|
(Aug. 15, 02) This statue is full of mystery for me - foremost being the transition from Greco-Roman religion to Christianity. But as I was watching TV the other night, another mystery also presented itself to me: the mystery of the origin of the Gypsy people, or the Roma as they prefer to call themselves. The text books tell us that they arrived in Europe from India in the 9th century AD. However, as I was watching the casual put-down of Gypsies in modern day Rome as purse snatchers etc., etc., - a strange idea entered my mind.
First: Rome was a slave empire - i.e.. majority slave. And like in the British empire where the most common soldier was higher than the most royal Persian prince, the lowest centurion was similarly higher than the most exalted Gothic, Celtic or even Greek king. The citizens of Rome did not interbreed with their slaves. Perhaps the Gypsies are the descendants of conquering Roman legions. Perhaps that is why they are to be found spread out throughout the former territories of Rome. And perhaps that is why, like the Roman legions, they are so mobile.. With the final collapse of Rome in the 5th century AD, the former overlords evolved into a peripheral and usually hated tribe throughout the boundaries of their former empire.
On the other hand, the text books point to the Indo/Iranian root of the Gypsy language. And one would assume that any Roman derived nation would speak something derived from Latin ...
***
For a more rigorous discussion of the transition from Greco-Roman religion to Christianity see: Carl Gustav Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz.
***
(Sept 2, 02) Also compare with an early Persian rival to Christianity in Rome called "Mithraism".
See for example: - "Mithraism: The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras" by David Ulansey (1991)
***
and (March 12, 05) - "The Mysteries of Mithra" by Franz Cumont (1903). English translation from the French by Thomas J. McCormack:
' ... Never, perhaps, not even in the epoch of the Mussulman invasion, was Europe in greater danger of being Asiaticized than in the third century of our era, and there was a moment in this period when Caesarism was apparently on the point of being transformed into a Caliphate. The resemblances which the court of Diocletian bore to that of Chosroes have been frequently emphasized. It was the worship of the sun, and in particular the Mazdean theories, that disseminated the ideas upon which the deified sovereigns of the West endeavored to rear their monarchical absolutism. The rapid spread of the Persian Mysteries among all classes of the population served admirably the political ambitions of the emperors. A sudden inundation of Iranian and Semitic conceptions swept over the Occident, threatening to submerge everything that the genius of Greece and Rome had so laboriously erected, and when the flood subsided it left behind in the conscience of the people a deep sediment of Oriental beliefs, which have never been completely obliterated."
Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (1903), at preface VI - VII.
***
Diocletian was " ... (Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, originally named Diocles), Roman emperor AD 284-305. ... Diocletian's anxieties for the unity of the empire made him favour the old Roman ways, and it was probably this which led to his notorious persecution of the Christians, began in 303 and felt particularly in Palestine and Egypt. As a consequence the Coptic and Ethiopian Churches reckon the years of the Christian era from the accession of Diocletian in 284 ('era of the martyrs')."
Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. (1993) Edited by M.C. Howatson & Ian Chilvers.
***
Also, according to "Subterranean Rome" by Ivana Della Portella; Photographs by Mark E. Smith (1999):
"Christianity was just becoming established when Mithraism, with its strong emphasis on the Mysteries, revived the fortunes of a declining paganism.
From their earliest appearance, these two monotheistic religions demonstrated many common points: both using rituals and liturgies with redemptive and cathartic elements, the one aiming at a broad ecumenical audience, the other intended exclusively for a small elite of initiates. This difference was crucial and sealed the fate of Mithraism, with its exclusive, mystical and esoteric character, through the centuries.
Originating in Persia, the cult took its name from the Indian and Persian god Mithras. Always identified in the East with the sun, he was the guarantor of pacts between tribes, the god of oaths, of contracts and of all the forms and conventions of daily life that ensure peace and stability in agricultural settlements
These attributes began gradually to transform him, even in ancient Persia, into a more warlike and military figure, and it is in this new guise that Mithras was to prevail as the religion spread throughout the Roman Empire. When Mithraism arrived in Greece, thanks to the good offices of some Cilician pirates deported on the orders of Pompey (67 BC), it was immediately well received, due to its initiatory and redemptive character, and quickly spread throughout the Mediterranean and into northern Europe.
In the west, Mithraism took on a new character very different from its original eastern form. Through a complicated process of development, the original Zoroastrian (or Mazdean) elements of the Persian and Indian religion were replaced by later Chaldaean and Babylonian doctrines and liturgies, and more specifically by astrology, astralism and the magico-religious disciplines of Magusai sects. Roman Mithraism was the result of a syncretic process that endowed the god Mithras with very different attributes from those of the original, in which the mystical and redemptive aspects had prevailed. The cult reached its peak in the third century AD, and was subsequently overtaken by the spread of Christianity, at the end of the fourth century, coinciding with the decline of the Roman empire in the west."
Ivana Della Portella, Subterranean Rome, (1999) at 15-16.
***
For a broad overview of what Romans thought of their subjects and vice versa see: "Romans and Aliens" by JPVD Balsdon (1979). For the untutored layman this Oxford don is an excellent source for footnotes and other material related to this subject. From reading this book, it's clear that there was more class fluidity in Rome than in classical Greece. In Rome, for example, a slave could progress to freeman rank and eventually to full citizen, whereas in Greece the slave/citizen divide was more rigid. The Romans seem to have applied the theories of Plato's "Republic" and from this same fountainhead the American founders drew up their (seemingly) paradoxical constitution.
There is very little information on Mithraism in this book. But the larger than life figure of Mithradates (120-63 BC) does recur, who according to "The Concise Oxford Companion of Classical Literature" was: "Mithradates VI Eupator, king of Pontus (on the south shore of the Black Sea), during his lifetime Rome's most formidable antagonist in the East and a permanent threat to her control over client kingdoms in Asia Minor. The kings of Pontus were of Persian noble birth claiming descent from Darius; the population was hellenized." According to "Romans and Aliens" Mithradates massacred and/or enslaved a lot of Romans and emerged from a milieu that Balsdon refers to as "Zoroastrianism in Greek clothing".
***
|
