Tag: Rome

A Look At the Hellenistic Age Dynasties

The Hellenistic Age in history is the period after Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, when his soldiers scrambled for power over the vast conquered empire, and ruling the known world for three centuries until they were toppled one by one by the Roman Republic.

These dynasties, descended from Alexander’s generals and philoi (trusted companions), were all Greco-Macedonian in culture and language, yet because each dynasty ruled over a different culture: Egyptian, Persian, Babylonian, and so on, they took on their own unique characteristics. These Hellenistic kings exemplified masculine warrior king ideology as they competed for legitimacy through warfare and conquest, with no overarching political ideology.

Let’s look at a couple examples.

The Seleucid Empire

The Cylinder of Antiochus I Soter, the second ruler of the Empire. This is written in traditional Akkadian cuneiform per Babylonian tradition. Photo by Photograph: Bert van der SpekTranslation: Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge (1884)Transcription: Theophilus Goldridge Pinches M.R.A.S. (1856 – 6 June 1934 Muswell Hill, London), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Seleucid Empire, descended from former general Seleukos I Nikator (“the victor”). The Seleucid Dynasty had by far the largest chunk of Alexander’s conquests, but also the most difficult to maintain. The diversity of people of people from the Levant, including the Hebrews, the Babylonians, the Parthians, and peoples in northwest India required constant vigilance to rule by a tiny Greco-Macedonian minority.

To assist with their rule, the Seleucids wisely adopted Babylonian customs and religious ceremonies, while their patron god Apollo synthesized with eastern Persian (and Parthian) cultures who venerated archery. The Seleucid kings had to go on campaign constantly to maintain control over such a large empire, while maintaining religious functions in Babylon. The satraps (local kings ruling each province in Persian tradition) required constant discipline because they were prone to set themselves up as rivals. The early Seleucid rulers also established or augmented Greek colonies across the empire to help maintain rule.

The powerful Antiochus III Megas, (a.k.a. Antiochus the Great) made a famous Anabasis campaign that took him all the way to Kabul, Afghanistan to crush rebel satrap Euthydemus I, in Bactria, before swinging back around and crushing then re-subjugating Persia, and Coele Syria (the lands around modern Israel). Antiochus III Megas, the most successful of the Seleucid rulers, only keep it all together through sheer force of will and constant warfare, and many later rulers were simply not as capable or successful.

After Antiochus III, the empire began to unravel as his sons Seleucus IV Philopator and Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and their progeny gradually split the ruling family, as one side would usurp the throne, while the other would eventually reclaim it. All this happened, as enemies gradually increased on their borders, and the territory they ruled over got smaller and smaller.

Antiochus IV Epiphanes is particularly infamous in the biblical tradition, namely in the Old Testament, for his Abomination of Desolation (defiling the Temple of Jerusalem and replacing worship of G*d with pagan idols) and became the archetypal antichrist figure later. The Hellenistic Age podcast has a really nice series of episodes about this period:

Definitely check them out if interested. By the way, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah dates from the time of Antiochus IV, and his (failed) efforts to crush the Maccabean revolt, though according to the Hellenistic Age Podcast, the tradition of the Menorah seems to date some time later. (Happy Hanukah to Jewish readers, btw!)

Ptolemaic Egypt

The Ptolemies, by contrast, ruled a somewhat smaller empire, but it was more culturally unified, and incredibly rich. By the time Alexander the Great came to Egypt, Egypt as a nation-state had already existed for 2500-3000 years. So, Egyptian culture was OLD even by the standards of the ancient Greeks.

To rule such a state, the Ptolemies adopted rulership as another Pharonic dynasty, technically the 33rd such dynasty if you are counting. Unlike the traditional dynasts of Egypt, who ruled from either Memphis (Old Kingdom) or Thebes (New Kingdom), the Ptolemies settled in the northwest city of Alexandria, and ruled over a small but powerful Greek aristocracy. Much like the Seleucids, this ethnically Greek minority had certain privileges and rights that the rest of the population did not, and frequently filled key positions of the powerful bureaucracy. Their phalanx armies were, until relatively late, ethnically Greek in composition, while the Egyptian mostly fielded armies of archers and sailors. The Ptolemies were filthy rich, because the bureaucratic system they inherited from Egyptian society was so effective at regulating taxation and exploiting the farm labor for maximum profit.

