RELIGIOUS BELIEFSIN

EMERITA AUGUSTA.

Roman and Oriental Cults in the capital of Lusitania.

DIDACTIC UNIT: 4º ESO.

SUBJECT: LATÍN.

Arce Program

“Knowing and sharing the Roman Hispania”

UNIT CONTENTS.

• Introduction of a Roman city.• Survival of the pantheon of Roman gods in Emerita

Augusta.• Oriental Cults in the same city.• Analysis and interpretation of sculptures and mosaics on

religious themes.• Seek from a variety of sources and media for data

collection.

Objectives.

• Identify elements of Romanization in the colony of Augusta Emerita according to religion.

Roman gods.Oriental deities.

Materials.

• Use of the evidence preserved in the Roman Museum of Merida through its website.

http://museoarteromano.mcu.es/

Brief history of the colony.

• The Roman city was founded in the year 25 B.C. It was named Augusta Emerita because it would serve as withdrawal for Emeriti soldiers, veterans.

• It soon became the capital of the Roman province of Lusitania.

ROMAN PANTHEÓN.

ROAN CULTS IN MÉRIDA

It is proved that the gods of the Roman pantheon were worshiped in the old Merida.

Proof of this is the testimony offered by the Roman museum in Merida.

THE GODDESS VENUS.

The classical representation of the goddess of love, mother of the Trojan Aeneas, hero of the epic Roman, has different manifestations, so collected in the museum.

THE GODDESS VENUS.

• The goddess and y her tracks of sculptural representation.

Figura 1 Figura 2

Iconography of the Goddess in Merida.

• Figure 2 refers to the famous Aphrodite of Knidos.The goddess drops the cloths in her hands after having held a ritual bath.     Clothes that the venus of Merida wears too.

The goddess of agriculture: Ceres.

Ceres is the mother of Proserpina, who according to mythology was abducted by the god Pluto. This Myth served to explain the cycle of vegetation.The Roman Ceres, Demeter to the Greeks, was worshiped in different parts of the empire.

Ceres in the museum of Mérida.

The goddess Ceres is represented as a Roman matron, as a mature woman. In her hands she usually carries a bunch of ears of wheat and a torch.The museum displays a figure of a seated Ceres with no arms.

• Demeter and Persephone, mother and daughter were represented on the east pediment of the Parthenon.The goddess is also sitting as the emeritense sculpture.

Representation of the goddess Ceres in the Parthenon, by Phidias.(British Museum)

MERCURIOHERMES

• In classical representations of the god his distinctive elements appear:

Petaso (hat) on his head, clámide (cloak) attached to his left shoulder, bag, caduceus, tortoiseshell lyre and wings on his ankles

• Mercury, the Greek Hermes is the messenger of god. In the western provinces of the Roman Empire he will become the God who will guard the roads, related to trade and in some areas it has got a quite salutary character related to thermal water sources.

This sculpture was found in the house of Mitreo in Merida. This dates from the II c. A. C. and Mercury is represented with its own iconography, the lyre, a stringed musical instrument very important for poets.

(Recall the origin of the word lyric) According to mythology, Mercury was the inventor of the

instrument.

MERCURY

IN THE ROMAN MUSEUM OF MERIDA

BACCHUS AND ARIADNE.

Bacchus, the Greek Dionysus, is the god of wine and theater.

In classical performances, the god is crowned with vine leaves and bare-chested.

Mythology tells us the union of the God with the princess Ariadne, daughter of Minos.

MOSAICThe mosaic of the city of Merida tells the story of Bacchus with Ariadne (who had been abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos).

The Romans built the mosaics with small pieces called tiles, hence they referred to them also as tessellatum opus.

It is signed by the workshop where it was made: EX OFFICINA ANNIBONI. Late V century a.C.

In the representation there are lovers and slaves so as the animals that drew the chariot of God, the tigers. According to the myth, the god returned from India, when he met Ariadne

OVIDIO:”Ya el dios, encima de su carro que aparecía repleto de uvas, aflojaba las riendas doradas a los tigres que lo llevaban.”

BACO Y ARIADNA.

the Maenads.The Maenads are female followers of Bacchus.

They were attributed a wild life and an irrational behavior.

