1. Homer, Iliad, 6.311, 13.3 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 30 | 6.311. / on Troy and the Trojans' wives and their little children. So spake she praying, but Pallas Athene denied the prayer.Thus were these praying to the daughter of great Zeus, but Hector went his way to the palace of Alexander, the fair palace that himself had builded with the men 13.3. / Now Zeus, when he had brought the Trojans and Hector to the ships, left the combatants there to have toil and woe unceasingly, but himself turned away his bright eyes, and looked afar, upon the land of the Thracian horsemen, |
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2. Plato, Timaeus, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 261| 22b. καὶ Πύρρας ὡς διεγένοντο μυθολογεῖν, καὶ τοὺς ἐξ αὐτῶν γενεαλογεῖν, καὶ τὰ τῶν ἐτῶν ὅσα ἦν οἷς ἔλεγεν πειρᾶσθαι διαμνημονεύων τοὺς χρόνους ἀριθμεῖν· καί τινα εἰπεῖν τῶν ἱερέων εὖ μάλα παλαιόν· ὦ Σόλων, Σόλων, Ἕλληνες ἀεὶ παῖδές ἐστε, γέρων δὲ Ἕλλην οὐκ ἔστιν. ἀκούσας οὖν, πῶς τί τοῦτο λέγεις; φάναι. νέοι ἐστέ, εἰπεῖν, τὰς ψυχὰς πάντες· οὐδεμίαν γὰρ ἐν αὐταῖς ἔχετε διʼ ἀρχαίαν ἀκοὴν παλαιὰν δόξαν οὐδὲ μάθημα χρόνῳ πολιὸν οὐδέν. τὸ | 22b. and by recounting the number of years occupied by the events mentioned he tried to calculate the periods of time. Whereupon one of the priests, a prodigiously old man, said, O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children: there is not such a thing as an old Greek. And on hearing this he asked, What mean you by this saying? And the priest replied, You are young in soul, every one of you. For therein you possess not a single belief that is ancient and derived from old tradition, nor yet one science that is hoary with age. |
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| 3. Ennius, Annales, 156 (3rd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno regina Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 100 |
4. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, 3.755-3.759 (3rd cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 287| 3.755. πυκνὰ δέ οἱ κραδίη στηθέων ἔντοσθεν ἔθυιεν, 3.756. ἠελίου ὥς τίς τε δόμοις ἐνιπάλλεται αἴγλη 3.757. ὕδατος ἐξανιοῦσα, τὸ δὴ νέον ἠὲ λέβητι 3.758. ἠέ που ἐν γαυλῷ κέχυται· ἡ δʼ ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα 3.759. ὠκείῃ στροφάλιγγι τινάσσεται ἀίσσουσα· | |
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| 5. Cicero, In Verrem, 2.1.47, 2.1.50, 2.3.209-2.3.210 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 261 |
| 6. Cicero, On Laws, 2.25, 2.27 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 261; Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 75 |
7. Cicero, On Divination, 2.76-2.77 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno sospita Found in books: Erker (2023), Ambiguity and Religion in Ovid’s Fasti: Religious Innovation and the Imperial Family, 186| 2.76. Sed de hoc loco plura in aliis, nunc hactenus. Externa enim auguria, quae sunt non tam artificiosa quam superstitiosa, videamus. Omnibus fere avibus utuntur, nos admodum paucis; alia illis sinistra sunt, alia nostris. Solebat ex me Deiotarus percontari nostri augurii disciplinam, ego ex illo sui. Di immortales! quantum differebat! ut quaedam essent etiam contraria. Atque ille iis semper utebatur, nos, nisi dum a populo auspicia accepta habemus, quam multum iis utimur? Bellicam rem administrari maiores nostri nisi auspicato noluerunt; quam multi anni sunt, cum bella a proconsulibus et a propraetoribus administrantur, 2.77. qui auspicia non habent! Itaque nec amnis transeunt auspicato nec tripudio auspicantur. Ubi ergo avium divinatio? quae, quoniam ab iis, qui auspicia nulla habent, bella administrantur, ad urbanas res retenta videtur, a bellicis esse sublata. Nam ex acuminibus quidem, quod totum auspicium militare est, iam M. Marcellus ille quinquiens consul totum omisit, idem imperator, idem augur optumus. Et quidem ille dicebat, si quando rem agere vellet, ne impediretur auspiciis, lectica operta facere iter se solere. Huic simile est, quod nos augures praecipimus, ne iuges auspicium obveniat, ut iumenta iubeant diiungere. | 2.76. But we shall discuss the latter point at greater length in other discourses; let us dismiss it for the present.Now let us examine augury as practised among foreign nations, whose methods are not so artificial as they are superstitious. They employ almost all kinds of birds, we only a few; they regard some signs as favourable, we, others. Deiotarus used to question me a great deal about our system of augury, and I him about that of his country. Ye gods! how much they differed! So much that in some cases they were directly the reverse of each other. He employed auspices constantly, we never do except when the duty of doing so is imposed by a vote of the people. Our ancestors would not undertake any military enterprise without consulting the auspices; but now, for many years, our wars have been conducted by pro-consuls and pro-praetors, who do not have the right to take auspices. 