Alexandria itself grew to a powerful center of learning and culture in the Mediterranean (rivaled only by Antioch in the Seleucid Empire) under Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and Greek religion synthesized with Egyptian leading to gods such as Sarapis with Greek deities, leading to an explosion of popularity in Egyptian deities (particularly Isis) outside of Egypt. These “refurbished” Egyptian deities didn’t always resemble their original Egyptian form, but represented a fascinating synthesis of Greek thought and Egyptian religion.

Edit: Extra History happened to put out a nice video about the Ptolemies in Egypt here:

Confusingly, every single king from Ptolemy I Soter to Ptolemy XIV Philopator was named Ptolemy. Every one of them. Further, brother-sister marriages were practiced with each generation per Egyptian custom, so after so many generations, you can guess what happened. The truth is, Hellenistic kings frequently married their sisters, not just the Ptolemies, since the available pool of “eligible” women of sufficient pedigree (ethnically Macedonian-Greek, from one of the elite families) were pretty small. So, after a few generations, every Hellenistic monarch was marrying a relative in some form of another, much like the Hapsburgs many centuries later.

Corruption was a chronic problem in the Ptolemy court, especially after Ptolemy IV Philopator, who lived a reckless and decadent life, then died, leaving the kingdom a mess for sycophants and corrupt officials to run into the ground. Things unravelled and got so bad that at one point, there were two Ptolemy kings (VI and VIII) who were rivals, one of them married to his sister Cleopatra III at some point, each fighting over Egypt as the Seleucid rule Antiochus IV above nearly overran Egypt until the Romans stepped into tell him to go home.

Out of all Hellenistic kingdoms, Egypt under the Ptolemies lasted the longest, but by the time that Cleopatra (yes that famous Cleopatra, the VII) died with her lover Marcus Antonius (Marc Antony) after the Battle of Actium, Egypt was a flailing, second-rate power that had greatly diminished through the centuries.

Problems with the Hellenistic Kingdoms

Although each kingdom, including the Ptolemies and Seleucids, was diverse in how Greek culture interacted with local cultures, there were some functional problems that affected each one until the Romans eventually crushed them one by one.

First, as you might have guessed, they fought each other a lot. The Hellenistic dynasts were constantly warring with one another. This required tremendeous funds to raise armies, but Hellenistic warfare relied upon Greco-Macedonian phalanxes, which were difficult to raise and train. So, with their vast wealth, they would often just buy their way out of the problem and hire huge mercenary armies. However, once you lost your army in battle, it was hard to raise another one quickly. By contrast, the Romans raised large citizen armies quickly and cheaply, so when an army was lost, they’d just raise more of them and replace their numbers. When Antiochus III lost to the Romans at the Battle of Magnesia, the empire never quite recovered.

Second, each royal family was constantly fighting with itself. The Antigonids who ruled Macedon proper were the exception, in that they faithfully supported one another until near the end, but the Seleucids and especially the Ptolemies were constantly murdering other family members. The strong central power of the king, with little or no shared power, meant that absolute power was very attractive and “there could only be one”.

Third, because monarchs often died relatively young, eunuchs and powerful ministers often filled in as regents (again the Antigonids were a happy exception), and many of them did not rule justly or honestly, leading to further conflicts and revolts.

Finally, because they were ethnic minorities ruling over much larger territories, mismanagement led to revolts that required even more resources to suppress. Very few Ptolemies, for example, learned the Egyptian language fluently, preferring to use Greek. Some monarchs tried to “Hellenize” subject cultures through organizing Greek-style poleis cities, gymnasiums and other features. Further, subject people often found it handy to take on Greek-style names, and style in order to find work in the government. Many famous Jewish people at the time spoke and wrote in fluent Greek while still maintaining traditions handed down from their Hebrew forefathers.

