Religion in the Mediterranean World and The Rise of Christianity

Assos


Parthenon


The Greco-Roman Religion
Early religions based on ANIMISM
Development of anthropomorphic gods in Ancient Greece, with specific functions (Zeus, Hera, Athena...)
Adoption of these Gods by Roman people and translation of their names into Latin (Jupiter, Juno, Minerva...)
Religious practices: prayers, sacrifices, processions, oracles, votive inscriptions.
Religious buildings: temples (ex. Assos (6th BC), Parthenon (Athens)...)


Roman Temple

The Greco-Roman religion declined because:

-it was a state religion rather than a personal belief

-it did not propose any ethics

-it did not offer any hope after death




Mystery Cults

Mystery cults, offering some ethical principles and hope for resurrection. Ex: Orphic cult, Mithraism, Isis cult
Philosophical answers: quest for transcendancy, moral principles... ex.: Platonism and Neo-Platonism (3rd c. BC)



Isis


School of Athens (Raphael)



Dura-Europos Synagogue (Syria), 244 AD.

The first monotheism: Judaism
Born in Mesopotamia around 2000 BC (Abraham)
10 Commandments given by God to Moses > ethical basis
Construction of a kingdom with its capital and its temple in Jerusalem (Solomon)
Principles: - One God, all-powerful, all-knowing
- Israelites as the “chosen people”, who made a covenant with God

- waiting for the promised Land

Relationship with Romans: Judea became a Roman province.
Revolt in 66> in 70, the Temple was destroyed (cf. Arch of Titus in Rome)

Revolt, in 132 > begginings of the DIASPORA, central in Jewish religion











Arch of Titus in Rome: celebrating the destruction of the JewishTemple




The rise of Christianity

Jesus (4 BC- 30 AD) : born as a Jew, claimed himself the son of God (Messiah). Oppositions of the Jews and the Romans > Crucifixion
The teachings of Jesus:
- love of God and of his son, Jesus
- fraternity: love the other as yourself
-life after death: Heaven for the Good people

The spread of Christianity: role of Paul, addressing the Gentiles (i.e. the non Jewish people), stressing the universality of Christianity (no more circumcision but baptism). Journeys throughout the Mediterranean > the first missionary


Catacomb in Rome

Reasons for Christianity’s success:
-Embraced all people (men, women, slaves, poor, nobles)
-Gave hope to the powerless
-Offered personal relationship with a loving God
- Promised eternal life after death


Roman reactions:
persecutions (Nero in 65, Diocletian at the end of the 3d c.)
> Christianity as a secret cult with symbolism (ex. The fish, the pastor in the Catacombs (underground cemeteries) of Rome)
> martyrdom which enhanced the power of attraction of Christianity

Christianity as a state-religion (Byzantine Empire and Germanic kingdoms)


Escaping persecutions

The Fall of Rome and the Roman Legacy

The Fall of Rome and the Roman Legacy

Questioning the paradigm of “Decline and Fall” (cf. E. Gibbons, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1788 ( ! ) )

→Transformation and Legacy of the Roman Empire




The 3rd Century Crisis
Enemies and separatist states: Germanic tribes, Sassanid Empire (224), Palmyra, Gaul kingdom…
Problem of succession: no more dynasty→usurpers and lack of legitimacy
Feebleness of the Senate
Fiscal crisis: devaluation



Diocletian (284-305)

Diocletian’s reforms (284-305)
The Tetrarchy: 2 Augusts and 2 Caesars to rule the Empire
Image of the Emperor: sacralization
Administrative reform: rise of the bureaucracy
Military reform: expansion of the army, mobile troops, alliance with barbarian groups
Economic reforms: Price edict (301)
BUT these reforms failed…


Tetrarchy Two Augustus - Two Caesar


The Price Edict of Diocletian (301)




Solidus




Constantine the Great(306-337)
East and West in the 4th c.: the division
At the beginning of the 4th century Constantine managed to establish his authority on the whole Empire and chose Byzantion as a capital. The Empire became Christian.

In the West, official date of fall: 476 (Germanic general, Odoacer, deposed the Roman Emperor).

→Western Europe divided into Germanic kingdoms (Visigoths, Vandals, Franks, Ostrogoths)






Europe in 500s



The Roman legacy Political system
Law
The Latin language
Culture
Architecture



Nimes, France




Al-Djam, Tunisia



Pantheon

Rome: the Empire

Temple of Augustus - Haci Bayram Mosque (Ankara)


ROMAN EMPIRE (27 B.C – end of 2nd century A.D)

44-27 BC: struggle for power (2d triumvirate: Antony, Octavian, Lepidus)

31 BC: victory of Octavian ( battle of Actium)

27: Octavian becomes Augustus→ TRANSITION FROM REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE

Political system
Augustan Reforms:
His power base:

Proconsular power
Tribunician power
→power in Rome and the provinces

His reforms:

in the senate
in the administration
in the army→ professionalization
in legislation and morality
→Fiction of the restauration of the Republic and beginning of the Empire.