2.77. Therefore they have no tripudium and they cross rivers without first taking the auspices. What, then, has become of divining by means of birds? It is not used by those who conduct our wars, for they have not the right of auspices. Since it has been withdrawn from use in the field I suppose it is reserved for city use only!As to divination ex acuminibus, which is altogether military, it was wholly ignored by that famous man, Marcus Marcellus, who was consul five times and, besides, was a commander-in‑chief, as well as a very fine augur. In fact, he used to say that, if he wished to execute some manoeuvre which he did not want interfered with by the auspices, he would travel in a closed litter. His method is of a kind with the advice which we augurs give, that the draught cattle be ordered to be unyoked so as to prevent a iuge auspicium. |
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8. Cicero, On The Nature of The Gods, 2.9 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno sospita Found in books: Erker (2023), Ambiguity and Religion in Ovid’s Fasti: Religious Innovation and the Imperial Family, 186 | 2.9. Or are we to make light of the famous augural staff of Attus Navius, wherewith he marked out the vineyard into sections for the purpose of discovering the pig? I would agree that we might do so, had not King Hostilius fought great and glorious wars under the guidance of Attus's augury. But owing to the carelessness of our nobility the augural lore has been forgotten, and the reality of the auspices has fallen into contempt, only the outward show being retained; and in consequence highly important departments of public administration, and in particular the conduct of wars upon which the safety of the state depends, are carried on without any auspices at all; no taking of omens when crossing rivers, none when lights flash from the points of the javelins, none when men are called to arms (owing to which wills made on active service have gone out of existence, since our generals only enter on their military command when they have laid down their augural powers). |
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| 9. Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, 19-20, 7, 21 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Erker (2023), Ambiguity and Religion in Ovid’s Fasti: Religious Innovation and the Imperial Family, 186 |
| 10. Horace, Letters, 2.1.22-2.1.27, 2.1.54, 2.1.63-2.1.65, 2.1.76-2.1.78, 2.1.90-2.1.92 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 261 |
11. Ovid, Fasti, 1.7, 2.58-2.66, 2.669-2.672, 2.860, 3.135-3.144, 3.205, 4.11, 6.183-6.185 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of •temples, of juno sospita •temples, of juno •temples, of juno moneta Found in books: Erker (2023), Ambiguity and Religion in Ovid’s Fasti: Religious Innovation and the Imperial Family, 186, 187; Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 261; Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 40, 75| 1.7. sacra recognosces annalibus eruta priscis, 2.58. templa deae? longa procubuere die. 2.59. cetera ne simili caderent labefacta ruina, 2.60. cavit sacrati provida cura ducis, 2.61. sub quo delubris sentitur nulla senectus; 2.62. nec satis est homines, obligat ille deos. 2.63. templorum positor, templorum sancte repostor, 2.64. sit superis, opto, mutua cura tui! 2.65. dent tibi caelestes, quos tu caelestibus, annos, 2.66. proque tua maneant in statione domo! 2.669. Terminus, ut veteres memorant, inventus in aede 2.670. restitit et magno cum Iove templa tenet. 2.671. nunc quoque, se supra ne quid nisi sidera cernat, 2.672. exiguum templi tecta foramen habent. 2.860. quae deus in Campo prospicit ipse suo. 3.135. neu dubites, primae fuerint quin ante Kalendae 3.136. Martis, ad haec animum signa referre potes, 3.137. laurea, flaminibus quae toto perstitit anno, 3.138. tollitur, et frondes sunt in honore novae, 3.139. ianua tunc regis posita viret arbore Phoebi: 3.140. ante tuas fit idem, curia prisca, fores. 3.141. Vesta quoque ut folio niteat velata recenti, 3.142. cedit ab Iliacis laurea cana focis, 3.143. adde, quod arcana fieri novus ignis in aede 3.144. dicitur, et vires flamma refecta capit. 3.205. conveniunt nuptae dictam Iunonis in aedem, 4.11. tempora cum causis annalibus eruta priscis 6.183. arce quoque in summa Iunoni templa Monetae 6.184. ex voto memorant facta, Camille, tuo: 6.185. ante domus Manli fuerat, qui Gallica quondam | 1.7. Here you’ll revisit the sacred rites in the ancient texts, 2.58. On the Kalends, are now, they are fallen with the lapse of time. 2.59. All the rest would have similarly fallen in ruins, 2.60. But for the far-sighted concern of our sacred Leader, 2.61. Under whose rule the shrines are untouched by age: 2.62. Not satisfied with mere men, he also serves the gods. 2.63. Pious one, you who build and repair the temples, 2.64. May there be mutual care between you and the gods! 2.65. May the gods grant you the length of years you grant them, 2.66. And may they stand on guard before your house! 