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/lit/ - Literature

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16029183 No.16029183 [Reply] [Original]

Why were Romans so dumb?

>> No.16029225

>>16029183
What book?

>> No.16029229

>>16029183
That's not dumb, they simply didn't need to have a detailed religion at that point.
They adapted the Greek gods because their civilization had changed to a point where it was useful/attractive to have personal Gods.

>> No.16029238

>>16029225
I'm pretty sure it's from Edith Hamilton's mythology

>> No.16029267

>>16029183
The Greek enthusiasm for art and metaphysics was opposed to the pragmatism of the Romans who excelled instead in economics and technology. Like old Europe and modern America.

>> No.16029280

>>16029183
How true is this? Considering the Edith Hamilton book is pretty simplistic and surface-level I'm inclined to take this with a grain of salt

>> No.16029294

>>16029267
old europe excelled at art, metaphysics, economics, and technology. have you ever heard of the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, mercantilism, and the largest empire in world history?

>> No.16029298

>Romans had deep religious feeling but a vague conception of god(s)
>Greeks had cartoon character gods who couldn't stop fucking each other
>"lmao why are those Romans so retarded?"

>> No.16029312

Thats like saying Israelites were more creative than every Christian European

>> No.16029326

>>16029280
Was thinking the same. About when was this? I always assumed it was when Greek settlements to Italy mixed with the locals. Like pre-republic times, no?

>> No.16029330

Religion is something believe in, not just make up to distinguish yourself from the next nation over

>> No.16029334

>>16029312
That'd be a true statement

>> No.16029346

>>16029312
Christian God is real though

>> No.16029360

>Why dont we hit the reset button on culture for every new state

>> No.16029373

>>16029183
yeah they were dumb for not spending all their time thinking about shit that doesnt exist instead of conquering stuff and building

>> No.16029405

>>16029334
Israelites were retarded buttfucking plagiarists with short man syndrome.

>> No.16029413

>>16029373
>t. seething romeboo

>> No.16029454

Anthropomorphized gods are a degeneration

>> No.16029499

>>16029238
It is, reading it now

>> No.16029529 [DELETED] 

>>16029294
It's also not really true. The only distinct quality of Romans is legalism and perhaps industry. Not industry as in technological advancement (which they were not particularly good at outside of stonework) but mass-scale production.

>> No.16029570

>>16029183
>the Romans did not have definitely personified gods of their own.
Does the author specifies in which century?

>> No.16029603

>>16029183
Thats based though, fuck wasting time creating their own. Have a religion to serve its purpose in society then let it do its own thing and worry about more important matters

>> No.16029605

is this book really recommended? seems trash and kinda doesn't get religion.

>> No.16029623
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16029623

>>16029183
>Author in a history makes a sweeping generalization
>no citations

OH GOD MY DICK

>> No.16029662

>In the wake of the Republic's collapse, state religion had adapted to support the new regime of the emperors. Augustus, the first Roman emperor, justified the novelty of one-man rule with a vast program of religious revivalism and reform. Public vows formerly made for the security of the republic now were directed at the well-being of the emperor. So-called "emperor worship" expanded on a grand scale the traditional Roman veneration of the ancestral dead and of the Genius, the divine tutelary of every individual. The Imperial cult became one of the major ways in which Rome advertised its presence in the provinces and cultivated shared cultural identity and loyalty throughout the Empire. Rejection of the state religion was tantamount to treason. This was the context for Rome's conflict with Christianity, which Romans variously regarded as a form of atheism and novel superstitio.
lmao descent into atheism was apparently obvious even back then

>> No.16029686
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16029686

>>16029605
It's what /lit/ recommends

>> No.16029694
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16029694

>>16029662
>novelty of one man rule
>rome was a kingdom a few hundred years before and that was seen by romans as the golden age

>> No.16029697

>>16029686
lit is retarded

>> No.16029717

>>16029686
Don't read anything that was written by a woman. Stick to 19th ce classicists.

>> No.16029755

Romans did not adopt the same attributes and "personalities" of the Greeks though. The idea that they just copypasted them is a lie. The Roman pantheon remained very archaic even after the adoption, many of the supposed Roman equivalents do not share much in common at all with its Greek counterparts.

Besides Romans were a historical people, their myths were histories of their people. Such as the Sabine wars, which probably is an Indo-European myth like that of the Norse pantheons wars and eventual unification. Same goes for the Roman founding myth, the Greeks would have just had a God/Goddess found their city.

>> No.16029773

>>16029697
>>16029717
Maybe it's good at giving a mythology overview and you just have to ignore historical stuff

>> No.16029794

>>16029755
this. what the fuck? i thought the whole indo-european thing was mainstream now.

>> No.16029836

>>16029694
>kingdom means imperial autocracy
no. there is no 'kingdom' as a type anyway.


>>16029717
don't read anything written by a woman or a 19th century classist. hamilton is a 19th century classist and predictably retarded at best, uselessly shallow at worst. only engage with serious, detailed attempts at understanding a culture. not takes that say more about the writer's culture than the culture he (or she) is supposed to be writing about (looking at you too tacitus).

not many really give what is due to every culture, which is why overviews are particularly bad. e.g. you'll have an author who fellates romans and lowkey endorses background cultural myths while failing to seriously attempt to fairly understand and represent anyone else. for some reason history attracts LARPing retards.