Across the Hellenistic world, the once powerful kingdoms, descendents of Alexander the Great and his famed army, collectively faded in power through squabbles, unstable regimes, and failure to adapt to new threats, and some whims of Fate, until they either were crushed by other, newer powers (Rome in the West, Parthians in the East). That being the case, the cultural legacy of the Hellenistic kingdoms, and the (often bumpy) synthesis of cultures is super fascinating, and its echoes still lives on with us today in such things as Hanukkah, Buddhist statuary, famous philosophers, the Library of Alexandria, and many more.

P.S. featured photo is a reconstruction of the Pergamon Temple in Berlin, Germany, a famous Hellenistic Age monument. Photo by Lestat (Jan Mehlich), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Roman Buddhas

I have been following the excellent Hellenistic Age Podcast as far back as the beginning of the Pandemic, and I always enjoy when Buddhist history overlaps with the Hellenistic Age of history.

Recently, the podcast featured a fascinating episode that covers the interaction between Buddhist India and the Roman Empire, particularly Roman Egypt.

Interview: “The Golden Road – How Ancient India Transformed the World” with William Dalrymple

Dr William Dalrymple shows how Roman and Indian cultural interaction was much more broad and influenced Buddhist art and culture, and vice-versa. It covers a lot of details that I definitely was unaware.

The podcast in general is great, but for readers here, definitely recommend.

Enjoy!

P.S. Double-post today. Enjoy!

What’s Done Is Done

ゆく河の流れは絶えずして、しかももとの水にあらず
Yuku kawa no nagare wa taezu shite, shikamo moto no mizu ni arazu.

“The river flows without end, but it is never the same waters.”

Hojoki, 12th c. Japan

I’ve been sitting on this post for a little while, trying to decide how best to put things into words. I don’t like delving into contemporary issues, or politics. But it’s hard to ignore the many problems going on right now.

In particular, I keep thinking about the above quote, and the related Ship of Theseus for us Westerners. Even in peaceful times, it’s hard not to look back and see how things have changed, and won’t go back to the way things were before. Even more so in dramatic times.

But this year, I feel we’ve definitely crossed some kind of threshold, not just in a nostalgic sense.

Portrait of Sulla on a denarius minted in 54 BC, photo by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Even after the Roman general Sulla retired in 78 BCE as dictator, the Roman Republic didn’t carry on as it did before. Instead, rapid decline continued as other men such as Cicero, Pompey, Caesar, and Augustus seized on the precedent to push their own vision of rulership. If one powerful man can break precedent, then what’s to stop others from doing the same?

Of course, this decline of the Republic1 had other precedents too. Bit by bit, across generations, things changed and the effects weren’t always clear until too late. Sulla opposed the populist, reformist Gracchi brothers, and the Gracchi Brothers in turn were opposed to increased centralization of land-wealth, which in turn had been caused by Rome’s increasing power and influence across the Italian Peninsula, etc, etc. Where one issue begins and another ends is hard to fathom. Instead, bit by bit, like the wooden planks on the Ship of Theseus, small changes gradually add up until something is no longer recognizable.

If we look at other societies, such as the fall of Heian Period aristocracy in 12th century Japan, it is the same thing: small changes built up, followed by a dramatic shift in power, and then the aristocracy was then permanently diminished in power, replaced by military governments. Once the threshold was crossed, it was never the same, and that’s why the author of the Hojoki wrote what he did.

“How did you go bankrupt?” 
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Thus, here I sit, an armchair philosopher watching everything I took for granted in my youth change around me, often abruptly, until it’s no longer recognizable. I don’t know how things will resolve, though somehow they will. Yet, countless changes that will only make sense in hindsight have led to this moment in history that I am forced to live in, and I have to accept that in a sense it’s already over.

1 Technically speaking, the Republic (a.k.a. res publica in Latin, or politeia in Greek) never ended until 1453 with the fall of Constantinople. The way that modern historians define a republic is different than how Romans thought of it. The imperial era from Augustus onward was still seen as the res publica/politeia, it just gradually changed and evolved … like the Ship of Theseus … from one system of administration or another. But Romans never really viewed a “break” between the senatorial style of government and the later imperial one as a change in historical period.

Welfare

We Klingons believe as you do — the sick should die.  Only the strong should live.

