In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Stephanie Spaulding <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes > > in reply to the message
>>From: "Shannon Merlino" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 19:09:22 EDT >> To Whom it may Concern: >> Recently in my Latin class I was involved in a discussion of Virgil's >>'piety' or lack thereof. I was told that despite his traditional use >of >>the divine/supernatural in his works, Virgil, much like many of the >>patricians of the time, [V. of course was neither a patrician nor a _nobilis_. L.A.H.-S.] >was not very religious at all and hardly >>believed in the Roman gods at all-a near-atheist, if you will. I >>disagreed- am I correct in this? Surely Virgil, had he not been a >>devout Roman or even one with a marginal belief of the gods, would not >>have "stuck to tradition" and composed an epic glorifying Aeneas among >>others for their purely terrestrial endeavours? Please let me know >what >>you think- >> Shannon Merlino > >Shannon, > >you're going to have to be very careful when you use the English word >'piety' in this context because the Roman concept of 'pietas' is not the >same as the related word (which has picked up many connotations and is >often coupled with 'religious' or moral piety). The Roman concept of >pietas has much to do with the carrying out of certain obligations to >family, country, and also religion. This is deffinately a crucial issue >for Aeneas throughout the Aeneid. Aeneas is 'pious Aeneas' not because >he closes his eyes when he prays, but because he fulfills his duties to >family, country, and with ritual observance of religion. One must also >remember that "believing" in religion and carrying out the duties and >obligations may be totally separate things, an oversight many people >make. > That is a very good point. Nowadays in most Western countries if you don't believe you don't conform because there's no social pressure (except on politicians?); it used to be otherwise. There was a time when at an Oxford college, even after the abolition of religious tests fir entrance, you were expected to attend chapel on Sunday unless you positively belonged to another denomination or another faith; naturally Roman Catholics, Jews, and other non-Anglicans would attend their own services, but if you didn't come into those categories it was your business what you believed, but not to take part was letting the side down. Ancient Romans would have taken such an attitude for granted. As for Vergil, the tradition that he flirted with the Epicureans, who believed in gods who took no interest in human affairs (but who, if they followed their founder, were most diligent in public conformity) seems now to have been confirmed by a contemporary papyrus; but whatever he may or may not have supposed to be true at any one stage in his life (and however deeply he may or may not have been affected by the religious revival under Augustus), in his poetry he adopted poetically attractive rather than philosophically rigorous standpoints (as commentators on Silenus' song and Anchises' speech have long since recognized). After all, Milton adopted the Ptolemaic cosmogony for _Paradise Lost_, even though in civilian life he knew it had been superseded, and even though it was being upheld by the hated Papacy. Leofranc Holford-Strevens *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Leofranc Holford-Strevens 67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone Oxford scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter? OX2 6EJ tel. +44 (0)1865 552808(home)/267865(work) fax +44 (0)1865 512237 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (home) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