In the mythical story of the death of Orpheus, the Maenads tear him to pieces because he rejects the cult of Dionysus in favor of the cult of Apollo, identified with the sun

MAENADS

Maenad in the Prado Museum

Maenad in the Roman museum of Merida

In Merida Roman museum preserves a sculptural representation of a Maenad (pic.2)

It has common characteristics with the Prado Maenad (pic1)

The treatment of the folds of her dress, her profile representation, the thyrsus in her right hand and her dance attitude.

Fig.1 Fig.2

AESCULAPIUS.• Asclepius is the Greek Asclepius, god of

medicine and healing.

In Greece HE enjoyed a major shrine, the sanctuary of Asclepius in Epidaurus, a place of pilgrimage throughout antiquity.

The Romans adopted the cult of this god and built a shrine in his honor on the Tiber Island and he was taken to different provinces.

Traces of the cult in Spain are in Ampurias (brought by the Greeks), in Cartagena and in Merida.

Iconography of Asclepius.

Asclepius. Ampurias. Asclepius. Mérida.

The two figurespresented the god withwith a bare chest and a mantle(Greek himation), thatin the representation of   Ampurias hastaken the form of the  Roman toga.

THE GODDESS DIANA. Diana was the virgin goddess of the hunt and protector of nature. Its equivalent is Greek

goddess Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo.

This goddess has a temple in Mérida that bears his name: Temple of Diana in Merida.

This title was applied by the resemblance that the building shows with the temple of Artemis at Éfeso. It is located in the center of town, which fully corresponds with the Emerita Augusta Decumanus Maximus

(the thistle and decumanus are the two main streets of the Roman city).

THE TEMPLE OF DIANA

Reconstruction of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Temple of Diana in Merida.

THE PROTECTIVE GENIE OF THE FAMILY.

The geniuses Manes are old family genie, which protect the souls of the ancestors, protecting the house, along with the Lares and Penates. They covered the primitive domestic cult.

The gods Penates are also geniuses protective of home and family and more specifically, of the larder (penus in Latin).

The gods Lares are protective genius of the hearth fire.

MANES, PENATES Y LARES.

REPRESENTATIONS OF THE PROTECTIVE GENIE

Pompeian house genius. Merida Museum Genius.

The genius is represented in the form of a snake or a young man frequently with a cornucopia.

DEIFICATIÓN OF EMPERORS.

The deification of the emperors after death was something usual, from the first of them, Augusto, from whom a famous museum effigy in Meridades is preserved.

ORIENTAL CULTS

The Roman Empire was always open to the cults of conquered provinces,it made

that in places like the Lusitania testimonies of Eastern religious cults appeared.

During the Roman period, contacts with religious ideas developed in the eastern

Mediterranean and the lands of the ancient Near East are intensified.

The sculptures kept in the museum of Mérida are standing proof, so as the

emergence of an important shrine dedicated to oriental divinities in the area near the

archaeological site known as the "House of MyTreo“

GODDESS ISIS.

Isis (Ίσις ancient Greek) is the Greek name of a goddess of Egyptian mythology. Its Egyptian name was Ast, meaning throne. It was called "Grand Magus", "Great Mother Goddess", "Queen of the Gods", "fertilizing force of nature", "Goddess of motherhood and birth."

The Romans assimilated the worship of the goddess Isis, bringing it closer to local deities. It was specifically the emperor Caligula who officially introduced the worship of this goddess in Rome.

Anthropomorphic representations of this divinity present it as a woman in tight dress crowned with the throne.

ISIS

MÉRIDA

GOD MITHRAS. Mithras was a god known in antiquity, mainly

in Persia and India. Mithra was the god of the sun, of Persian origin that became part of the Roman Empire. Various sculptures are preserved, for the most part of the third century. He is depicted as a young man with a Phrygian cap, killing a bull with his hands.

The cult of Mithras was developed as a mystery religion, and was organized in secret societies, exclusively male, esoteric in nature. He enjoyed particular popularity in military enviroments.

CRONOS O MITRA.

HOUSE OF MITREO.

It is known as the "House of Mitreo" a domus or

manor house located in a place near the site where remains have been found associated with the cult of Mithras, a cosmological mosaic and underground rooms. The house, located outside the walls of the Roman town, was built in the late l century or early second A. C.

The cosmological mosaic represents the conception of the world and the forces of nature that govern it, along with some human activity.

Mosaic

Cosmological

Of the house

of Mitreo.