Rome’s Thousand Year ‘Battle With The Gods’ in Southern Italy and Sicily … The Birth of Christendom (aka Western Civilization)

Tom Verso (February 13, 2015)

A Child of the Syriac Civilization was Born – who would replace the Roman ‘Establishment’ with His Bishops and the Empire with His Church.

Italy, from Rome south thru Sicily, was the vortex of ancient Mediterranean cultures, the place where the vast and various cultures of the Mediterranean Basin from Spain over to the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and Persia converged. For example, beginning circa 200 B.C. religions of the East competed for the hearts and minds of southern Italians and Sicilians. The great world historian and classical scholar Arnold J. Toynbee writes: “It was a collision between the Roman legalist conception of religion and the Graeco-Oriental individualistic mystical tendencies”. /// /// After seven centuries of such religious encounters, circa 500 A.D. the ‘Oriental / Syraic’ Christian ‘butterfly’ emerged from the Roman ‘chrysalis’ in the form of a new civilization … ‘Christendom’ – as it was called at its inception; later ‘Western Civilization’ and most recently ‘The West’. /// /// Toynbee wrote: “When ‘the Barbarians’ broke through the Roman frontier, they encounter ‘the Church’ on the other side…[because] following the Hannibalic Wars [circa 200 B.C.], multitudes of slaves from the Oriental World were brought to work in the devastated areas [south of Rome], and this force migration of Oriental labour had been followed by the peaceful propagation of Oriental religions … these religions, with their promise of an ‘other-worldly’ personal salvation, found fallow fields to cultivate in the devastated souls...” (“A Study of History” vol. i, p. 40) /// /// Sadly, this profound and mighty chapter of European and world history written by the progenitors of southern-Italian Americans is lost to southern-Italian Americans for want of scholarship and pedagogy.

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Preface

The profound affects of the Hannibalic Wars (218 – 201 B.C.) on the history and culture of the people south of Rome, and the cultural implications it had on southern-Italians down to the great migration circa 1900 A.D. cannot be over emphasized and is very well documented.

For example, Arnold J. Toynbee’s mega two-volume work “Hannibal’s Legacy” (near 1500 small print pages with uncountable footnote references to ancient source documents, scholarly authorities and annotations, scores of bibliographic and glossary pages, original maps, and uncountable index references) is a testament to the significance this great classical scholar attributed to Hannibal’s affect on the subsequent history and culture of southern Italy and Sicily, and by extension Western Civilization (not to mention southern-Italian Americana).

This blog has posted two articles detailing the Hannibalic affects on animal husbandry and agricultural, and their cultural implications down to the great circa 1900 migration to the Americas (see Related Article box # 1 and 2).

This third article goes to the cultural heart of post-Hannibalic Italy and Western Civilization – religion; arguable, in its Catholic form, the essence of southern-Italian culture in Italy and America through the twentieth century 1965 Vatican II reforms ('Heresy' – say some).

The Roman ‘Establishment’

‘Establishment’: Toynbee uses this word throughout his two-volume Hannibal opus. So far as I can determine, he never denotatively defines the term (although it always takes the form of proper noun, capitalized and in single quotes). However, the contextually implied connotative meaning clearly may be understood as ‘the-powers-that-be’, i.e. the dominant class or groups that affect government policy and actions, but while acting through the government, not necessarily part of the government.

The absence of a denotative definition; I assume, because the Roman ‘Establishment’, in the thousand years between its inception circa 500 B.C and its demise circa 500 A.D., was in a continual state of flux.

For example, as I understand it, originally it consisted of the “patrician” class (i.e. descendants of Rome’s founders). In the forth century B.C. the “plebeians” (i.e. wealthy free Roman citizens) were admitted, and in the second century B.C. the business class joined the ‘Establishment’.

Moreover, the class character of the ‘Establishment’ was not limited to these documented historical changes. Long before the ‘plebs’ and ‘businessmen’ were admitted to the ‘Establishment’ de jure, they affected government policy and behavior – i.e. they were de facto part of the-powers-that-be.

Importantly, the ‘Establishment’ is Not necessarily identical with the ‘Government’.

