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De-romanizing religious developments in the Roman empire
WORK-IN-PROGRESS, Site not finished...

Die "Ent-Romanisierung" religiöser Entwicklungen im römischen Reich // la "dé-romanisation" des développements religieux dans l'empire romain...

"Sucellos", Celtic for "The Good Striker" - the mallet/hammer god that was popular in Southern Gaul in Roman times, often called Silvanus... But who is he? The iconography is the result of a culture clash, resulting in a new form of representation for an indigenous divine concept... But the Roman-period representations would have hardly been recognised by a pre-Roman "Celt"...

1. "De-Romanization"?

What do I mean by "De-Romanisation"...?
This page is very much about the old debate about the term "Romanisation"... Even if we try to avoid the term "Romanisation" nowadays, the underlying understandings are often still present how people present and think about developments in the Roman Empire. And in some scholarly traditions they are still very strong. In a recent publication in French, for example, the reader was told that "Romanisation is a fact"...

• Is the word "Romanisation" appropriate when talking about religious developments in the provinces across the Roman empire?

• Of course not. As always, the term "Romanisation" is problematic as it suggests too many aspects, like "becoming Roman", "diffusion of Roman culture / religion", questions of a "Roman" identity and Roman-style institutions, or even the "inmposition" of "Roman culture" (whatever "Roman culture may mean), and many more. It also has an inherent Romano-centric viewpoint; and many people presume that "Romans" were the main protagonists...
• There is also no point to repace this term with any other term, like "acculturation" or "assimilation"... These terms are equally problematic.
• One single term does not help us to understand the complexity of numerous developments and activities that took place, often simultanously, and shaped the nature of cult activities across Italy and the Roman provinces, both in the eastern and western.
  
• It is important to identify the multiple developments that were taking place, often simultanously, and how they continued to shape local religious experiences across the Roman empire and throughout its existence. - It is important not to mariginalise those types of evidence that do not fit scholarly opinion, or try to re-categorize them as "private" or "magic" as if they had nothing to do with "proper" religion...
  

Nîmes, Maison Carrée: Temple of the Augustan period and visbile symbol for the "Roman-ness" of this important city in Southern Gaul which saw important investment under Augustus! But was this temple really at the heart of the religious life of this community...? Did it promote Roman-style cults, deities, rituals,...?

2. Municipalisation & Religion?

There is still a dominant academic discourse that suggests the "Romanisation" of "provincial religions", notably as a result of the urbanisation and municipalisation of "city states" in Greco-Roman form... (cf. publications, e.g. by W. van Andringa: Religion en Gaule romaine: piété et politique. Paris 2002).

• Yes, the model of "polis religion" (or "civic cult") is quite useful in some respects, as it focused our attention on the cults, temples, deities and festivals of each individual "city state" (polis/civitas), financed and organised by the local city council and local municipial elites, and often symbolising a city's identity...
• Ancient sources, like the lex de colonia Genetiva from Urso seem to suport this model... (but does it really?)

This model has limitations and can be problematic for our understanding of ancient religions/cults:

• For example, unlike Classical Greece we are not dealing with individual poleis, but with a world that was becoming increasingly connected and entangled;
• As a result: not even elites are limited to one polis/civitas: they have interests across vaste territories and ambitions beyond their "city state". Also, the other inhabitants of any "city state" in the Roman empire came from numerous cultural and ethnic backgrounds, bringing wiht them new deities, practises,....
• Hence, we also need to look more at the individual worshipper - of various social status - and how he/she changed viewed and changed local cults... 

Despite the obvious inherent problems, many studies promote this image of "polis religion" and marginalise evidence that does not support it!

Jupitergigantenreiter ("Jupiter-Giant column"), typical for Eastern Gaul in Roman times. No, Roman Jupiters do not ride horses... A new image had developed to represent a local myth, a fight between a celestial and a chthonic deity (the latter is represented by the snake-like giant with human head). Greco-Roman iconography employed to represent a myth that has more similarities with pre-Roman "Celtic" coins (musée Metz, photo by author R.H.).