2.669. But as the ancients tell, Terminus remained in the shrine 2.670. Where he was found, and shares the temple with great Jupiter. 2.671. Even now there’s a small hole in the temple roof, 2.672. So he can see nothing above him but stars. 2.860. From the horse races the god views on his Fields. 3.135. If you doubt that the Kalends of March began the year, 3.136. You can refer to the following evidence. 3.137. The priest’s laurel branch that remained all year, 3.138. Was removed then, and fresh leaves honoured. 3.139. Then the king’s door is green with Phoebus’ bough, 3.140. Set there, and at your doors too, ancient wards. 3.141. And the withered laurel is taken from the Trojan hearth, 3.142. So Vesta may be brightly dressed with new leaves. 3.143. Also, it’s said, a new fire is lit at her secret shrine, 3.144. And the rekindled flame acquires new strength. 3.205. When the wives gathered to the call in Juno’s temple: 4.11. From ancient texts I sing the days and reasons, 6.183. They also say that the shrine of Juno Moneta was founded 6.184. On the summit of the citadel, according to your vow, Camillus: 6.185. Before it was built, the house of Manlius had protected |
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12. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 10.696 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 30| 10.696. Sacra retorserunt oculos; turritaque Mater | |
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13. Ovid, Tristia, 3.1 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno sospita Found in books: Erker (2023), Ambiguity and Religion in Ovid’s Fasti: Religious Innovation and the Imperial Family, 232| 3.1. ‘Missus in hanc venio timide liber exulis urbem: 3.1. Ergo erat in fatis Scythiam quoque visere nostris, 3.1. Haec mea si casu miraris epistula quare 3.1. O mihi care quidem semper, sed tempore duro 3.1. Usus amicitiae tecum mihi parvus, ut illam 3.1. Foedus amicitiae nec vis, carissime, nostrae, 3.1. VADE salutatum, subito perarata, Perillam, 3.1. Nunc ego Triptolemi cuperem consistere curru, 3.1. Hic quoque sunt igitur Graiae—quis crederet?—urbes 3.1. Siquis adhuc istic meminit Nasonis adempti, 3.1. Si quis es, insultes qui casibus, improbe, nostris, 3.1. Frigora iam Zephyri minuunt, annoque peracto 3.1. Ecce supervacuus—quid enim fuit utile gigni?— 3.1. Cultor et antistes doctorum sancte virorum, | |
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14. Livy, History, 7.28.6-7.28.8, 40.51, 40.52.4-40.52.7, 43.13.2 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 261| 43.13.2. ceterum et mihi vetustas res scribenti nescio quo pacto anticus fit animus, et quaedam religio tenet, quae illi prudentissimi viri publice suscipienda censuerint, ea pro indignis habere, quae in meos annales referam. | |
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| 15. Lucan, Pharsalia, 1.195-1.200, 1.508 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 30 |
| 16. Pliny The Elder, Natural History, 36.45 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 332 |
| 17. Seneca The Younger, Letters, 41.1 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 75 |
18. Plutarch, Publicola, 15.3-15.4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 332| 15.3. ὁ δὲ τέταρτος οὗτος ὑπὸ Δομετιανοῦ καὶσυνετελέσθη καὶ καθιερώθη. λέγεται δὲ Ταρκύνιον εἰς τοὺς θεμελίους ἀναλῶσαι λίτρας ἀργυρίου τετρακισμυρίας· τούτου δὲ τοῦ καθʼ ἡμᾶς τὸν μέγιστον ἐν Ῥώμῃ τῶν ἰδιωτικῶν πλοῦτον ἐκλογισθέντα τὸ τῆς χρυσώσεως μὴ τελέσαι ἂν ἀνάλωμα, πλέον ἢ δισχιλίων καὶ μυρίων ταλάντων γενόμενον. 15.4. οἱ δὲ κίονες ἐκ τοῦ Πεντελῆσιν ἐτμήθησαν λίθου, κάλλιστα τῷ πάχει πρὸς τὸ μῆκος ἔχοντες· εἴδομεν γὰρ αὐτοὺς Ἀθήνησιν. ἐν δὲ Ῥώμῃ πληγέντες αὖθις καὶ ἀναξυσθέντες οὐ τοσοῦτον ἔσχον γλαφυρίας ὅσον ἀπώλεσαν συμμετρίας καὶ καὶ supplied by Bekker, after G. Hermann; συμμετρίας τοῦ καλοῦ ( the symmetry of their beauty ). τοῦ καλοῦ, διάκενοικαὶ λαγαροὶ φανέντες. | 15.3. The fourth temple, which is now standing on the same site as the others, was both completed and consecrated by Domitian. It is said that Tarquin expended upon its foundations forty thousand pounds of silver. But time greatest wealth now attributed to any private citizen of Rome would not pay the cost of the gilding alone of the present temple, which was more than twelve thousand talents. For purposes of comparison a talent may be reckoned as worth £250, or |
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| 19. Silius Italicus, Punica, 6.598, 7.143-7.145, 9.303-9.304, 12.607-12.611, 12.707-12.721 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 30, 287 |