By way of analogy, today the government of the US consists of the various elected officials and their appointees who exercise all the powers of government (e.g. taxation, invasions, etc.). However, President Eisenhower warned Americans about the de facto power of “military-industrial complex” (‘Establishment’) to affect national policy and behavior from outside the de jure government.

Similarly, more recently, the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters were indicating by there presence in the financial district, as opposed to government locations, they considered the Financial ‘Establishment’ de facto more significant than the de jure government, in matters of the economy.

Roman ‘Establishment’ and Religion

While the Roman ‘Establishment’ was in many ways all-powerful, nevertheless its preferred method of control was not brute force. Rather, it attempted to control virtually all aspects of society (including religious behavior) through legalities (i.e. requirements of law).

Toynbee writes:

“The Roman ‘Establishment’s’ characteristic trait was its passion for imposing and maintaining its control over everything and everybody within its reach.

“Its favorite method was to deal with things in legal terms, however inappropriate the legalistic approach might be to this or that province of human affairs [e.g. religion].

“While it was scrupulous in taking care not to break the law, it manipulated the law unashamedly for the purpose of driving advantageous bargains… (“Hannibal’s Legacy” vol. ii, p 374 emp.+)

The self-confidences of the Roman ‘Establishment’, to my mind, never ceases to amaze. For example, its “passion for imposing and maintaining control over everything and everybody within its reach” included managing the affairs of the gods themselves legalistically. Toynbee writes:

“In early chapters of Roman history … the Roman ‘Establishment’ believed in the reality of supra-human power and potency.

"But it did believe that, potent though they might be, it could manage [supra-humans] as successfully as it managed human beings.

“The ‘Establishment’ handled the numina with the same deft but cautious purposefulness with which present-day technicians handle electric or atomic power. It handled them by catching them in the meshes of legal formalities...” (ibid, p. 375 emp.+)

Examples of this “deft but cautious purposeful” legalistic control of religious matters can be seen in the “acquiesce to changing” as religious needs change with changes in the political economy of Roman society.

Such “acquiesce to change” is illustrated in the table below:

*Temples Built to Respective Gods*
270-264 B.C.	*Agriculture-gods*	Period when Rome preoccupied with Agriculture
	Consus
	Tellus
	Pales
	Vortumnus
259-241 B.C.	*Water-gods*	Period when Rome’s fate determined at sea
	Iuturna
	Fons
	Tempestates
301-217 B.C.	*Psychic Forces*	Pervasive at all times
	Salus
	Spes
	Honos
	Virtus
	Concordi
	Mens
Source: ibid, p.375 (table adapted from text)

In short, when agriculture was a predominate issue, the ‘Establishment’ built appropriate temples and encouraged worship to the relevant deities; similarly for water-gods when the Roman navy was crucial to the well being of the ‘Establishment’.

Seemingly, while predominate material issues changed over time, necessitating modification of religious emphasis, “Psychic” issues, by definition, transcend material issues, accordingly were perennially and always given their due consideration whatever the state of the political economy.

Religious Holidays

The ‘Establishments’ legalistic control of religion was not limited to identifying relevant gods (i.e. agriculture, water, etc.) and building temples. It legally managed the minutia of worship down to the agenda of feast days.

Thus, for example, on religious feast days it was unlawful to work. However, the economic implications of the work loss were not lost on the ‘Establishment’. Accordingly, the feast day laws were written in such a way as to allow certain types of work.

Toynbee quotes the classical scholar W. Ward-Fowler who in turn cites Cato, Virgil, and Columella, on the subject of feast day work:

“ ‘ For the private affairs of everyday life, the most valuable of all the pontifical rulings were those which prescribed what kinds of work might lawfully be done on feriae, i.e. on days on which it was unlawful to do any work that counted as work in the eyes of the religious law.

“ ‘ In the Roman religious calendar, feriae were numerous, and it was therefore important, in the interest of economic output, to circumvent them in so far as this could be done without committing any formal illegalities.

