[Horatius Piscinus, in old Forum:]
Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 4:18 am Post subject:
Salvete bene Publi Pomponi et omnes
My Italian is well enough to follow most of what Publius said thus far. And I can usually follow Scerio's Latin. Meanwhile, some here will struggle with my difficult English. My convoluted thoughts can become expressed in lengthy, hard to follow sentences. If you have a problem understanding them some times, then I will try to simplify my English in more coherent sentences.
Not everyone here does follow the religious traditions of Roma antiqua, and even among those of us who are gentiles Romani cultores Deorum there are differences. Sometimes those differences are broken down as either Republican or Imperial. But Publius has raised a much more interesting and fundamental idea. I would like to hear more of his thoughts on the Feminine Power and Virtue in Roman religious ideas.
First, while Romulus is credited with having founded Roma, its true founding came with an idea that was sung to Aeneas by Carmentis. Roma only became a City with the marriage of Romulus' followers to Sabine women, and the names of all the Roman tribes took the names of those Sabine women. Women were the foundation on which Roma rose. And Numa Pompilius was credited with having founded the institutions of Roman religion, but he did so only with the advice sung to him by Egeria in the sacred grove of Carmentis.
Seneca wrote a couple plays about Hercules, in which he made mention of a story about how Hercules had carried Juno while She was fleeing from Jupiter. Why did Jupiter persue Juno? It was not out of love for Her. Jupiter is King of the Gods only through His marriage to Juno. She is the seat of His authority. And why did Juno flee? Because She knew that whomever She married would become King of the Gods.
The empresses, at least some of them, were identified alternately with Ceres or the Magna Mater. On the one hand an empress personified the bounty of a well-ordered empire. They embodied Feminine Power and Virtue in a way that the modern world may not understand, but still feels a need for. Some of the empresses were thus deified. Later a cultus for Mary was adopted by Christians as there was something otherwise missing from that faith. And today, the interest in so-called Celtic traditions grows from a sense of loss of the Feminine Power and Virtue in our modern world. I think that the role of the Feminine in Roman religious traditions is not well understood. It is fundamental to the religio Romana. The religio Romana grew from an ecstatic tradition that was identified with the Feminine, and which was represented by Carmentis and Egeria. So I would like to see more discussion on that aspect of Roman religious thought.
As a cultor Deorum, I recognize that there is the divine in every person, a genius or juno, and that everyone has the potential to attain towards godhood. I recognize that in the past some were recognized as divi and divae. I don't practice the imperial culti divi myself, but the idea that some evolve spiritually beyond becoming Lares or heroes to become a divus or a diva is certainly within my religious beliefs. And oddly enough the one person whose image I keep to remind me of this idea is that of Agrippina Augusta. So I would also like to hear more from Publius on her.
Di Deaeque vos bene ament
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M Horatius Piscinus
Sapere aude!