3.   More diversity, not less...!

The traditional, and unfortunately still predominant, discourses suggest that religious activities become increasingly "Roman " in nature... But why should they? The foundation or re-foundation of a Roman-style city does not mean that its inhabitants had to follow Roman religion... And Rome certainly had no "missionary" intentions or any Sendungsbewusstsein...
In fact, already Festus tell us in his definition of the so-called "municipal cults" (s.v. municipalia sacra, 146L): Municipalia sacra vocantur, quae ab initio habuerunt ante civitatem Romanam acceptam; quae observare eos voluerunt pontifices, et eo more facere, quo adsuessent antiquitus. "Those sacra are called municipalia that a people had from its origin, before receiving Roman citizenship, and which the pontifices (="high priests") wanted them to continue to observe and perform in the way in which they had been accustomed to perform them from antiquity.”
If the Romans did not impose their cults, even on Roman-citizen communities, then we need to ask why change was happening, and often rather rapidly...:

• 1) societal change in local communities after the conquest and throughout the Principate also affected religious institutions... - since society and religion are assumed to be closely intertwined.
  
• 2) the culture clash ("native" vs. "Roman") challenged existing religious understandings and resulted in new practises, rituals, names, architecture
  
• 3) people's personal experiences also challenged existing religious understandings: the soldier that returns from the East to his Gaulish home town, the merchant who trades across Europe, the sailor, the colonist,...
  
• 2) and (3) - such challenge can undermine existing believes and understandings about life, the world, the cosmos,...  and about hierarchies (e.g., certain elite families dominating specific cults): this can undermine religious understanding and make way for more fundamental changes and innovations...
  
• 4) Spread of new "religions", like Isis, Serapis, Dolichenus, Mithras, Judaism... - more diversity, new ideas and experiences, new challenges for existing cults and sanctuaries...
  

As a result we are dealing with an unprecedented scale of "diversity" across the Roman empire!

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case study: "non-Romanness" in a Roman colonia

CIL XII 3072 = ILS 4288 from NIMES. 3rd-century AD dedication to the Syrian god Jupiter Heliopolitanus and the local god Nemausus, set up by a citizen of Beirut (I(ovi) O(ptimo) M(aximo) Heliopolitan(o) / et Nemauso). Interesting, the creation of an iconography for Nemausus: a Celtic shield and carnyx...! (musée de Nîmes; photo: R.H.)

Southern Gaul is an ideal area of study due to the amount of available evidence - evidence that allows us to trace religious and cultural changes from the pre-Roman to Roman period.
The city of Nîmes (Nemausus) provides an excellent case: On one hand, an Augustan veteran colony, boasting the famous "Maison Carrée", but Nîmes is also based on the pre-Roman "oppidum".
Yes, we have evidence from Nîmes for Roman deities, but...

• Jupiter in Nîmes is the ("Celtic") "wheel god"; and this celestial weather god can be found together with "Terra Mater": an indigenous concept.
  
• Silvanus is the mallet god, the "Good Striker" (Sucellos)
• Mars has Celtic epihets, like Mars Lacavus, Mars Britovius, etc.
• And then we have a deity with three faces... (Esus / Mercury)

There is much more evidence, but not enough space on this website!

Two "Celtic" deities: wheel god and Mallet god. The inscription uses the Latin names: Jupiter and Silvanus. An unusual combination, but if the mallet god "Sucellos" is similar to Caesar's Dispater, then it might make sense to combine celestial and chthonic forces... Again, unusual in the context of a highly "Romanised" region of S. Gaul. (musée de Nîmes; Saint-Laurent d'Aigouze; photo: R.H.)

Celtic epitheta for Mars. Here a dedication to Mars Lacavus. In Southern Gaul, Mars seems to be not a military deity, but a protective deity, protecting the "populus"/"touta"; as a result, Mercury is comparatively rare. (musée de Nîmes; photo: R.H.)

Also from the Roman colonia of Nîmes: a three-headed god (Mercury / Esus)! Rather non-Roman

Growing together in an entangled world...

A "global" world, a connected world...
More to folow when I find the time...

Bricolage... Creolisation...
More to folow when I find the time...