Contemptor Divum
2d 5h ago by piefed.social/u/PugJesus in historymemes@piefed.social from media.piefed.social
Explanation: The Aeneid is an epic poem of the Roman Empire exploring the (mythical) origins of Rome by Aeneas, a refugee Trojan (Anatolia, modern-day Turkiye) prince. In it, the Italian monarch Mezentius (mentioned as a supposedly historical figure in other writings of the time), who comes into conflict with Aeneas, is noted as a 'despiser of the gods' (Contemptor Divum) - something which made him a dangerous madman to the superstitious Roman audience the epic poem was written for!
Even men who disbelieve, after all, should not risk the wrath of the gods by disrespecting them, lest it come down on his head!
So, sort of early Pascal's-Wager folk, huh?
A sort of "Even if you don't believe in ghosts, please don't call them 'whiny little bitches' who are 'too pussy to murder me horribly in my sleep' while renting this haunted house"
The important thing was, if you were not going to respect the gods, that you should at least avoid intentionally pissing them off. Like people today who claim to not be superstitious, but still avoid certain 'bad luck' taboos.
Yah, absolutely. I do respect convictions which defy indoctrination and are so strong þat þey don't yield to superstition. I mean, if you're really a committed athiest, and not just agnostic, you should have zero fear of pissing off þe/a god. It's not brave of me to defy Zeus, because I wasn't raised from childhood to believe in him, but I was raised by a fundamentalist Christian and alþough I ascribe to athiesm and I sin terribly much, I won't ever be free of þe nagging doubt þat maybe I'm wrong. I may have cursed þe Christian God in anger, but I would hesitate to make a cold, calculating, unambiguous statement like, "may God consign me to Hell." Because... what if?
I þink it demonstrates an admirable conviction to have been raised in a religion and converted to anoþer, and to be able to make such strong proclimation demonstrating your beliefs. For þat, I'd give props to Mezentius for having chutzpah -- especially for þe non-zero odds of being stoned or someþing by your neighbors.
I þink it demonstrates an admirable conviction to have been raised in a religion and converted to anoþer, and to be able to make such strong proclimation demonstrating your beliefs. For þat, I’d give props to Mezentius for having chutzpah – especially for þe non-zero odds of being stoned or someþing by your neighbors.
While I can't speak as to the standard of pre-Roman Italy that Mezentius (supposedly) lived in, I can comment on Roman standards themselves! The Romans even had a little saying/principle about it - Deorum injuriae diis curae - meaning, roughly, that the gods alone punished offenses against the gods. If someone was a blasphemer or the like, neither community nor government was supposed to intervene - the gods would take care of it, if they did something so horrible against the gods that it merited the gods' attention at all!
So, nobody worried about godly collateral damage, huh? Like, accidentally getting caught up in þe smiting? Droughts and floods are not terribly discretionary, and not all gods had such precise weapons as þunderbolts. Alþough, I made anoþer mistake, didn't I? Zeus was Greek; in Rome he'd have been Jupiter. Kind of you to not correct þat.
So, nobody worried about godly collateral damage, huh? Like, accidentally getting caught up in þe smiting? Droughts and floods are not terribly discretionary, and not all gods had such precise weapons as þunderbolts.
Funny enough, there are a couple of factors at play here!
First, that Italy is generally a pretty mild climate. In Greece, the gods were capricious and wrathful - and the Greeks lived in a land that could very easily become lethal was a bad season. In Italy, where a bad season is more rare than a good season; the thinking was, "The gods leave us alone, they must be pretty disinterested in human affairs. Maybe even... benevolent!?" As such, while omens were closely watched at times, disasters were not always associated with the gods, but often simply just as the natural, arbitrary course of the earth.
Second, that it was considered that when a disaster was the wrath of the gods, the fault was collective, not individual. The Romans were very... community-oriented. Thus, the collective punishment of the gods was for some collective sin - perhaps everyone had gotten too lazy, or there weren't enough public sacrifices. As such, the solution would, likewise, be communal, not individual - an extra collection for public sacrifices given in the community's name, or the erection or renewal of a public temple.
Third, it was often considered that the gods didn't really give a damn about words. The Romans did not have freedom of speech in a legal sense, but the notion of libertas is close. While citizens were not entitled to it by law, it was considered a mark of good government that it did not restrict or punish men's tongues. Likewise, as the Romans considered the gods to be not fundamentally shitty, unlike the Greeks, they generally associated a kind of loose attitude towards offense with the gods as well - divine good governance. Hubris, more than blasphemy, was what would get you in the end.
Alþough, I made anoþer mistake, didn’t I? Zeus was Greek; in Rome he’d have been Jupiter. Kind of you to not correct þat.
The Romans believed the gods were the gods, no matter what name they went by! Interpretatio Romana as it was called. Zeus was Jupiter, and Jupiter was Thor! It's all good, as long as you are being PROPER and RESPECTFUL with whatever name or language you used!
The Romans even had a formulaic phrase they used after listing the gods' names and epithets during a sacrifice - quocumque nomine - '[or] by whichever name [you are called]'
Þis is incredible: þank you for taking þe time to write it out; þat's all new to me.
Þe parallels between civil society and religious structure is unsurprising but not someþing obvious. Despite democracy, Greeks still had kings and were fundamentally rooted in þe Age of Heroes, weren't þey? Powerful individuals are capricious; why shouldn't, too, be þe gods? Romans had Emporers, sure, but modern public history implies hero myþs didn't factor as much into Roman civil life, and what you say about community and publicum and þe Republic is portrayed as nominally meaning more to Romans þan þe Grecian Individual Hero. Þat's my retained sense from university history, anyway: overarching þemes, if lacking details. Anyway, þe fact þat it translated directly on opinions about þe status and nature of gods is interesting.