Colloseum

The Roman Emperors:
27 B.C-69 A.D. (Julio-Claudian dynasty): Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero
69-96 (the Flavian dynasty): Vespasian, Titus, Domitian
96-180 (Nervan- Antoninan ‘5 Good Emperors’): Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius




Curia

Provincial administration:

- imperial provinces and senatorial provinces (eg. Bithynia)

-role of the provincial elites

-economic role of the provinces (food and goods for the capital)

-citizenship extended to all inhabitants of the Empire in 212.




The tomb of Eurysaces

Social changes and mobility
-Aristocracy of land owners

-Trade for equestrians and freedmen

- Rise of the freedmen (eg Trimalchio in Petronius’ novel)



Roman Gods:


-Household worship


-‘Official’ roman gods


-Imperial cult: the divine emperors


-Mystery cults (Isis, Mithra) / Christianity








Isis

Rome: the Republic

Two main topics:
1. The political system
2. The military expansion and its consequences

The Roman Monarchy (753-509)
Italy in the 8th century:
1.Old settlers : Sabines, Samnites, Latins.
2.New comers: Etruscans, Greeks.

Roman kingdom:

A monarchy (king and a council of nobles):
Almost a caste system: the Patricians (= nobles) versus the Plebeians (the rest of the society)
In the 6th century, Etruscan kings ruled Rome. But in 509, the Roman people revolted, expulsed the Etruscan king and dismantled the monarchy.




The Roman Republic
a) The political system

Executive:

2 Consuls, elected for one year + other officials (such as proconsul, dictator)
Directed government and army.
Aristocratic component:

Senate
Could pass laws
Controlled foreign affairs.
Democratic component:

People’s assemblies such as Plebeian Council
Approved/rejected laws
Tribune could veto actions of executive officials.




→ The Roman Republic was not a democracy, rather an oligarchic system mixed with some democratic elements. Plebeians obtained their rights by struggling during decades against the Patricians ( the Struggle of Orders). There was no written Constitution but in 450, the first Roman legislation was written down (the 12 Tables).


The military expansion and its consequences
Expansion step-by-step:
Italy: the Etruscan ligue and the Greek cities are obliged to enter the Roman confederation (3th c. BC)

Punic wars against Carthage and its leader, Hannibal. The Carthaginians were defeated in the 2th c. BC and Rome annexed NorthernAfrica and Southern Spain.

Macedonian wars: Rome fighted against the Macedonian forces and managed to dominate all the Greek peninsula by 146 BC.

Gaul: Annexed by Caesar in 52 BC



Carthage


Hannibal Monument, Gebze



Social consequences of the expansion:
Rise of a new class: the Equestrians (or knights)
Rise of slaves (73: revolt of Spartacus)
Constitution of large estates (latifundia)/ poor peasants migrating to Rome



Gracchus Brothers


Attempts of reform:
-Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus (proposed land reforms but were killed)

-Julius Caesar: alliance with Pompey and Crassus (= triumvirate) in 60BC against the Senate. After the conquest of Gaul, came back to Rome with his army and concentrated all the powers. Assassinated in -44.

→ Political and social crisis. Roman political system had to be reformed to respond the new challenges of expansion and integration.




Assassination of Caesar



Hadrian's Wall

Alexandrian Legacy in Asia

Route of Alexander’s Expedition



Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic World


HYBER PASS


Bactrian Coins




Greek Athlete


Heracles and the Buddha


Buddhist Sea Nymphs



Gandara Buddha



Kushan Monk


Kushan Prince

When the young commander of the Greco- Macedonian Army of the Hellenistic Empire, Alexander Megas, 338-323 B.C. conquered the Persian Empire of the Achaemenids in 333 in Syria, his empire momentarily replaced the great Persian empire of Cyrus the Great, Darius, and Xerxes who for generations had been ruling much of the Near East, Central Asia and had extended Persian imperial rule all the way to the West to the Marmara region and Thrace. For 200 years the Persians had represented the dominant imperial power of the known world since 550 B.C. but the extension of their imperial ambitions to conquer Greece after the Ionian revolt of Western Anatolia had been abruptly stopped during the Persian Wars of 500-449 B.C. by the federation of Greek Polis states under the leadership of Athens. Popularly known as the Greek fight for freedom, the Persian Wars has been immortalized in the first book of history written by young Herodotus of Halicarnassus whose father’s generation had been part of the rebellion against Persian rule that had begun in Ionia.