Kras, “Friday’s Child” (s2ep11), stardate 3497.2

Friday’s Child is an episode of Star Trek from the second season,1 which pits both the Federation and Klingons in political competition over mining rights to a planet of really tall people with funny hats.

Kras the Klingon (played by Tige Andrews) on the left, and Maab (played by Michael Dante) on the right.

Whether it was intentional or not, it is also an episode contrasting two modes of thinking: one is an individualist, darwinian view-point (e.g. only the strong survive) promoted by the Klingon Empire versus a community-oriented, social-democratic viewpoint (e.g. for the good of many). The United Federation of Planets obviously favors the latter.

It’s not hard to find people who favor one approach to society over the other. Some strongly so.

For the sake of transparency, I prefer the community-oriented, social-democratic approach. I grew up pretty poor and had to rely on free school lunches, tuition programs for college and such, and thanks to those, I was able to grow and ultimately succeed. So, if it works for me, I believe others should benefit too.

I think this is also a very Buddhist outlook – the suffering of others is ultimately our suffering too, and vice-versa.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have to care for our own needs though. Looking back to the philosophy of Epicurus,2 we can see that a perfectly reasonable approach is a quietest, isolated lifestyle, focused on just living a good life and not getting tangled in things.

But that’s not usually how it ends up.

For much of history, regardless of time or place, a privileged class rises to the top, whether it be ancient priesthoods, warrior classes, Party members, or corporate CEOs. Some rise to the top due to a mixture of time, place, money, and talent. And, for every one person that rises, many more are pushed down. Some are left behind to wither and die. “That’s the way things go”, some might say. The strong survive and the weak perish, so the thinking goes.

Kras the Klingon in this episode speaks much like the ancient Spartans did. They would not hesitate to leave sickly babies to die to exposure, and train the young constantly in rigid military training. People see this and admire the Spartans for their prowess, and revere them as an archetypal elite class of warriors.

And yet there are some glaring issues with this

First, even by the standards of slavery in the ancient world, Sparta as a city-state had an egregious system, where a large underclass (3-7 times larger than the Spartans) of helot slaves who did all the manual toil. The elite Sparta class thus used their time to focus on training. One can easily imagine plantations like those in the Antebellum South where workers toiled endlessly for nothing, while the landed gentry sat around and pursued the “gentlemanly arts”.

Second, for such a carefully engineered system, the Spartans actually lost a lot of battles. Setting aside the famous battle of Thermopylae which was immortalized as a film of naked, sweaty men in 300, the Spartan army lost frequently. A couple generations later, the Thebans under Epaminondas used clever strategy to smash the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC despite being a smaller army. Rather than making the Spartans stronger, their system made them more brittle and inflexible.

Third, by creating such an elitist society, the Spartans couldn’t replenish their numbers. They couldn’t rely on helots as soldiers, since they hated the Spartans, and the Spartans couldn’t seriously stomach the idea of serving alongside former slaves. By their cruelty they had painted themselves into a corner.

Thus, each time Sparta lost a battle, its numbers got smaller and smaller until the Roman Republic just steamrolled them. The Roman Republic, by contrast, had a pretty open and flexible recruitment process so they could field huge armies quickly and furnish more if they lost (which admittedly they also did, but their long-term prospects were a lot better than the Spartans).

So, I suppose the moral of the story here (ethics notwithstanding) is that a society based on the premise that only the best and strongest survive ironically leads to an increasingly rigid and brittle society that cannot sustain itself. Diversity and mutual well-being strengthen society, not weaken it.

1 I think most classic Trek fans would agree that the second half of season one through the first half of season two was peak Trek. I still love season 3 for a variety of reasons, but admittedly the quality of writing was best during earlier seasons.

2 Epicurean philosophy gets a bad rap because “epicurean” means something different now. But Epicurus advocated a “quietist” approach, a life of solitude and non-involvement, surrounded by friends. Something vaguely akin to Chinese Taoism. He did not teach hedonism.

Revisiting the Eastern Romans: the Byzantines

For some time, I have been following podcast called the History of Byzantium Podcast, which covers the lengthy history of the Eastern Romans from 5th century all the way to the fall in 1453, a thousand years later.

“Wait!” you might be wondering, “didn’t the Roman Empire fall in the 4th century to barbarian invasions?!”