| 20. Statius, Thebais, 4.32 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 261 |
| 21. Suetonius, Augustus, 30.3, 31.4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno sospita Found in books: Erker (2023), Ambiguity and Religion in Ovid’s Fasti: Religious Innovation and the Imperial Family, 186 |
22. Tacitus, Annals, 2.82.4, 2.88 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 261; Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 75| 2.88. Reperio apud scriptores senatoresque eorundem temporum Adgandestrii principis Chattorum lectas in senatu litteras, quibus mortem Arminii promittebat si patrandae neci venenum mitteretur, responsumque esse non fraude neque occultis, sed palam et armatum populum Romanum hostis suos ulcisci. qua gloria aequabat se Tiberius priscis imperatoribus qui venenum in Pyrrum regem vetuerant prodiderantque. ceterum Arminius abscedentibus Romanis et pulso Maroboduo regnum adfectans libertatem popularium adversam habuit, petitusque armis cum varia fortuna certaret, dolo propinquorum cecidit: liberator haud dubie Germaniae et qui non primordia populi Romani, sicut alii reges ducesque, sed florentissi- mum imperium lacessierit, proeliis ambiguus, bello non victus. septem et triginta annos vitae, duodecim potentiae explevit, caniturque adhuc barbaras apud gentis, Graecorum annalibus ignotus, qui sua tantum mirantur, Romanis haud perinde celebris, dum vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi. | 2.88. I find from contemporary authors, who were members of the senate, that a letter was read in the curia from the Chattan chief Adgandestrius, promising the death of Arminius, if poison were sent to do the work; to which the reply went back that "it was not by treason nor in the dark but openly and in arms that the Roman people took vengeance on their foes": a high saying intended to place Tiberius on a level with the old commanders who prohibited, and disclosed, the offer to poison King Pyrrhus. Arminius himself, encouraged by the gradual retirement of the Romans and the expulsion of Maroboduus, began to aim at kingship, and found himself in conflict with the independent temper of his countrymen. He was attacked by arms, and, while defending himself with chequered results, fell by the treachery of his relatives. Undoubtedly the liberator of Germany; a man who, not in its infancy as captains and kings before him, but in the high noon of its sovereignty, threw down the challenge to the Roman nation, in battle with ambiguous results, in war without defeat; he completed thirty-seven years of life, twelve of power, and to this day is sung in tribal lays, though he is an unknown being to Greek historians, who admire only the history of Greece, and receives less than his due from us of Rome, who glorify the ancient days and show little concern for our own. |
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23. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 50.4.4-50.4.5 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno sospita Found in books: Erker (2023), Ambiguity and Religion in Ovid’s Fasti: Religious Innovation and the Imperial Family, 187 | 50.4.4. For they voted to the men arrayed on his side pardon and praise if they would abandon him, and declared war outright upon Cleopatra, put on their military cloaks as if he were close at hand, 50.4.5. and went to the temple of Bellona, where they performed through Caesar as fetialis all the rites preliminary to war in the customary fashion. These proceedings were nominally directed against Cleopatra, but really against Antony. |
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24. Tertullian, Apology, 13 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 75 | 13. But they are gods to us, you say. And how is it, then, that in utter inconsistency with this, you are convicted of impious, sacrilegious, and irreligious conduct to them, neglecting those you imagine to exist, destroying those who are the objects of your fear, making mock of those whose honour you avenge? See now if I go beyond the truth. First, indeed, seeing you worship, some one god, and some another, of course you give offense to those you do not worship. You cannot continue to give preference to one without slighting another, for selection implies rejection. You despise, therefore, those whom you thus reject; for in your rejection of them, it is plain you have no dread of giving them offense. For, as we have already shown, every god depended on the decision of the senate for his godhead. No god was he whom man in his own counsels did not wish to be so, and thereby condemned. The family deities you call Lares, you exercise a domestic authority over, pledging them, selling them, changing them - making sometimes a cooking-pot of a Saturn, a firepan of a Minerva, as one or other happens to be worn down, or broken