
In how strait bonds would they thy stubborn body bind?
What weapons would they seek for thee? what torments would they find?
To chasten, if they saw, the lewdness of thy life,
Thy great unthankfulness to me, and shameful sturdy strife?
What’s interesting here is that Capulet, although living in Renaissance Italy in Christian times, does not first think to invoke the filial piety mandated by the 4th commandment and by various other invectives in the Bible, but sets up the pagan Ancient Romans of old as enough of a moral example for his daughter to follow. It’s food for thought at any rate.
Well, if you reread Claudius’s speech, it doesn’t refer at all to the rights of these people or to what treatment they might deserve or might have earned. His arguments are entirely framed in terms of what’s good for Rome. He urges a policy of “transferring to Rome all conspicuous merit, wherever found” and suggests that by following such a policy Romans “had unshaken peace at home and prospered in all our foreign relations” and “rejuvenated our exhausted empire”. He contrasts this with Sparta and Athens, which failed because they “disdained as foreigners those whom they had conquered”.
In other words, he urges this policy because he thinks it’s good for Rome. Questions of what might be good for, or fair or just to, the Gauls aren’t mentioned at all; they don’t have any “rights” worth considering. Either that’s not a relevant consideration, so far as he is concerned, or he thinks it will have no traction with his audience
No, the opposite. Their forefathers fought against Rome. The entire speech is about incorporating enemies, converting enemies to friends. He gives a long list of people who fought against Rome, who even defeated and humiliated Rome, but later became Romans.
There isn’t even a single word about anybody ‘earning the right’.
No. ‘This line of argument is headed off’ by saying they are like Romans. “United as they now are with us by manners, education, and intermarriage”.
Again the opposite. He is emphasising that Rome’s strength is that it is fundamentally different from Athens and Sparta. He’s not admiring them, he’s criticising them.
His own family, the Claudii, were Sabines from Regillum, and enemies of Rome at the time Appius Claudius was given Roman citizenship in 495 BC. Appius Claudius didn’t earn that right by fighting for Rome, but by being willing to reconcile and make peace with Rome.
The Iulii, the family of Julius Caesar and Augustus, were originally from Alba Longa, not Rome. The Porcii, the distinguished family of Cato, were from Tusculum. Claudius’ point is that not only were incomers given citizenship, they were given power in Rome.
I suggest you read the whole speech again carefully, not skimming over what he is actually saying. You are taking a preconceived idea and trying to fit the speech to it, rather than reading closely and objectively.
As as aside, compare Rome with America as a country of immigrants.
Best that I can tell, what the Romans believed in more than anything was in the Roman Civilization, which was far superior than any other culture in the world (with barbarians not being even worthy of mention). To act in a matter befitting a Roman was to act morally.
I think the question of where the Roman ethos came from is ultimately unanswerable. Where does the ethos of any culture come from?
Even if Judeo-Christian ethos derives from scriptures, the question becomes where the ethos of those scriptures originated.
What distinguished the Roman Republic was a passion for justice, the sanctity of oaths and the given word, the sanctity of law. Perhaps in practice it sometimes fell short, but that desire for justice was very deeply rooted in Roman culture.
All the principles of a fair trial that we take for granted were first systematically laid down in ancient Rome: that justice should be on the basis of written laws and precedents rather than arbitrary power, an open court where justice can publicly be seen to be done, an impartial judge, the right of the accused to know the charges against him and to defend himself publicly, the right of both sides to be heard.
Other cultures had laws and systems to administer justice, but it was the Romans, not the Greeks, or the Egyptians, or the Jews, or anyone else, who first created law as we know it. All modern western legal systems are ultimately based on Roman law. (Even Common Law incorporates Roman principles.)
The principle that the law must take precedence over all personal and family considerations was vividly established by the first Consul of the Roman Republic, Lucius Junius Brutus. He condemned his own two sons to death for breaking the law and trying to undermine the newly established state. He was regarded as a great Roman hero for his self-sacrifice.
This moral ideal of self-sacrifice for the state runs strongly through the whole history of the Republic.
AFAIK it is basically the same with the ancient Romans, just more complicated and not as cut dried (and simple) as in the Abrahamic religions where there is one God and one written down set of rules.
There was a whole pantheon of gods, but there was general agreement on what they wanted. And the sort of familial and state allegiances you mention were part of that. Each family would have its domestic shrine and loyalty to family (as well as lots of sacrifices and other weird rites) was part of that. Disrespecting the “pater familis” would also be disrespecting you family’s domestic god or godess. Similarly with the Roman political system, it was as much a religious system as a political one, so subverting the Republican political system was also going against Rome’s patron Gods.