Yes, and no.

The reforms of Emperor Diocletian after the Crisis of the Third Century had essentially split the Roman empire into two, smaller more manageable empires:

The small Greek town of Byzantion (Byzanitium in Latin) became increasingly important after Emperor Constantine made it his new capitol, renaming it after himself (Constatinople).

In any case, when the Roman Empire fell, it was only the Western half, which was the less prosperous, less populous half anyway. The eastern half was able to bribe or drive out the hordes, and kept going.

In fact, it kept going until 1453. Over the course of 1,000 years, it gradually changed, losing its Latin influences and becoming increasingly Greek in nature, but until the 4th Crusade, there never was a break in the Roman Empire of the East. Professor Anthony Kaldelis pointed out that Greek people continued to identify themselves as “Roman” even into 20th century during Ottoman times, and even the Ottomans referred to Greece as the Sultanate of Rûm (Rome). Historians use the term “Byzantine” to describe the Eastern Roman Empire, but Romans in the East never used this term. They called themselves “Romania” or “Rome”.

Was it even Roman anymore? Western purists would assume “no” because Rome the city wasn’t part of the empire, but even before the 4th century, Rome had ceased to be the the center of the Empire as the Western half administered things from Ravenna or other cities. Further, Latin was never technically the official language of the Roman Empire (as in, “by law”). Greek and Latin co-existed, and Greek speakers always outnumbered the Latin-speaking ones because of the influence of the earlier Hellenistic period (for example in Roman Egypt).

Alexios I, Komnenos, one of the last great Emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Further, the Republican aspects of the Empire kept going in Eastern half many centuries later. This concept of res publica wasn’t the same as modern English “republic” (never was), as in a specific system of government, but instead was used to describe “Rome” the polity. When the first emperor, Augustus, took over as the princeps (“first among equals”), the term res publica was still widely used to describe Rome, and kept going through the Byzantine era using the Greek equivalent politeia (πολιτεία). The Emperors during the Byzantine era were still installed and overthrown in the same way the earlier Emperors had been.

As Anthony Kaldellis demonstrates, Emperors were always subject to popular will, just as the old Republican consuls had been, and nothing really changed in the Byzantine era. Thus, the res publica of Rome was a continuous spectrum from the earliest days of the republic to the 15th century.

All this is to say that, when we speak of the “Fall of the Roman Empire”, in reality, only some of the Empire fell in the 5th century. The rest, amazingly, kept going. Constantinople was for centuries one of the largest cities in the world, and the Theodosian Walls were never thrown down until the invention of modern cannon warfare.

Like any empire, the Eastern Romans had periods of growth and decline, and as the neighbors gradually caught up in terms of technology and military skill, Constantinople’s power steadily waned. In the days of Julius Caesar, Rome was so far ahead of the Gauls and other neighbors, it was easy to steamroll them, but by the time of Alexios Komnenos, the Eastern Empire faced many complex and powerful enemies, and there’s just only so much a society can do in that scenario. As the host of the podcast explains, the chessboard was very crowded.

So, if you’d like to know more about the Eastern Romans, not Byzantines, please check out the podcast above.

Of Famine and Excess

Recently, I was re-reading an old book in my personal library about the life of the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (also mentioned here). The Ashikaga Shogunate, that is the military government in Japan from 14th to 16th centuries,1 started out fairly strong, but quickly ran into a series of succession crises and bad governance that culminated in a very disastrous Onin War. The Onin War was a 10-year urban battle in the heart of Kyoto over a succession crisis that basically flattened the city and caused unimaginable death and starvation there and in the provinces.

In Donald Keene’s book, he talks about the utterly ridiculous income disparity between the typical peasant and the aristocrats in Kyoto, as if they lived in two different worlds. Even as the war was raging, Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa’s exorbitant taxes to pay for this vanity projects further exacerbated this.