in its long sacred use, or as the family head feels the pressure of some more sacred home necessity. In like manner, by public law you disgrace your state gods, putting them in the auction-catalogue, and making them a source of revenue. Men seek to get the Capitol, as they seek to get the herb market, under the voice of the crier, under the auction spear, under the registration of the qu stor. Deity is struck off and farmed out to the highest bidder. But indeed lands burdened with tribute are of less value; men under the assessment of a poll-tax are less noble; for these things are the marks of servitude. In the case of the gods, on the other hand, the sacredness is great in proportion to the tribute which they yield; nay, the more sacred is a god, the larger is the tax he pays. Majesty is made a source of gain. Religion goes about the taverns begging. You demand a price for the privilege of standing on temple ground, for access to the sacred services; there is no gratuitous knowledge of your divinities permitted - you must buy their favours with a price. What honours in any way do you render to them that you do not render to the dead? You have temples in the one case just as in the other; you have altars in the one case as in the other. Their statues have the same dress, the same insignia. As the dead man had his age, his art, his occupation, so it is with the deity. In what respect does the funeral feast differ from the feast of Jupiter? Or the bowl of the gods from the ladle of the manes? Or the undertaker from the soothsayer, as in fact this latter personage also attends upon the dead? With perfect propriety you give divine honours to your departed emperors, as you worship them in life. The gods will count themselves indebted to you; nay, it will be matter of high rejoicing among them that their masters are made their equals. But when you adore Larentina, a public prostitute - I could have wished that it might at least have been Lais or Phryne - among your Junos, and Cereses, and Dianas; when you instal in your Pantheon Simon Magus, giving him a statue and the title of Holy God; when you make an infamous court page a god of the sacred synod, although your ancient deities are in reality no better, they will still think themselves affronted by you, that the privilege antiquity conferred on them alone, has been allowed to others. |
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| 25. Anon., Mekhilta Derabbi Shimeon Ben Yohai, 5.9 (2nd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 332 |
26. Tertullian, To The Heathen, 1.10 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 75 | 1.10. Pour out now all your venom; fling against this name of ours all your shafts of calumny: I shall stay no longer to refute them; but they shall by and by be blunted, when we come to explain our entire discipline. I shall content myself now indeed with plucking these shafts out of our own body, and hurling them back on yourselves. The same wounds which you have inflicted on us by your charges I shall show to be imprinted on yourselves, that you may fall by your own swords and javelins. Now, first, when you direct against us the general charge of divorcing ourselves from the institutions of our forefathers, consider again and again whether you are not yourselves open to that accusation in common with us. For when I look through your life and customs, lo, what do I discover but the old order of things corrupted, nay, destroyed by you? of the laws I have already said, that you are daily supplanting them with novel decrees and statutes. As to everything else in your manner of life, how great are the changes you have made from your ancestors - in your style, your dress, your equipage, your very food, and even in your speech; for the old-fashioned you banish, as if it were offensive to you! Everywhere, in your public pursuits and private duties, antiquity is repealed; all the authority of your forefathers your own authority has superseded. To be sure, you are for ever praising old customs; but this is only to your greater discredit, for you nevertheless persistently reject them. How great must your perverseness have been, to have bestowed approbation on your ancestors' institutions, which were too inefficient to be lasting, all the while that you were rejecting the very objects of your approbation! But even that very heir-loom of your forefathers, which you seem to guard and defend with greatest fidelity, in which you actually find your strongest grounds for impeaching us as violators of the law, and from which your hatred of the Christian name derives all its life - I mean the worship of the gods - I shall prove to be undergoing ruin and contempt from yourselves no less than (from us) - unless it be that there is no reason for our being regarded as despisers of the gods like yourselves, on the ground that nobody despises