>> No.16029838

>>16029183
If you just read a few lines further you'll get your answer, the Romans were only concerned with practical gods, they did not originally have the time nor the temperance for the kind of dramatic spark the Greeks put into their gods.

>> No.16029847

>>16029838
>the Romans were only concerned with practical gods
what the fuck does this obviously-not-true nonsense even mean?

>> No.16029865

>>16029836
She just didn't care about Roman culture so ignore those parts not a big deal

>> No.16029878

>>16029183
this is true to an extent, the romans were deeply superstitious but didn't know why, varro attempted to catalog the gods that were being venerated and even he had to admit that no one actually knew why most deities were being honored anymore

>> No.16029882
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16029882

>all /lit/ charts recommend this book

>> No.16029885

>>16029836
>>16029865
to elaborate: read academic literature and put together your own view. there's no point in these overviews.

>> No.16029888

>>16029847
Have you read the book? The type of grain/harvest gods, gods who would protect shepherds, gods who would help mothers deliver their new-borns, obviously fictitious gods can't be actually practical you idiot, employ some critical thinking.

>> No.16029912

>>16029888
so straight up lies that appease 19th c mythology about the ancient world then?

>> No.16029934

>>16029298
The Pantheon is just the ancient equivalent of superheroes. Gr*eks were the original soibois

>> No.16030037

>>16029888
nah, they weren't a "practical people". their society is just more alike to the germanics in that, save from some texts, ie. The Sybilline Books or The Edda, they did not write much about their gods, unlike the greeks. The Roman's were also more traditionalist than them, in that their whole culture revolves around the city of rome, whereas in greek culture, it is very geography oriented. the germanics on the other hand, branched out to from the indo europeans to autistically describe a world of many realms, a sort of "planetary" view of perceiving reality.

>> No.16030422

>>16029882
Funny thing is Hamilton shits on Appolodorus in her book, yet lit has them side by side.

>> No.16030445

>>16029605
Better than reading wikipedia and not as overwhelming as trying to read every original source

>> No.16030462

>>16030422
that's good to read sources that don't align with each other

>> No.16030525

>>16029694
what? the kingdom was considered by romans as dark times in the city's history, depicted as being full of corruption, fratricide, rape, and they mocked any people that accepted to be ruled by a king

>> No.16030544

>>16029183
based NUMINA replaced by reality tv 'gods'
so it was
so it is

>> No.16030588

>>16030525
Cicero was a fan of it.

>> No.16030590

>>16029183
Thanks for saving me from buying that book, should have known better than to read something by a women especially when it comes to academics, so what should i actually get if i want to read the gree mythos?

>> No.16030620

>Romans worshipped the Noumena
Sounds pretty advanced to me desu

>> No.16030626

>>16029238
I wouldn't trust a thing from that book.

>> No.16030634

>>16030620
all gods are noumena

>> No.16030675

>>16029605
No, it's garbage.

>> No.16030732

>>16030675
Recommend me something better about greek mythos?

>> No.16030792

>>16030732
There's no better book. Enjoy idiots ITT and read the book and ignore her opinions on culture ad history

>> No.16030858

>>16030792
>There's no better book.
That's sad.

>> No.16030897

>>16030792
the absolute state of a*glo academics honhonhon

>> No.16031044
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16031044

>>16029183
God's are mirrors that a nation back projects on, they get better with time as they accrete and reflect more and more from the people that worship them. Greek Mythology was perfected by Ovid, a foreigner writing well over five hundred years (800?) after the basic elements had been emplaced. Romans made Greek mythology great.

>> No.16031377

>>16029755
>Same goes for the Roman founding myth, the Greeks would have just had a God/Goddess found their city.

According to Roman mythology, Romulus was the son of Mars...

>> No.16031406

>>16029686
There should be Xenophon on that list

>> No.16031502
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16031502

>>16029183
I think this is natural because the romans essentially took over/evolution of the greeks.

Religions generally have very similar unifiying ideas/sources and entimologies that have universal themes and origins amongst a collective consciousness of mankind with variations and few exceptions.

The idea of polytheism was basically answered by monotheism in a form of evolution in that all the minor gods were just aspects of a unified whole which I think originates from the Roman concept of Sol Invictus which even postulated that the Roman pagan gods and christian god were two sides of the same coin.

Modern christians are just theologically and historically retarded and think that everything that isnt part of their religion is some sort of heresy and that paganism is some evil shit because again Americans ie WASPs are degenerate arrogant idiots who dont understand anything and create a culture of idiocy that bleeds off into everything.

Quite frankly I think Protestantism is the worst thing to happen to Europe and my origin is Orthodoxy. Quite franky i respect that Catholics while having some disagreements but Protestantism literally ruined Christianity and pretty much the culture of the world.

>> No.16031562

>>16031502
>Protestantism literally ruined Christianity and pretty much the culture of the world.

How?

>> No.16031592

>>16029183
Sounds like Americans

>> No.16031639

>>16029605
It gives a brief overview of the myths. I read it and another book that did something similar and it helped me with reading other Greek texts. I think it's fine.