“ ‘ The ingenuity of the pontifices proved equal the importance of the occasion.’ “ (ibid, p. 375, fn. 1 emp.+)

The importance that the ‘Establishment’ placed on religious festivals and the control over them is especially illustrated during and after the Hannibalic Wars. Toynbee writes:

“The increase in the number, length, and lavishness of the festivals celebrated at Rome, during and after the Hannibalic War … The duration of the festivals was prolonged from one day to five, seven and even fourteen days … These festivals were partly financed out of war-loot and allocated by the Senate ... (ibid, p. 382, fn. 2, emp.+)

Foreign Religions

The Roman ‘Establishment’s’ “passion for imposing and maintaining its control over everything and everybody within its reach”, while including religious affairs, nevertheless reach limits of efficiency in matters of religion. This limitation is evident by the increased presence of foreign religions. Toynbee writes:

“The admission of foreign religions was an indication that Roman religion was felt to be inadequate by the Roman People and was recognized to be inadequate by the Roman ‘Establishment’ (ibid, p. 377 emp.+)

However, while the ‘Establishment’ recognized the inadequacy of Roman religion and attempted to compensate for the inadequacy, the ‘Establishment’ persisted with its fundament characteristic of “imposing and maintaining its control over everything and everybody”.

Accordingly, even when the ‘Establishment’ recognized the need to admit foreign religions into the Roman pantheon, the terms of admission were closely defined and controlled. For example, consider the admission of Greek deities into the Roman pantheon. Toynbee writes:

“The Roman state claimed the prerogative of deciding what gods were to be worshipped by Roman citizens.

“[For example,] when Greek gods were admitted to Rome, their fields of activity were altered.

- Mercurius was confined to the patronage of trade

- Minerva to the patronage of handicrafts

- Ceres parted company with Kore (Libera) became dominate over both her and Liber

- Castor left his twin brother Pollux behind when he came to Rome from Tusculum

- Diana at Rome was a women’s goddess, not a moon-goddess

- Fortuna did not bring her oracle with her to Rome from Praeneste and Antium

-Apollo at Rome was nothing but a physician

“Meme a travers son hellénisation, la religion romaine se différencie-t-elle avec une puissante originalite sur le plan sociologique aussi bien que sur le plan psychologique” (ibid, p. 378 emp.+)

[Google translation: “Even through the Hellenization, the Roman religion differs with a powerful originality, sociologically as well as psychologically”]

“Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose” (ibid, p. 378)

[Google translation: “More things change, the more they stay the same”]

{Note: the similarities between this French adage and Lampedusa’s:

"If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.}

Establishment’s limitations in matters of Religion

In its “passion for imposing and maintaining its control over everything and everybody within its reach” including religion, the ‘Establishment’ sought to minimize or even eliminate the role of individuals in determining the content and character of the religious experience.

“In the determination of the Roman State’s policy in the field of religion, the Senate kept the initiative in its own hands vis-à-vis official and unofficial Roman specialists in religion.

“A fortiori, it took the conduct of religious affairs out of the hands of the family and of the individuals.

“The ‘Establishment’s’ objective was to make all Roman religion into state religion, and, in Roman state religion, the individual’s role was a passive one. (ibid, p.377 emp.+)

Seemingly, the Roman ‘Establishment’ failed to recognize, or at least accept, the fact the religious experience is inherently individualist and the family is the primary religious institution though which a child is introduced to, and inculcated with, a religion.

Further, the ‘Establishment’ failed to recognize, or at least accept, the primordial psychological need for a religion is to help the individual and family accept and deal with, what Shakespeare called, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”; and that psychological need could not be met by politically and economically motivated “Establishment’ bureaucratic decisions.

Toynbee explained, metaphorically:

“The Roman People were constantly craving for new forms of religion in the hope of obtaining spiritual bread in place of the stone with which the ‘Establishment’ supplied them;

“But, every time that the ‘Establishment’ gave admittance to a new cult, it sterilized it by changing the bread to stone”

“There was an ever-widening gulf between the personal religion for which the individual craved and the official religion which was the only religious nutriment that he was given. (ibid, p.378 emp.+)

More specifically,

“The pontifical Roman religion shows no sense of a spontaneous need for direct relations with the divine; it therefore ceased to be satisfying as soon as individuals began to feel the need to win a god’s grace for occasions in the individuals’ personal life. (ibid, p.378 emp.+)

It was in periods of especially intense “slings and arrows”, producing great suffering, that the Roman people felt a need of a personal god from whom they could derive, if not relief; then at least make some sense of the pain. Thus, for example, it was during the Hannibalic Wars that this need for a personal god made itself most prominent and challenged the ‘Establishment’ most severely.

