01-24-2006, 10:37 AM
Theodosius wrote:
and:
Both good points - my reading on law and society has tended to focus on the late republic, so thanks for the corrective about later affairs. With regard to the religious issue, however, my point was that the Romans had no concept of an ultimate and supernatural arbiter of human morality - as you say, right and wrong were matters for law and philosophy. To what extent the Romans 'believed' in their Gods is immaterial here - religion to them was a matter of bargains struck and honoured, and a God like Mars Ultor, for instance, would not have been impressed by pretentions to pacific sentiment.
John wrote:
Sure, but Roman morality was different to ours, and while many Roman laws were specifically designed to stop people arbitrarily murdering each other, in some cases they provided a good rationale for just that - the theory seems to have been that the desire to murder others is natural, and laws should regulate this rather than suppressing it.
Here's an example related by Seneca - Augustus was once dining with one Vedius Pollio. One of Pollio's slave broke an expensive crystal cup, and Pollio - no doubt wishing to impress the emperor with his severity - ordered the slave thrown into his pool of flesh eating lampreys. The slave petitioned Augustus - he didn't mind dying, but didn't want to be eaten alive. Augustus freed the slave and ordered all of Pollio's crystal collection broken before his eyes. Pollio was thereafter shunned by society. Now - the problem was not that Pollio was going to kill his slave, but the extraordinarily gruesome way in which he intended to do it. This sort of cruelty was beyond the pale - but why? This, I think, is where philosophy comes in, and morality with it. Restraint, after all, was accounted a great virtue - not to give in to ones baser urges was the mark of a civilised man. To kill and torture with undue cruelty was, in effect, to give in to a base urge, and just as the glutton or the sensualist was condemned by society, so was the man who took pleasure in cruelty. Discipline of slaves was important, so the maxim went, to the point of killing them if they erred - taking pleasure in killing and disciplining them, however, was a mark of weakness.
There's also the story of the entire household of slave crucified after the murder of their master (Tacitus, Annals 14) - this extraordinary punishment was decreed by an old Roman law revived by Nero, but the route to the execution site was lined by people (mainly freedmen, we are told, for obvious reasons) petitioning for the sentence to be reversed. The slaves died even so, but the fact that it was recorded indicates that many felt their deaths to have cruel and unnecessary in hindsight. It's this sort of thing that leads to a change in moral standards over time - the fact was, however, that at the time the slaughter was felt to be not only right but vital to the health of society.
Changes did occur, however, as Theodosius says - by the third century, philosophy, religion and law were, I think, beginning to converge on a point not perhaps all that far removed from our perceptions of a common humanity united by a universal morality. What changes this new thinking would have made over further centuries, had Christianity not intervened, would be interesting to speculate - my guess is that something very close to the 'Christian' ideal of a brotherhood of man might well have evolved anyway.
Quote:The Romans and Greeks don't seem to have looked to their gods for moral guidance.
and:
Quote:We tend to overlook the fact that the Romans went through an evolution in legal rights.
Both good points - my reading on law and society has tended to focus on the late republic, so thanks for the corrective about later affairs. With regard to the religious issue, however, my point was that the Romans had no concept of an ultimate and supernatural arbiter of human morality - as you say, right and wrong were matters for law and philosophy. To what extent the Romans 'believed' in their Gods is immaterial here - religion to them was a matter of bargains struck and honoured, and a God like Mars Ultor, for instance, would not have been impressed by pretentions to pacific sentiment.
John wrote:
Quote:how else would the romans have stopped themselves from simply going around murdering eachother, the laws help sure, but the laws have to come from some morality.
Sure, but Roman morality was different to ours, and while many Roman laws were specifically designed to stop people arbitrarily murdering each other, in some cases they provided a good rationale for just that - the theory seems to have been that the desire to murder others is natural, and laws should regulate this rather than suppressing it.
Here's an example related by Seneca - Augustus was once dining with one Vedius Pollio. One of Pollio's slave broke an expensive crystal cup, and Pollio - no doubt wishing to impress the emperor with his severity - ordered the slave thrown into his pool of flesh eating lampreys. The slave petitioned Augustus - he didn't mind dying, but didn't want to be eaten alive. Augustus freed the slave and ordered all of Pollio's crystal collection broken before his eyes. Pollio was thereafter shunned by society. Now - the problem was not that Pollio was going to kill his slave, but the extraordinarily gruesome way in which he intended to do it. This sort of cruelty was beyond the pale - but why? This, I think, is where philosophy comes in, and morality with it. Restraint, after all, was accounted a great virtue - not to give in to ones baser urges was the mark of a civilised man. To kill and torture with undue cruelty was, in effect, to give in to a base urge, and just as the glutton or the sensualist was condemned by society, so was the man who took pleasure in cruelty. Discipline of slaves was important, so the maxim went, to the point of killing them if they erred - taking pleasure in killing and disciplining them, however, was a mark of weakness.
There's also the story of the entire household of slave crucified after the murder of their master (Tacitus, Annals 14) - this extraordinary punishment was decreed by an old Roman law revived by Nero, but the route to the execution site was lined by people (mainly freedmen, we are told, for obvious reasons) petitioning for the sentence to be reversed. The slaves died even so, but the fact that it was recorded indicates that many felt their deaths to have cruel and unnecessary in hindsight. It's this sort of thing that leads to a change in moral standards over time - the fact was, however, that at the time the slaughter was felt to be not only right but vital to the health of society.
Changes did occur, however, as Theodosius says - by the third century, philosophy, religion and law were, I think, beginning to converge on a point not perhaps all that far removed from our perceptions of a common humanity united by a universal morality. What changes this new thinking would have made over further centuries, had Christianity not intervened, would be interesting to speculate - my guess is that something very close to the 'Christian' ideal of a brotherhood of man might well have evolved anyway.
Nathan Ross