what he knows has absolutely no existence. What certainly exists can be despised. That which is nothing, suffers nothing. From those, therefore, to whom it is an existing thing, must necessarily proceed the suffering which affects it. All the heavier, then, is the accusation which burdens you who believe that there are gods and (at the same time) despise them, who worship and also reject them, who honour and also assail them. One may also gather the same conclusion from this consideration, above all: since you worship various gods, some one and some another, you of course despise those which you do not worship. A preference for the one is not possible without slighting the other, and no choice can be made without a rejection. He who selects some one out of many, has already slighted the other which he does not select. But it is impossible that so many and so great gods can be worshipped by all. Then you must have exercised your contempt (in this matter) even at the beginning, since indeed you were not then afraid of so ordering things, that all the gods could not become objects of worship to all. For those very wise and prudent ancestors of yours, whose institutions you know not how to repeal, especially in respect of your gods, are themselves found to have been impious. I am much mistaken, if they did not sometimes decree that no general should dedicate a temple, which he may have vowed in battle, before the senate gave its sanction; as in the case of Marcus Æmilius, who had made a vow to the god Alburnus. Now is it not confessedly the greatest impiety, nay, the greatest insult, to place the honour of the Deity at the will and pleasure of human judgment, so that there cannot be a god except the senate permit him? Many times have the censors destroyed (a god) without consulting the people. Father Bacchus, with all his ritual, was certainly by the consuls, on the senate's authority, cast not only out of the city, but out of all Italy; while Varro informs us that Serapis also, and Isis, and Arpocrates, and Anubis, were excluded from the Capitol, and that their altars which the senate had thrown down were only restored by the popular violence. The Consul Gabinius, however, on the first day of the ensuing January, although he gave a tardy consent to some sacrifices, in deference to the crowd which assembled, because he had failed to decide about Serapis and Isis, yet held the judgment of the senate to be more potent than the clamour of the multitude, and forbade the altars to be built. Here, then, you have among your own forefathers, if not the name, at all events the procedure, of the Christians, which despises the gods. If, however, you were even innocent of the charge of treason against them in the honour you pay them, I still find that you have made a consistent advance in superstition as well as impiety. For how much more irreligious are you found to be! There are your household gods, the Lares and the Penates, which you possess by a family consecration: you even tread them profanely under foot, you and your domestics, by hawking and pawning them for your wants or your whims. Such insolent sacrilege might be excusable, if it were not practised against your humbler deities; as it is, the case is only the more insolent. There is, however, some consolation for your private household gods under these affronts, that you treat your public deities with still greater indignity and insolence. First of all, you advertise them for auction, submit them to public sale, knock them down to the highest bidder, when you every five years bring them to the hammer among your revenues. For this purpose you frequent the temple of Serapis or the Capitol, hold your sales there, conclude your contracts, as if they were markets, with the well-known voice of the crier, (and) the self-same levy of the qu stor. Now lands become cheaper when burdened with tribute, and men by the capitation tax diminish in value (these are the well-known marks of slavery). But the gods, the more tribute they pay, become more holy; or rather, the more holy they are, the more tribute do they pay. Their majesty is converted into an article of traffic; men drive a business with their religion; the sanctity of the gods is beggared with sales and contracts. You make merchandise of the ground of your temples, of the approach to your altars, of your offerings, of your sacrifices. You sell the whole divinity (of your gods). You will not permit their gratuitous worship. The auctioneers necessitate more repairs than the priests. It was not enough that you had insolently made a profit of your gods, if we would test the amount of your contempt; and you are not content to have withheld honour from them, you must also depreciate the little you do render to them by some indignity or other. What, indeed, do you do by way of honouring your gods, which you do not equally offer