Following the footsteps of the Persian rulers in reverse, Alexander’s conquest of Asia was not merely a military objective for glory but also the realization of his vision for creating a synthesis between Asia, the homeland of ancient civilization, and Europe the land of Greek political ideals and Macedonian military might, in a new civilization that would be Eur-Asian. The synthesis would be firmly sealed through a mixture of the populations as well in order to create a beautiful new Euroasian generation. Alexander ordered his men to marry with local women in Susa and he tried to set an example by his own marriage to Roxanne the young daughter of a local chieftain in Afghanistan. Alexander’s adoption of Persian court rituals and declaring himself to be divine in the tradition of Egyptian practice created great criticism among his Greek followers and generals. But his cosmopolitan vision, though it appeared to stray away for the hardy Macedonian way of life and the pure classicism of Greece, still it gave birth to the so-called Oriental Greek culture of the Mediterranean and traveled all the way to the Himalayas to join with the Buddhist cultural currents.

When Alexander and his army arrived along the banks of the Indus River in West India, today’s Pakistan, he realized that Asia was too big for them to conquer. Thus, he and his mighty Macedonian army crossed into the Himalayan range from the Hindu Kush mountains and entered Afghanistan from the famous Hyber pass, the route of all invaders and conquerors to this day. Alexander conquered most of today’s Central Asia but he also left his cultural legacy by establishing new cities of Alexandria in north Afghanistan and elsewhere just as his conquests led to the construction of new Alexandria cities in Iskenderun and Egypt in the Mediterranean. In North Afghanistan, probably in a site close to where he married Roxanne, Alexander founded an original Alexandria city that was a typical Hellenistic city with a central Agora, Messa road, and an amphitheater. The Afghanistan Alexandria also had a temple for Demeter, the goddess of fertility and the traveler of the evening sky who was represented by the moon. The cultural legacy of the site reflects succinctly the synthesis that took place over millennia since Alexander’s arrival. The village adjacent to the site which has been excavated by Italian archaeologists before the Soviet invasion, today is called Ay Hanim –Moon Lady in the local people of Ozbek Turkish origins. The site has revealed a copper plate with a relief of the goddess traveling through the evening sky in her chariot and represented by the Moon.

The Alexandrian legacy in Asia gave birth to such interesting and innovative combinations of the Mediterranean Greek legacy and the local cultures that merged in the history of Central Asian Buddhism and later perhaps left a legacy of even the later Islamic history of the region. Less well known in European history, the journey of Alexander’s cultural legacy in Asia is a major part of the history of Buddhism that continued after the death of Alexander in 323 B.C. at a young age which closes the door to the European perception of his history. The later empires and kingdoms that were founded on the former territories of the Hellenistic Empire by his loyal Generals continued the synthesis that took place in sites such as Ay Hanim. The Seleucids of South Anatolia and Mesopotamia, the Antigonids in Macedonia and Greece, the Ptolemies in Egypt and finally and most connected to our history of Buddhism in Asia, Bactria of Central Asia are all Greco/Macedonian Kingdoms that inherit Alexander’s Empire. Each in their own eclectic manner mixed local indigenous cultures and peoples with what came from Greece. Most important, Greeks moved into Central Asia and the Middle East, settling in the highlands of India and Afghanistan. While later modernist European opinion has arrogantly looked down upon the so called Oriental Greeks as impure scions of the classical heritage, in fact these Asian Greeks fertilized the birth of Greco-Indian Buddhist civilizations by becoming the pioneer generation of sculptors and artists who created the early images of the Buddha to be worshipped by the devotees of the Monasteries.

Film Screening - Program Change

Instead of Gladiator, we will see Alexander (2004, directed by Oliver Stone)at 4 November (17.00, GKM)

Essay Exercise

Dear students,

Please write a well-organized essay on the following question. It should not exceed 2 pages (print-out, double-spaced). You are supposed to hand in your essays next week (6 November) in the discussion sessions. On-line submissions will not be considered. This is an exercise to make you familiar with the essay format that we expect you to write in the exams.

*Please explain when, how and why writing begins in the Ancient Near East.

Reading Addition, Week V

Dear all,
In addition to pp.55-93 and 116-130, you are expected to read pp.46-55 from Stearns.

FRIDAY CLASS - NO PROGRAM CHANGE

Dear all,
There is no change in our program for Friday. Discussion sessions and the lecture will be held as usual.

Primary Sources

Dear all,
You can find the primary sources of the whole semester at Hisar Copy. There might be changes at certain weeks, so follow the announcements to be made in coming weeks.