The Conquest of Greece by the Roman Empire and the Success of Mystery Religions

Despite all their similarities, The Greeks and Romans engaged in substantive culture differences. Their religions derived from a complex set of gods and goddesses, called deities, who were seen as regulating human life. Since the Romans embraced culture from the Greeks, many traditions were the same. However, the Greek and Roman culture, although similar, are very different and appealing. For instance, the Greeks did not acknowledge an all-powerful god; they believe that deities controlled everything that transpired on earth. In other words, the Greeks sought religious cults to explain the forces that shape the world (Bentley et al, 2008 p.143).

This paper will compare and contrast these two civilizations concerning two of the major elements of society: government and religion. These two areas are important when examining the impact of a particular civilization, because they provide two different perspectives on a particular culture. While the examination of politics allows the power and influence of culture to be understood, the analysis of religion allows the cultural influence of people to be traced. In this paper, the similarities and differences between the governments and religions of Ancient Greece and Rome will be examined, as well as the impact that these civilizations had on one another. Finally, this paper will discuss the impact that these civilizations have had on

In both Greek and Roman civilizations, mythology played an important part in their empire’s success. Both of these civilizations were polytheistic religions. Likewise, they had major and minor gods and goddesses as part of their religion as well. However, since the Roman Empire conquered many cultures including the Greeks, their gods blended with many similarities with the gods that the Ancient Greeks worshipped.

At one time, all of Rome was united by a common religion. This religion, commonly referred to as the Roman religion, was derived from the religion in Greece. Members of this religion, which included the majority, if not all, of the Roman citizens, worshiped many different gods, including the creator or father god, Jupiter, the sun god, Apollo, the god of inspiring wars, Mars, and many others as well. The popularity of this religion began to decline when Christianity arose. It appealed to the majority of the people, particularly the lower class and slaves, who now had something to put their hope and faith in. This religion spread rapidly, and Roman emperors felt that because it was so influential it would become a possible threat. These leaders began persecuting Christians, but many Romans had already committed to this religion and refused to abandon it because they viewed it as the most important part of their life. This led to a lack of patriotism in Roman citizens who then rejected politics and became independent of the government.

The birth of the Aztec and Roman religion was influenced in different ways. As polytheistic civilizations, they both had many gods, each having special abilities. Both the gods of the Aztecs and the Romans could help or harm people. Although contrary to popular belief, the Romans were first animistic, believing that spirits inhabited everything and everyone around them. But as Rome grew, the beliefs of those who were conquered slowly influenced the Roman culture and religion. However, the line between religion and myth was blurred due to the presence of Greek colonies on the Lower Peninsula as many of the Greek gods were adopted. The

Greeks thought about their gods more often than most people do nowadays. Over the course of the day the Greeks would think about the gods often. if they wanted something such as death of an enemy or a good harvest he would give a offering to a temple of the of the gods domain in which he wanted help in.

     The government controlled the religion of ancient Rome. Priests were government officials, who were either elected or appointed to office. But by A.D. 100, many Romans had lost interest in their religion. They became attracted to the religions of the Middle East, which appealed strongly to the emotions. Christianity, one of the Middle Eastern religions, gained many followers.

In Roman religion it was crucial “to serve the gods and ensure goodwill” (The Roman Republic). The English word “Religion” comes from the Latin word “Religio” (Overview of Religion). Latin was the ancient language of Rome, but for the Roman’s the translation meant something very different from what we understand it as today. To the Romans, “Religio” translated to “ the fear of gods” (Overview of Religion). Romans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. On the contrary Greek religion did not prefer to execute rituals as much as the Romans. Greeks were more lenient when honoring the gods. They did not have a theological dogma: a part of theology dealing with truths of faith concerning God and God's work. Their many gods had different purposes and works they performed. The Greeks relied more on the verbal spread of the religion rather than having a written form. Although different, both religions had forms of praising and honoring their gods. Greek and Roman religion have many differences and similarities that impacted each group of people.

During the 17th to 18th century, The Roman Empire had gone through a cultural and religious metamorphous. Throughout this time, the roles of religion in the Islamic, Byzantine and Western European worlds altered the period of 600-750 with their similarities adhering to monotheism for one, and differences in regards to perspectives. These three cultures were all pretty diverse but they also shared some of the same roots and became heritors of the Roman Empire, built on different ideologies. The different ideologies of the Islamic, Byzantine and Western European worlds, consisted of different founders, places, and elements of worship, thus portraying how religion was indeed prominently central to governmental and social structures because of the large impact towards political laws.

From the information gathered it is clear that the cult was quite popular and influential. It also reveals that foreign cults in Pompeii and Herculaneum were prominent within the civilization and played a major part in the daily life of the

One could also find public cults not requiring an initiation ceremony into secret beliefs and practices. The Greek Olympian religion and its Roman counterpart are examples of this type of religion. Each Mediterranean region produced its own mystery religion. One must avoid any suggestion that there was one common mystery religion. While a tendency toward eclecti¬cism or synthesis developed after A.D. 300, each of the mystery cults was a separate and distinct religion during the century that saw the birth of the Christian church.

With its insistence on exclusive monotheistic worship of the Christian God it won where paganism could only fail, in demanding solitary allegiance to its movement (pp. 201-204). In demanding such commitment, those won to Christianity were far more allied to its goals and purposes than adherents to pagan movements that were non-exclusive. Further, the possibility of publicly suffering for their faith offered Christians the hope of enormous communal esteem. For those already firmly committed, the benefits of esteem and other-worldly reward far out-weighed whatever cost in suffering martyrdom might bring. Paganism had nothing analogous to win such enthusiastic commitment. Whereas, Christianity promised life after death in heaven while in the Roman religion, only gods went to heaven; emperors were considered gods, everyone else went to the underworld.

This essay investigates the role of religion and the importance of Roman society and politics. It will show the origin of Roman Religion, such as the pantheon, origin myths and the effect of foreign influence on Rome. This paper will also go into immense study of how religion affected Roman society through the likes of cult worship and domestic religion. It will also show the importance of politics on Roman religion, such as, the Imperial Cult, Vestal Virgins but more or less will also expose the persecution of Christians that were in opposition to Roman paganism.

Another common element in the mystery-religions was their tendency to worship the divine on what we today would think of as a higher spiritual level than standard Greek and Roman religions did. The idea of a spiritual world as separate from the material world, first promoted by Plato, was fully adopted by the mystery-religions and provided them with a basis for belief in life after death. Conversely, ancient Greco-Roman religion and Judaism contained nothing that addressed this new concept of separate worlds. Traditional public worship in both Jewish and Gentile communities generally emphasized the material world in its requests for good crops, healthy children and success in business. Worship in a closed

Throughout the course of time, different civilizations across the world hold one thing in common by which a society or culture can be based upon or help influence the structure. The one common thing that has help a civilization grow throughout the period of time would be the formation of a religion. Religion is a center point for many societies throughout history. As the center for the different civilizations, it helped form their different traditions and customs. The same could be said about the people of ancient Greece, where religion or mythology played an important role in their lives as it was the pedestal of their culture and how they base their lives upon. The formation of a religion across the large number of regions of Greece, help the different locations mold themselves by the customs that were created from the adaptation. During what was known as Ancient Greece, the people would hear tales of the twelve Olympians and how their actions influence the world around them. Within this period of time for the people of Greece was that of growth, as they sought to bring new ideas into light as they exited from a dark period within their own history.