10-03-2011, 07:22 PM
Rome owed much less to "Greece" in ways people are quick to claim and much more in ways in which people are often dismissive or have no idea about, i.e as someone above has said there is a marked Greek element on Rome's early urbanisation and military matters.
The problem of Roman culture being subservient to the Greek is mainly one of methodology, i.e early researchers, primarily of a literary bent, coming to such conclusions and these conclusions simply being propagated through generations.
It's worth bearing two things in mind: Firstly it's insanely difficult to quantify "influence" and secondly that much of what we think of as "Greek" is actually derived from earlier Near Eastern sources. Also I would say that blanket terms like "Greek" aren't very helpful and that one might rather use terms like "Italiote-Greek" or something in this case.
I think this is definitely something which needs re-assessing and one of the principle sources of disagreement between those of a more philological bent and those of a more historical bent within the Classics. It's a misnomer that the Roman's took things like their gods from the Greeks. As always with such things the truth is much, much, more complex. Unfortunately Greek and/or Roman religion is not something many people are truly aware of, it remains an obscure topic.
With the gods in particular one must first grasp the MASSIVE difference between Greek literary constructs and cultic reality and the problem of establishing proper points of contact and likewise with the Roman side of things. The Etruscans were a much, much, larger religious influence on the Romans. One also has problems of shifting through Indo-European heirlooms and the like.
Also, just because the Romans struck up concordances between their gods and the Greeks doesn't mean that they were copies. Venus might have been seen roughly akin to Aphrodite (herself a Semitic import....) but there were marked, important!, differences i.e Venus' role in state religion, her persona as a mother goddess and so on.
Following that logic then because the Greeks/Phoenicians equated Herakles with Mel'qart (and the Persian Veragthan...) these are also "borrowings" from the Greek...no, it was simply the way people viewed the world, cultural relativity and all that.
I would not hesitate to say that the way in which the Romans represented their gods was heavily influenced by Greek art forms, but the actual cultic reality was much, much, different.
EDIT: I would also be highly skeptical of Roman claims that various institutions of theirs, i.e Law etc went back to the Greeks. One must think of Hellenism as some sort of Mediterranean cultural currency in the Hellenistic world and forward. Think of it in the way the Etruscans were said to have been lead to Italy by Odysseus....utterly fictional but still an important fiction to maintain.
There was also a massive difference between the literary landscape, i.e the fawning Roman master indulging their slaves and the actual reality of "shut up, we're the Romans" Despite Horace's clever little lines, I can't see many Romans readily admitting to inferiority. And indeed, there really wasn't much, if we are to chastise the Romans for the Greek influence then we have far, far, far more to say to the Greeks for the incalculable influences of the Near East....
The problem of Roman culture being subservient to the Greek is mainly one of methodology, i.e early researchers, primarily of a literary bent, coming to such conclusions and these conclusions simply being propagated through generations.
It's worth bearing two things in mind: Firstly it's insanely difficult to quantify "influence" and secondly that much of what we think of as "Greek" is actually derived from earlier Near Eastern sources. Also I would say that blanket terms like "Greek" aren't very helpful and that one might rather use terms like "Italiote-Greek" or something in this case.
I think this is definitely something which needs re-assessing and one of the principle sources of disagreement between those of a more philological bent and those of a more historical bent within the Classics. It's a misnomer that the Roman's took things like their gods from the Greeks. As always with such things the truth is much, much, more complex. Unfortunately Greek and/or Roman religion is not something many people are truly aware of, it remains an obscure topic.
With the gods in particular one must first grasp the MASSIVE difference between Greek literary constructs and cultic reality and the problem of establishing proper points of contact and likewise with the Roman side of things. The Etruscans were a much, much, larger religious influence on the Romans. One also has problems of shifting through Indo-European heirlooms and the like.
Also, just because the Romans struck up concordances between their gods and the Greeks doesn't mean that they were copies. Venus might have been seen roughly akin to Aphrodite (herself a Semitic import....) but there were marked, important!, differences i.e Venus' role in state religion, her persona as a mother goddess and so on.
Following that logic then because the Greeks/Phoenicians equated Herakles with Mel'qart (and the Persian Veragthan...) these are also "borrowings" from the Greek...no, it was simply the way people viewed the world, cultural relativity and all that.
I would not hesitate to say that the way in which the Romans represented their gods was heavily influenced by Greek art forms, but the actual cultic reality was much, much, different.
EDIT: I would also be highly skeptical of Roman claims that various institutions of theirs, i.e Law etc went back to the Greeks. One must think of Hellenism as some sort of Mediterranean cultural currency in the Hellenistic world and forward. Think of it in the way the Etruscans were said to have been lead to Italy by Odysseus....utterly fictional but still an important fiction to maintain.
There was also a massive difference between the literary landscape, i.e the fawning Roman master indulging their slaves and the actual reality of "shut up, we're the Romans" Despite Horace's clever little lines, I can't see many Romans readily admitting to inferiority. And indeed, there really wasn't much, if we are to chastise the Romans for the Greek influence then we have far, far, far more to say to the Greeks for the incalculable influences of the Near East....
Jass