to your dead? You build temples for the gods, you erect temples also to the dead; you build altars for the gods, you build them also for the dead; you inscribe the same superscription over both; you sketch out the same lineaments for their statues- as best suits their genius, or profession, or age; you make an old man of Saturn, a beardless youth of Apollo; you form a virgin from Diana; in Mars you consecrate a soldier, a blacksmith in Vulcan. No wonder, therefore, if you slay the same victims and burn the same odours for your dead as you do for your gods. What excuse can be found for that insolence which classes the dead of whatever sort as equal with the gods? Even to your princes there are assigned the services of priests and sacred ceremonies, and chariots, and cars, and the honours of the solisternia and the lectisternia, holidays and games. Rightly enough, since heaven is open to them; still it is none the less contumelious to the gods: in the first place, because it could not possibly be decent that other beings should be numbered with them, even if it has been given to them to become divine after their birth; in the second place, because the witness who beheld the man caught up into heaven would not forswear himself so freely and palpably before the people, if it were not for the contempt felt about the objects sworn to both by himself and those who allow the perjury. For these feel of themselves, that what is sworn to is nothing; and more than that, they go so far as to fee the witness, because he had the courage to publicly despise the avengers of perjury. Now, as to that, who among you is pure of the charge of perjury? By this time, indeed, there is an end to all danger in swearing by the gods, since the oath by C sar carries with it more influential scruples, which very circumstance indeed tends to the degradation of your gods; for those who perjure themselves when swearing by C sar are more readily punished than those who violate an oath to a Jupiter. But, of the two kindred feelings of contempt and derision, contempt is the more honourable, having a certain glory in its arrogance; for it sometimes proceeds from confidence, or the security of consciousness, or a natural loftiness of mind. Derision, however, is a more wanton feeling, and so far it points more directly to a carping insolence. Now only consider what great deriders of your gods you show yourselves to be! I say nothing of your indulgence of this feeling during your sacrificial acts, how you offer for your victims the poorest and most emaciated creatures; or else of the sound and healthy animals only the portions which are useless for food, such as the heads and hoofs, or the plucked feathers and hair, and whatever at home you would have thrown away. I pass over whatever may seem to the taste of the vulgar and profane to have constituted the religion of your forefathers; but then the most learned and serious classes (for seriousness and wisdom to some extent profess to be derived from learning) are always, in fact, the most irreverent towards your gods; and if their learning ever halts, it is only to make up for the remissness by a more shameful invention of follies and falsehoods about their gods. I will begin with that enthusiastic fondness which you show for him from whom every depraved writer gets his dreams, to whom you ascribe as much honour as you derogate from your gods, by magnifying him who has made such sport of them. I mean Homer by this description. He it is, in my opinion, who has treated the majesty of the Divine Being on the low level of human condition, imbuing the gods with the falls and the passions of men; who has pitted them against each other with varying success, like pairs of gladiators: he wounds Venus with an arrow from a human hand; he keeps Mars a prisoner in chains for thirteen months, with the prospect of perishing; he parades Jupiter as suffering a like indignity from a crowd of celestial (rebels;) or he draws from him tears for Sarpedon; or he represents him wantoning with Juno in the most disgraceful way, advocating his incestuous passion for her by a description and enumeration of his various amours. Since then, which of the poets has not, on the authority of their great prince, calumniated the gods, by either betraying truth or feigning falsehood? Have the dramatists also, whether in tragedy or comedy, refrained from making the gods the authors of the calamities and retributions (of their plays)? I say nothing of your philosophers, whom a certain inspiration of truth itself elevates against the gods, and secures from all fear in their proud severity and stern discipline. Take, for example, Socrates. In contempt of your gods, he swears by an oak, and a dog, and a goat. Now, although he was condemned to die for this very reason, the Athenians afterwards repented of that condemnation, and even put to death