Hannibal – The ‘Establishment’ Loses Religious Control

By the third century B.C. (i.e. 299-200 B.C.), there were clear signs that the Roman ‘Establishment’ was beginning to lose control over the religious behavior of the masses.

“In the third century B.C. individualism in religion was already asserting itself without having to be goaded into life by war-time anxieties and agonies.

“[For example,] business men were acquiring a personal relation with Hercules … invalids a personal relation with Aesculapius (ibid, p.379 emp.+)

However, it was the Hannibalic War, and the profundity of the suffering inflicted upon the Roman people as a result of the war, that brought out a massive need for personal gods and demonstrating the limits of the ‘Establishment’s’ ability to control religion.

“The religious experience of the Roman People during the Hannibalic War had the incidental effect of revealing that there were limitations to the efficacy of the Roman ‘Establishment’s’ policy, at any rate where religion was its field … especially in a time of extreme national crisis and of correspondingly acute spiritual agony, (ibid, p. 374 emp.+)

Toynbee writes: “The great war made continuous repression of religion impossible”; he goes on to quote the classical scholar Raymond Bloch:

“ ‘It was not until the political and social upheavals and emotional shocks of the Punic Wars that new needs awoke in the Roman mind a desire for systems explaining the World and the fate of Man.’ ” (ibid p. 379 emp.+)

Examples of how the War and corresponding physical suffering and spiritual agony affected revolt against state religion:

“As a result of the War, the ‘Establishment’ temporarily lost control over the admission of foreign religions. [For example:]

- Winter of 218-217 B.C. after Hannibal’s victory on the Trebia and poised for swooping down on Peninsular Italy, both the number and the eeriness of the prodigies increased dramatically…

- 217 B.C. after the Roman military defeat at Lake Tresimeme, the women of Rome got out of hand…

- 216 B.C. when news of the crowning disaster at Cannae the women in the City got out of hand in such numbers that the Senators themselves had to reinforce the public officers ... going out into the streets clearing the women, compelling them to go and stay indoors and silencing their lamentations … (ibid, p 279-80 emp.+)

As noted above the ‘Establishments’ preferred method of controlling masses was legalistic rather than brut force. However, when law failed, there was no compunction about the use of force – the religious uprisings during the Punic War being a case in point.

“By 213 B.C. the women of the City had got out of hand again … Livy writes:

‘The long protraction of the war and the psychological effect on the fluctuations of fortune in the field exposed the Roman community to an attack of emotional religion – and mostly foreign religions at that.

‘ Traditional Roman religious practice was now being thrown to the winds, and this not only in private, between four walls, In public – In the Forum and on the Capital – crowds of women were offering sacrifices and reciting prayer on unconventional lines Officiators and soothsayers had captivated people’s imagination (ibid, p. 381, emp.+)

“Sensational measures were now taken by the ‘Establishment’ to match the frenzied state of public feeling.

"[For example,] in this atmosphere of nervous tension, ritual improprieties caused extreme alarm and anger and consequently evoked savage reprisals. A Vestal virgin convicted of having sex with a man was buried alive and the man beaten to death in public… (ibid p. 380 emp.+)

The ‘Establishments’ Folly

Toynbee goes into great detail about the ‘Establishments’ efforts to control religion in the late third and early second centuries B.C. In particular he discusses at length the extent that the Dionysic movement penetrated the Roman populous, and the effort of the Establishment to get it under control. For example:

“The Roman Government’s acts show plainly what it was in the Dionysiac movement that they could not abide and that they were determined to stamp out.

“From the Roman Government’s standpoint the movement’s fundamental offence was that it had organized itself – and this on a large scale – spontaneously, without having asked the Government’s leave.

The Roman ‘Establishment’ had for centuries, been engaged in bringing the Roman People’s ancestral priesthoods under the ever tighter control of the Roman state; and here was an unofficial and unauthorized religion that had set up a widely ramifying ecclesiastical network all over [southern] Italy, including the City of Rome itself. (ibid, p.400 emp.+)

However, try as it may, the government bodies could not control the spread of non-‘Establishment’ sanctioned religion.

