Ancient Rome encompasses various factors that resulted in the establishment of the Roman Empire under the Roman rule in Italy. The Romans regarded themselves as highly religious thus attributing to their relations with god. However, the Rome religious activities emanated from their second King whom the Romans believed that he spoke directly with god. The essay exemplifies the various factors that contributed to the contributed of the Roman Empire in justification of their spiritual faith.
The priesthoods of the Roma Empire resulted in the development of a class of elites who believed in analogous principles in separating the church from the state and become powerful. For instance, Julius Caesar became a consul and later Maximus Pontifex through a public election (Swenson, 2009). The situation resulted in the expansion of the empire from various arrays of temples where they believed in their gods and spirits. However, in their earlier beliefs, the Romans worshiped in their temples that was inhabited by their ancestors. In addition, their gods were of various categories such as the god of wars, spiritual god, and the supreme god who performed various rituals in solving their bedeviling problems. The presence of colonies in Greek enshrined their faith in gods with myths in their religion hence influencing the gods in Romans such as Etruscans, Minerva, Juno, Jupiter, and mars at their anthropomorphic features.
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There strict adherence to their rituals led to zealous in their religious activities by the Roman people thus building more worship places to express their beliefs in temples to honor their gods. Their highly attributed religious activities contributed to the archaic religion that developed a roman identity (Cornell, 2012). Jupiter embodied most of his rule on just religious procession thereby displaying the public goodwill that led to the establishment of the dominant power in Roman Empire. The establishment of the Empire was inculcated on several principles and cultural beliefs that dictated their life and relation to human affairs. Such situation led to the position of the social order of Cicero who was entitled with an augur to maintain order in the society (Cornell, 2012). This resulted to the offering of domestic animals by the public in temples to confess their sins and appease their gods to prevent calamity in the society. In addition, the spirituality and faith led to the emergence of various sacred shrines in Rome along various neighborhoods to appease the gods and thus led to the spread of the religion.
The Roman Pantheon of the various gods revealed the impact of the significance gods who controlled various religious activities who solved the Romans problems. With Juo Lucina solving the fertility issues and Hera solving embodied as the goddess of moon and light that was almost like a supreme goddess (Clair, 2008). Furthermore, with the emergence of Emperor Augustus who took over after the death of Caesar, appointed commanders who made sacrifices before him and punished those who went against their principles enshrined as their religious rules. However, the Greek god in charge of music, medicine, and poetry, went to Etruscans to remove the plague and benefited by the reward of a temple in the hill of the palatine (Clair, 2008). Artemis, who was the goddess of beasts and in hunting, prevailed over offerings and depicted the type of domestic animals to be slaughtered in when appeasing the gods. Besides, they held annual festivals to celebrate their religion in honor of Saturnalia.
Their changing faith and spirituality was a choice among the individuals to initiate their rituals in a mysterious manner like secret oaths and public conservation of the Roman rules thus developing to subversive activities. Their sporadic insurgence to suppress other religious activities led to their expansion spiritual activity across the Mediterranean areas thus promoting their social stability (Clair, 2008). This made the romance to increase their dominance hence incorporating people from diverse cultures into their religion. This was incorporated into the building of numerous temples and in the process embraced the cult of other cultures instead of eradicating them because of their difficulty in abandoning them (Clair, 2008). Moreover, the Roman Empire height inculcated the culture of deities who penetrated the most remote areas to sensitize them on their religion in monotheistic systems to compromise them and avoid confrontation.
With the emergence of Judaism and Christianity, proved a challenge to the roman religion thus threatening their empire for refusal to worship their god and sacrifice at their temples (Raaflaub, 2008). Since the Jews had difficult stands, they were targeted by the emperors and blamed them for the collapse of their empire that eventually led to the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and causing the lives of innocent people.
Conclusion
The emergence of Christianity led to the increased suspicion among the Roman Empire gods and blamed them for the occurrence of fire in Rome thus persecuting them. Furthermore, the collapse of the emperor’s regime was largely contributed by revivalism and reforms in religious activities thus halting the imposed regime of the Roman Empire. Besides, citizens felt insecure and blamed gods and goddesses for not solving their problems as others rejected their loyalty towards the emperor thus resulting in the fall of the religious activities in the Roman Empire.
References
Swenson, D. (2009). Society, spirituality, and the sacred: A social scientific introduction. University of Toronto Press.
Clair, R. P. (2008). Why work?: The perceptions of a" real job" and the rhetoric of work through the ages. Purdue University Press.
Cornell, T. (2012). The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC). Routledge.
Raaflaub, K. A. (Ed.). (2008). Social struggles in archaic Rome: new perspectives on the conflict of the orders. John Wiley & Sons.