One chronicler at the time, a Zen priest residing in Kyoto named Unsen Taikyoku (雲泉大極, 1421 – ??), recounts in his personal diary:2

When the sun went down I set out for home, and as I was passing Rokujo I saw an old woman with a child in her arms. She called the child’s name repeatedly, then began to wail. I looked and saw that the child was already dead. The mother, still wailing, collapsed on the ground. People standing nearby asked her where she came from. She said, “I’ve come all the way from Kawachi. We’ve had a terrible drought for three years, and the rice plants didn’t so much as sprout. The district officials are cruel and greedy. They demand a lot of money in taxes and show no mercy. If you don’t pay, they kill you. That’s why I had to run away to another province. I was hoping to earn food by begging. But I couldn’t get anything to give my baby. I’m starving and I’m worn out, heart and soul. I can’t take any more.”

When she had finished speaking, she again choked with great sobs. I took from my wallet what spare money I had and gave it to her, saying, “Take this money and hire a man to bury the child. I’m going back to my cell where, with help from the Three Treasures [the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha] and the Five Commandments, I shall choose a Buddhist name for the child and offer prayers for his salvation.” The child’s mother was greatly comforted.

While I was still humbly mulling over her sad story, I encountered a group of noblemen out to admire the blossoms. They were escorted by several thousand mounted men, and servants and followers swarmed around them. These gentlemen acted as if they were so superior that nobody could compare with them. Some sneered at the people in the streets; others swore at the menials in the path of their horses; others laughingly stole blossoms; others, drunkenly singing, drew their swords; others still, having vomited food and drink and being unable to walk, lay on the roadside. There were many such sights, and whoever saw them was appalled. Anyone who happened to run into these people was terrified and ran away, intimidated by their high rank.

Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan, pages 51-52, translation by Donald Keene

It’s not hard to imagine such things happening in a place like Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, London, Paris and so on. It’s not a question of a particular political faction, it’s a tendency of any society to gradually concentrate wealth over time to a smaller and smaller group, further exacerbating the income disparity. Marx spoke of this in the context of capitalism…

But even as far back as the last days of the Roman Republic, we could see a similar pattern (jump to about 19:30 or so):

In any case, unless this trend is addressed in a sustainable way, it never portends anything good.

1 The Ashikaga military government is unrelated to the earlier Kamakura shogunate which I spoke about elsewhere. Since Japan had a succession of military-samurai governments after the Imperial aristocracy was sidelined, and you can think of them like Chinese imperial dynasties in a historical sense.

2 Criticizing such things openly would have incurred the wrath of the Shogunate of course.

Cicero and Catiline: A Big Political Mess

“Cicero denouncing Catiline in the Roman Senate”, by Cesare Maccari (and painted many centuries after the real incident). Courtesy of Wikipedia.

In light of the terrible events this past week, I felt like looking to the past for similar events in history, and the Catiline Conspiracy came to mind. This was an attempt by Lucius Sergius Catilina, who lost the consular election that year, to (quite literally) overthrow the Republican government. One fo the two consuls that year, Marcus Tullius Cicero (a.k.a. “Cicero”), was given legal authority to snuff out the conspiracy by any means necessary.

The awesome Youtube channel Historia Civilis, does a really nice video on this, so rather than hear me rehash this (poorly), I recommend the video instead:

It’s important to point out that just because recent events might have similarities to ancient Roman politics, that doesn’t mean they are always the same, nor should the same solution necessarily be applied. But it is fascinating how human history tends to fall into certain patterns across the centuries.

Beware the Ides of March

It’s that time of year again, one that all Classicists (even us amateur ones) love: the Ides of March. The Ides of March were one of twelve such ides that were part of the Roman calendar. The Ides of March are the most significant due to their association with the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE.

I highly recommend this video on the event by Historia Civilis:

The death of Julius Caesar didn’t just end the Roman Republic, which was practically on its last leg anyway, but unfolded many events that affect us even today.

So, if your name happens to start with Julius and ends in Caesar,1 beware the Ides.

P.S. as to why Julius Caesar, in the height of his power, was assassinated by many of his friends and associates, check out this video by Historia Civilis.

1 Edit: there are technically two Julius Caesars in Roman history: The original Gaius Julius Caesar that we all know, and his great-nephew, Octavian. When Octavian (originally Gaius Octavius) was adopted by his great-uncle, he adopted also adopted the name Gaius Julius Caesar which wasn’t too unusual at the time. Even though we call him “Octavian” or “Augustus Caesar”, etc, to people living at the time he was the second Julius Caesar. For clarity, Octavian died in old age.

