Author: Cole, Spencer
Title: Cicero, Ennius, and the Concept of Apotheosis at Rome
Review/Collection: "Arethusa", Volume 39, Number 3
Year edition: 2006
Pages: 531-548
Keywords: Politique - Politica - Politics, Religion - Religione - Religion
Description: [Abstract] It is probably not a coincidence that the first systematic studies of Roman religion, which de facto established religion as a distinct field of research, were produced in the late republic, just when social and political upheavals were threatening the existence of Roman institutions and cultural traditions. Since the study of religion was still in its formative stage, Cicero and Varro, who were the first writers to attempt a rational categorization of Roman religious practices, enjoyed a privileged role. They found themselves in a position that allowed them to define and delimit the vast range of practices that made up Roman religious life and also to create bold connections between recent religious developments and archaic Roman traditions in an overt attempt to legitimize the new religious practices of the late republic. As a case study, this paper examines some of the ways in which Cicero uses Ennius in the de Re Publica to give his presentation of the disputed concept of apotheosis the sanction of republican tradition. As Laelius laments in the de Re Publica, much of archaic Roman history was fragmentary even for republican Romans (2.33), and Cicero’s de Re Publica (as Laelius reminds us) is itself one attempt to fill this void.
Works:
Author initials: Cole 2006
Title: Cicero, Ennius, and the Concept of Apotheosis at Rome
Review/Collection: "Arethusa", Volume 39, Number 3
Year edition: 2006
Pages: 531-548
Keywords: Politique - Politica - Politics, Religion - Religione - Religion
Description: [Abstract] It is probably not a coincidence that the first systematic studies of Roman religion, which de facto established religion as a distinct field of research, were produced in the late republic, just when social and political upheavals were threatening the existence of Roman institutions and cultural traditions. Since the study of religion was still in its formative stage, Cicero and Varro, who were the first writers to attempt a rational categorization of Roman religious practices, enjoyed a privileged role. They found themselves in a position that allowed them to define and delimit the vast range of practices that made up Roman religious life and also to create bold connections between recent religious developments and archaic Roman traditions in an overt attempt to legitimize the new religious practices of the late republic. As a case study, this paper examines some of the ways in which Cicero uses Ennius in the de Re Publica to give his presentation of the disputed concept of apotheosis the sanction of republican tradition. As Laelius laments in the de Re Publica, much of archaic Roman history was fragmentary even for republican Romans (2.33), and Cicero’s de Re Publica (as Laelius reminds us) is itself one attempt to fill this void.
Works:
Author initials: Cole 2006