“In spite of popular hysteria and government ferocity, it proved, in the Post-Hannibalic Age, to be beyond the Roman Government’s power to suppress all private manifestations of religious feeling. (ibid, p. 402 emp.+)

Slave Religion … the Eastern ‘Coup-de-vent’

The Hannibalic Wars profoundly affected all aspects of Roman society in southern Italy and Sicily. As a result of the war, there were profound changes in the organization of the economy, which in turn gave rise to the massive importation of slaves from the eastern Mediterranean (see Related Articles #1 & 2)

The slaves brought their religions with them; religions that the Roman ‘Establishment’ was at a loss to control legalistically or by brute force.

Toynbee writes:

“During the two centuries between the outbreak of the Hannibalic War (218 B.C.) and the establishment of the Augustan Peace vast numbers of slaves were brought to Italy from Eastern Mediterranean.

“The slaves who had lost their homes and their families and their property still kept their religion and handed it down to their descendants in Italy.

- Greeks brought Bacchanalia

- Anatolians the worship of Cybele

- Egyptians the worship of Isis

- Baylonians the worship of Stars

- Iranians the worship of Mithra

- Syrians Christianity … (“A Study of History” vol. ii, p 213 -15)

“The Christian Church, was in fact introduced into the Helleneic World by ‘natives’ of Oriental worlds (ibid, vol. i, p.57 emp.+)

The documentary evidence unequivocally demonstrates the depths of religion within the slave populations leading to slave-wars.Toynbee:

“Inscription evidence shows that, in general, the slaves decidedly possessed their own religion … it is also clear that the slaves had a preference for particular gods. ” (“Hannibal…”, p.404 emp.+)

“Slave-immigrants who were swept into Roman Italy from all the other coasts of the Mediterranean …the Italo-Oriental slaves met their tremendous social challenge with a religious response.

The Egyptian and Syrian and Anatolian slave-immigrants into Roman Italy found their religious consolation in those ancestral religions which were the sole element in their heritage that they had been able to carry with them into their land of exile.

“The planation slaves of Roman Italy were largely drawn from an ancient and deeply cultivated Oriental populations whose children might be expect to cling to their cultural heritage

“The Oriental slaves in Roman Italy had actually nowhere to look, outside their own native religious heritage, for the religious consolation for which they were athirst, since their Roman masters were living in a spiritual vacuum … Oriental worshippers of Cybele and Isis and Mithras and Christ. “(“A Study…”, vol. v, p 191-192, emp.+)

“The confluence of these [religious]waters raised a social issue which revealed the limitations of a slave’s subjection to his master (“A Study…”, vol. ii. p 215 emp.+)

Slave Wars

The conflict between the Western and Eastern Mediterranean, wherein the Romans defeated and conquered the Eastern Armies, continued in Sicily and southern Italy in the form of slave revolts. Toynbee:

“After the Syriac societies succumbed militarily to the Romans, still more devastating domestic warfare between gangs of Oriental slaves … and their Siceliot or Roman masters.

“The cultural conflict between Hellenism and the Oriental civilizations – Syriac and Egyptiac and Babylonic and Indic – likewise reappeared in the bosom of [Roman] Hellenic Society …

“After the [Roman] Hellenic culture had successfully asserted its supremacy over the others, an internal crisis declared itself in the emergence of Isis-worship and Astrology and the Mahayana and Mithraism and Christianity and a host of other syncretistic religions.” (“A Study…”, vol. iii, p.199)

As noted above, the ‘Establishments’ preferred method of controlling religion was legalistic; e.g. financially subsidizing temples and festivals. However, when those methods failed, the ‘Establishment’ had no compunction about resorting to the most brutal force.

Ironically, the most brutal force exerted on any group in the Roman Empire was upon the Slave population; and yet it was with the Slave population’s religions that the ‘Establishment’ found itself most helpless. And, one particular slave Syriac Oriental religion ultimately defeated and displaced the Empire – Christianity. Toynbee:

“It is remarkable to find the slaves securing a considerable measure of religious liberty for themselves [in southern Italy and Sicily], where the jealous eye and repressive hand of the Roman ‘Establishment’ had been so effective in detecting and crushing the worshippers of Dionysus” ("Hannibal…", p. 404)

Religion functioned in two ways for the slaves: first it helped make their horrific physical condition in some way spiritually bearable; and second it gave them the courage to revolt. Toynbee:

“While religion played a part in making life endurable for a slave when he was submitting to the yoke, religion was also the spiritual force that nerved him, on rare occasions, to make a bid for self-liberation by taking up arms.