Roman Vilas, Lego Style

Hey folks, something I found recently that I wanted to share with readers.

This article shows a project to build ancient Roman villas using ordinary household Legos.

The Villa Armira, an ancient Roman villa located in modern Bulgaria. Picture courtesy of Klearchos Kapoutsis from Paleo Faliro, Athens, Greece. [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D

Villas, as Wikipedia shows, were a kind of country housing complex owned by wealthy, rural landowners. It was also commonplace for wealthy citizens in Rome to own country villas in addition to their elite properties in the city. Cicero had a property close to the Roman Forum (unfortunately right next to his hated rival Clodius), as well as a villa in Pompeii, and one out in Formia which was eventually caught by Octavian’s troops and executed.

Villas in Roman culture vaguely remind me of Japanese shinden-zukuri (寝殿造) which were villas for the wealthy class too:

The Higashi-Sanjo Dono villa (東三条殿) owned by various members of the Fujiwara family, including Fujiwara no Kaneie. Located in the suburbs of Kyoto.

The cultural similarities are probably only surface-level, but it’s interesting when totally different cultures tend to arrive at similar patterns. 🙂

Back to the article, I do have similar legos at home, so I wonder if might be able to build something similar someday. If so, I’ll post here.

Whatever Happened to the Ancient Greek Religion?

general_view_of_sanctuary_of_demeter_and_kore_and_the_telesterion_28initiation_hall292c_center_for_the_eleusinian_mysteries2c_eleusis_28819184168429
The great hall in Eleusis, Telesterion, one of the primary centers of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Photo by Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany [CC BY-SA]. Link to Wikipedia

While reading about the Hellenistic Period of ancient history, and the later Roman history, I have been curious about the gradual evolution and decline of the ancient Greek religion, centered around the Olympian gods.

As history shows, the Roman Empire gradually transitioned from a pagan Imperial religion to Christianity, becoming official with the reign of Emperor Constatine. Subsequent emperors such as Theodosius then purged the remains of Greco-Roman religion across the Empire, including Greece itself.

But I got to thinking, why?  What the heck happened?

The classic Greek religion, which people learn through school and mythology was best defined in the Homeric epics (the Iliad and the Odyssey) as well as Hesiod’s Theogony. These epics and poems captured the larger Greek religious culture at the time, but also gave it structure and formed a basis for later religion, which in turn was later synthesized with the ancient Roman religion and disseminated further.  This “Olympian” religion was never a particularly organized one. Instead, it was based on a loose network of “cults” centered around the local deity of a city-state with festivals and rituals unique to that locale. For example, Artemis was widely worshiped all over Greece, but each place had its own local legends and festivals. Athena was frequently a patron-deity of city-states such as Sparta, Athens, Argos, etc. Then there were certain cult centers, such as the Pythia (a.k.a. the Oracle of Delphi), that were famous across all Greece.

magical_book_kircherian_terme
Magic “tablets” with inscriptions, courtesy of Wikipedia.

But the story didn’t end with the “Olympian gods”.  Magic and superstition were very common beliefs too, as manifested in a goddess named Tyche (Fortune). Fortune was, as the name implies, entirely unpredictable, and could change at any moment. Further, there was a palpable (and somewhat contradictory) sense at the time that one’s own fate was written in the stars and could not be avoided. While modern day views of ancient Greece centers around the Olympian gods, they were only one part of a larger religious outlook at the time.

During the Hellenistic Period, after Alexander the Great’s conquests spread Greek culture to a much wider geographic area, Greek society also came into much more direct contact with other religions as well.  This led to a much more syncretic culture (sometimes deliberate, sometimes accidental), where Greeks were confronted with other deities and teachings to address their anxiety about the world around them.  The reason, as Michael Grant points out in From Alexander to Cleopatra: The Hellenistic World, was that the Hellenistic World was much more uncertain than the classic “city-state” culture (e.g. Sparta, Athens, Thebes, etc). The Greek world was suddenly thrust into a much larger one and while people became more affluent and educated, they also became increasingly concerned with personal salvation. Classic Greek beliefs viewed life as fleeting and uncertain, while the afterlife, reflected in the Odyssey and other sources, for the vast, vast majority would be to simply dwell in the Underworld as flitting spirits, memories of their former lives all but forgotten.