his accusers. By this conduct of theirs the testimony of Socrates is replaced at its full value, and I am enabled to meet you with this retort, that in his case you have approbation bestowed on that which is now-a-days reprobated in us. But besides this instance there is Diogenes, who, I know not to what extent, made sport of Hercules; while Varro, that Diogenes of the Roman cut, introduces to our view some three hundred Joves, or, as they ought to be called, Jupiters, (and all) without heads. Your other wanton wits likewise minister to your pleasures by disgracing the gods. Examine carefully the sacrilegious beauties of your Lentuli and Hostii; now, is it the players or your gods who become the objects of your mirth in their tricks and jokes? Then, again, with what pleasure do you take up the literature of the stage, which describes all the foul conduct of the gods! Their majesty is defiled in your presence in some unchaste body. The mask of some deity, at your will, covers some infamous paltry head. The Sun mourns for the death of his son by a lightning-flash amid your rude rejoicing. Cybele sighs for a shepherd who disdains her, without raising a blush on your cheek; and you quietly endure songs which celebrate the gallantries of Jove. You are, of course, possessed of a more religious spirit in the show of your gladiators, when your gods dance, with equal zest, over the spilling of human blood, (and) over those filthy penalties which are at once their proof and plot for executing your criminals, or else (when) your criminals are punished personating the gods themselves. We have often witnessed in a mutilated criminal your god of Pessinum, Attis; a wretch burnt alive has personated Hercules. We have laughed at the sport of your mid-day game of the gods, when Father Pluto, Jove's own brother, drags away, hammer in hand, the remains of the gladiators; when Mercury, with his winged cap and heated wand, tests with his cautery whether the bodies were really lifeless, or only feigning death. Who now can investigate every particular of this sort although so destructive of the honour of the Divine Being, and so humiliating to His majesty? They all, indeed, have their origin in a contempt (of the gods), on the part both of those who practise these personations, as well as of those who are susceptible of being so represented. I hardly know, therefore, whether your gods have more reason to complain of yourselves or of us. After despising them on the one hand, you flatter them on the other; if you fail in any duty towards them, you appease them with a fee; in short, you allow yourselves to act towards them in any way you please. We, however, live in a consistent and entire aversion to them. |
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| 27. Censorinus, De Die Natali, 20.6 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno moneta Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 40 |
| 28. Servius, Commentary On The Aeneid, 9.446 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 75 |
| 29. Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.15.9-1.15.12 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno moneta Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 40 |
| 31. Paulus Diaconus, De Verborum Significatione, 505.22-505.24 Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 75 |
| 32. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, History, 3.69.5-3.69.6 Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 75 |
33. Vergil, Aeneis, 1.482, 7.170-7.172, 8.22-8.25, 10.473, 12.134-12.137 Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 30, 287, 332 | 1.482. blinded by greed, and reckless utterly 7.170. eldest of names divine; the Nymphs he called, 7.171. and river-gods unknown; his voice invoked 7.172. the night, the omen-stars through night that roll. 8.23. Thus Latium 's cause moved on. Meanwhile the heir 8.24. of great Laomedon, who knew full well 8.25. the whole wide land astir, was vexed and tossed 10.473. the warrior's fallen forehead smote the dust; 12.134. which leaned its weight against a column tall 12.135. in the mid-court, Auruncan Actor's spoil, 12.136. and waved it wide in air with mighty cry: 12.137. “O spear, that ne'er did fail me when I called, |
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| 34. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Or., 4.61 Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 332 |
| 35. Arch., Att., 9.9.2 Tagged with subjects: •juno, temples of Found in books: Jenkyns (2013), God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination, 261 |
| 36. Epigraphy, Ils, 140 Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 75 |
| 38. Epigraphy, Cil, 11.1421 Tagged with subjects: •temples, of juno Found in books: Rüpke (2011), The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine Time, History and the Fasti 75 |
