Roman culture

The Roman culture was the culture of the Roman Empire - building on the Greek culture and partly living on in the Byzantine culture . Its area of distribution goes far beyond the Roman Empire, especially in connection with the Latin language and its distribution throughout medieval Europe .

“Roman culture” is not a static phenomenon, but has developed over the millennium of the history of the Roman Empire. Starting from the city of Rome to certain centuries an area of Britannia throughout the Mediterranean to the Mesopotamia handed, and was subject to influences from these areas and beyond.

Rome

Rural beginnings

The center of Roman culture is the city of Rome. The oldest and most venerable traditions such as B. numerous festivals , the veneration of the lares and the Roman virtues such as simplicity, thrift, honesty and piety were based on the rural annual course of the Italian neighbors. Although they were often no longer understood, such traditions persisted into the imperial era, such as the processing of wool (lanificium) by high-ranking women who had enough slaves for housework and preferred to dress in silk.

Influences of Etruscan and Greek culture

Young Rome was under Etruscan influences. In Etruscan cities there were sewers like the Cloaca Maxima , which made life between the seven hills possible, and the oldest colleges of priests like the Haruspeces and the Augurs are of Etruscan origin. However, these Etruscan roots were soon covered over by Greek influences. The Etruscan language was forgotten at the latest in the imperial era and traditions such as fortune-telling were continued but hardly understood.

In the time of the early republic , the Greek polis influenced the form of government. Peasants became citizens . The Roman heaven of gods received the Olympian gods. The Roman architecture took over Greek elements.

"High culture"

The time of the late republic and the early imperial era shape our image of Roman culture today. The Rome that we see today emerged from the 3rd century BC. As the city itself and its political sphere of influence grew, it developed its own culture. The conquests brought slaves , which saved the Romans hard labor. One reflected on the pleasant aspects of life, even if some (especially Stoics ) regarded this as "softening": The first thermal baths were built, chariot races and gladiator fights were used for entertainment, and a separate literature was created. Art and music were still more based on the Greek model. The ancient Romans failed to receive Greek science.

Roman Empire

The whole empire oriented itself to the way of life of the capital. Since the legions were professional armies, the veterans were specifically settled in the provinces in order to bring the defeated peoples closer to the Roman culture. Their cities were built on the model of Rome with forums , temples , thermal baths and entertainment venues. Assimilation was quick, especially in Europe, and was made easier by the granting of Roman citizenship . Even the Roman gods merged with the local ones.

On the other hand, Roman culture gained a lot of new things from the provinces, not only that trousers and beards, formerly dismissed as "barbaric", became fashionable from the 2nd century onwards. Religion and philosophy received inspiration from oriental cults such as Mithras and Isis as well as Platonism .

Late antiquity

The appointment of Christianity as the state religion meant the end of many aspects of Roman culture: the temples were torn down or converted into churches, entertainment banned, pagan books destroyed or left to decay. At the same time, the great migration destroyed the cultural sites in the provinces of the Western Roman Empire .

Nevertheless, Roman culture still shapes life, at least in Europe today. In the Byzantine Empire , the form of government remained mainly from ancient Rome, while the Western Church received the Latin language . Through Romanization , many non-Roman peoples, especially Germanic peoples west of the Rhine and south of the Danube, took over elements of Roman culture and passed them on in this way. As a rule, these were traditions, things and structures that were considered useful and harmless from a Germanic and Christian perspective. A number of continuities between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages can be identified, for example, from the Merovingian culture to the so-called Carolingian Renaissance .

Individual evidence

^ William H. Stahl: Roman Science. Madison 1962.

[1] William H. Stahl: Roman Science. Madison 1962.