This concern with avoiding a dismal fate manifested in “mystery cults” starting with the worship of Demeter at Eleusis. As Michael Grant writes:

Magic might change your destiny, but initiation — musterion, so that these were called Mystery religions — raised you outside its clutches altogether; and the soul of the initiate was elevated beyond the reach of the hateful stars….This miracle was affected by personal union with a Savior God, who was often himself believed to have died and risen again in the past.

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These Eleusinian Mysteries involved re-enacting the legend of Demeter’s daughter, Persephone: descending into the Underworld, marriage to Hades, and then reuniting with her mother. As they were a closely guarded secret, know one knows what exactly

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Fresco of the mystery ritual, right, Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii, Italy.  Courtesy of Wikipedia

happened, but many Roman and Greek villas have scenes painted of the various initiation ceremonies. Another, perhaps even more popular, mystery cult surrounded the “foreign god” Dionysus. Dionysus was particularly venerated by Alexander the Great’s army as they marched east, re-enacting his legendary conquests in the East before he laid down his sword and gave himself over to the gentler pursuits in life. Dionysus’s story of his death by the Titans and rebirth through his mother Semele became an important element in the cult, and followers believed that they too would be reborn just as Dionysus had. The fact that Dionysus was also associated with joy and the spring of life was not lost on followers either. As with the Eleusinian Mysteries, scenes of the Dionysian Mysteries could be found on wall-paintings such as those at the Villa dei Misteri in Pompeii.

Further, foreign cults gained much prominence. By far the most famous was the

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Io (left, with horns) is welcomed in Egypt by Isis (sitting).
Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Naples) and courtesy of Wikipedia.

Egyptian goddess Isis, who was worshipped as something like a “supreme goddess”. By the time the Greeks encountered Isis, the Egyptian myths and rituals were already well-developed and the syncretic Hellenistic culture at the time quickly found common ground between the two. Isis’s consort, Osiris (in the form Sarapis), was thought to be Dionysus, and Isis was loosely conflated with the Greek deity Aphrodite. However, in addition to a series of public rituals and festivals, the cult of Isis also had its contemplative side as well as promises of salvation which helped it spread rapidly in the Hellenistic world. Isis exemplified pity and compassion toward her followers as well as deep wisdom. Even the Buddha had a connection to Isis via Indian expats.

Indeed, as Michael Grant summarizes:

Pagan religion was not already dying and dead when Christianity overtook it; it had remained very lively indeed. But it had deviated, and continued to deviate throughout the Hellenistic age, from the traditional mainstream of the classical Olympian cults. They continued, it is true, to receive impressive ceremonial worship, but a person of this epoch no longer pinned his or her faith on those gods, but on a number of Divine Saviours. These Saviours were relied on, passionately, for two quite distinct miraculous gifts, of which their various cults held out hopes in varying proportions: the conferment of strength and holiness to endure the present life upon this earth, and the gift of immortality and happiness after death.

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This syncretism and need for answers was not limited to “popular religion” either.  Many of traditional Greek schools of philosophy, which had maintained a flippant and disdaining view of religion and superstition, absorbed monotheistic elements from Persian culture and gradually transformed themselves into “new”, more grandiose explanations of the world.  Platonic philosophy became (what we now call) Neoplatonism, Phythagoras’s belief in the unifying importance of mathematics took in increasingly deistic tones.  All of these trended toward a more monotheistic outlook on life, where the original Olympian gods played less and less of a significant role.

In short, it seems that in a larger, uncertain world such as the Hellenistic Era followed by the Roman Empire, that the traditional Olympian gods no longer fulfilled people’s needs, and that this greater awareness of mortality, fate and the afterlife led many to pursue other, more personal faiths, and with so many different cultures and ideas suddenly within reach, a great explosion of ideas and faiths spread across the Mediterranean until the Olympian gods (and their Roman counterparts) were relegated to public rituals only.