“This role of religion was conspicuous, on the slaves’ side, in both of the slave insurrections in Sicily” (ibid, p. 405 emp.+)

Clearly, there is no greater manifestation of the ‘Establishments’ fail to control religion than that of the military Sicilian slave revolts. Unlike the women of Rome who occasionally got out of had, or the more general Dionysian movement; when slaves, motivated by and asserting their Oriental religions, revolted; the result was nothing less than full-blown war. All the might of the renown Roman Legions that defeated Hannibal and conquered the whole of the Mediterranean basin, had to be brought to bear on the ramshackle Sicilian slave armies.

Two Sicilian Slave Revolts

The first Sicilian slave revolt (135-131 B.C.) began in Enna, Sicily and was led by the Syrian slave Eunus. Toynbee, citing documents of the ancient Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus (circa 50 B.C.):

“Eunus of Syrian Apamea, the slave of Antigenes of Enna, represented himself as being the protégé and confidant of Atargatis, the Syrian mother-goddess. He claimed to have been endowed by this goddess with the gift of prophecy. (ibid, p.405 emp.+)

Eunus gave the slaves confidence by convincing them that they had the Syrian mother-goddess on their side… his original band of 400 broke into Enna and captured the city where the urban slaves in Enna joined them. (ibid, p 324 emp.+)

The second Sicilian slave revolt (104-101 B.C.)

“The Second Sicilian slave-Insurrection was planned, by escapees from Syracuse, in the precincts of the Palici – Sicilian chthonic (underworld) divinities who were traditionally the champions of the oppressed.

This band of rebels elected as their king a slave named Salvius ‘who had the reputation of being a master of the art of divination from the entrails of sacrificial victims and who was also a dancing dervish of the female goddess. (ibid, p. 405-6 emp.+)

The Sicilian Slave revolts were not the only slave insurrections in southern-Italy and Sicily. There was, of course, the Spartacus revolt, which most people know about because it has been the subject of movies (most people get their history from Hollywood, which speaks volumes about our education system). However, Hollywood historiography aside, the Sicilian revolts were the most significant revolts. Toynbee:

“These two great slave-wars in Sicily were the largest in scale and the longest drawn-out of the slave-revolts on the western plantations and ranches of the Hellenic World in the Post-Hannibalic Age, but they were neither the first nor the last of their kind, nor perhaps even the most savage (“A Study…”, vol. v, p. 69 emp.+)

Needless to say by far the most significant slave revolt was the non-violent Christian revolt that ultimately prevailed against the Roman ‘Establishment’.

Conclusion – Christianity Prevails

From its inception circa 500 B.C., the Roman ‘Establishment’, in its effort to control religious beliefs and behavior, battled with the gods and goddess embraced by the masses in the City, southern Italy and Sicily.

Reluctant to use force, at first, the ‘Establishment’ resorted to legalistic devices (e.g. building temples, subsidizing religious festivals, etc.). However, when those peaceful efforts at control failed, the ‘Establishment’ had no compunction about using force to the extent of full-scale warfare (e.g. in Sicily).

Nevertheless, ironically during the most peaceful period of Roman history (Pax Romana), a period when no external or internal military or economic force poised a challenge to the ‘Establishment’, a child was born in the Oriental society Toynbee called Syriac (“Study…” vol. i, p 82, fn. 2). The child, upon reaching manhood, unleashed a peaceful religion that would bring the ‘Establishment’ to its knees and ultimately replace the Western Roman ‘Establishment’ with His Church and Bishops.

Three hundred and thirteen years after the child’s birth, the Roman Emperor issued the “Edict of Milan”, which commanded official toleration of Christianity in the empire.

Again, in 380 A.D. the Roman ‘Establishments’ near thousand-year battle with the gods ended.The Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Empire.

And again, in 452 A.D., when Attila the Hun invaded Italy, Saint Pope Leo I met him and negotiate Attila’s peaceful withdrawal – arguably, the first official act of a nascent Western Civilization.

And, thus ended a near thousand year chapter in the history of the Italian people South of Rome and West of Ellis Island.

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